1321781 - Certain dictionaries may disappear or be greyed out in the main context menu with the add-on Auto Unload Tab installed

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Extension Compatibility, defect)

Description

[Quintum]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:47.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/47.0
Build ID: 20161031133903

Steps to reproduce:

Nothing. No recent Firefox updates or changed extensions.


Actual results:

Out of nowhere the default English (US) dictionary is greyed out. Reinstalling the dictionary didn't change the situation and after adding a few more it became active again, but now the one at the top of the list has disappeared.

See also Reddit for discussion with others affected at the same time:
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/5fno1k/i_cant_select_an_installed_dictionary_to_spell/

Comment 1

[Loic]

Any steps to reproduce?

Comment 2

[Loic]

And did you test with a fresh profile and only the dictionaries installed?
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles

Comment 3

[Kyrodes]

Steps to reproduce:

I was having this problem with English (US) being greyed out first.

I was using Firefox for Mac with native interface in PT-BR. It has PT-BR dictionary embedded, but not as an add-on. It's part of the installation.

Then I installed EN-US and Spanish (Argentina) dictionaries. One day I tried to install Spanish Mexico (i.e. ES-MX) instead of Argentina and this action greyed out the EN-US dictionary.

Then I uninstalled Firefox PT completely (including the profiles) and installed Firefox EN (that is shipped with EN-US dictionary, not as an add-on). In Firefox EN with a fresh profile and no other extensions, I installed the PT-BR dictionary first. Then I installed Spanish (Mexico) and this action made just ES-MX and EN-US (native) be available, but PT-BR was greyed out. See image: http://i.imgur.com/vTFIJ3Q.png


I tried a lot of combinations, but every time some dictionary got greyed out or disappeared.

It was when I noticed the dictionary activation was acting weird.

I tried to install other languages. I installed French and it made EN-US (native) disappear. Then I removed French and installed English (UK) and now I have enabled on the menu the 3 languages I always wanted: EN-US, ES-MX and PT-BR. The EN-UK is installed but doesn't appear on menu.

So, my bizarre temporary solution was to install and uninstall random dictionaries until I had the languages I wanted enabled on the menu.

I tried in an other computer (Mac with Firefox 50 PT-BR) and it hid EN-US dictionary.
Tried on FirefoxDeveloperEdition 52.0.a2 and got this bug too.

This is the state of my Firefox now:

Add-ons > Dictionaries: http://i.imgur.com/RKi5Dh6.png

Menu: http://i.imgur.com/2JxW771.png

Comment 4

[Quintum]

I've installed a clean v47.0.2, which I'm still on due to this issue:
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/5dp1um/webextensions_in_firefox_52/da6csje/

After installing my regular dictionaries there was no problem, so I proceeded to sequentially install my add-ons and restart. The problem reappeared after installing the following extension:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-unload-tab/

After uninstalling that extension the problem went away again. I'm not sure if other extensions are having the same issue due to another one of those sneaky underlying changes:
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/4j9zy0/im_losing_hope_on_firefox/d36hi2k/

Seems there is a lot of these issues going around with valuable interface-heavy extensions, like Context Search and Foobar and Menu Wizard and Multiple Tab Handler and Tab Mix Plus and Toolbar Position Changer, that I wish Mozilla was paying a lot more attention to now that they are overhauling so much of the internals and especially XUL. I really can't do without those ...

Comment 5

[Quintum]

Checked the problematic add-on's page for developer contact info, but that isn't available. I'm however assuming that Mozilla has access to the internal account info and I don't need to go as far as trying to get his attention through the reviews section.

Comment 6

[Quintum]

Installed a clean version of the latest v50.0.2 from the release channel and can confirm the same issue with the Auto Unload Tab extension persists there as well.

Comment 7

[Loic]

Jorge, could you contact the add-on author, please.
Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-unload-tab/

Comment 8

[Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] (he/him)]

The developer has been contacted.

Comment 9

[kernp25]

Fixed the bug. Sorry for the problems you had :(

Comment 10

[Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] (he/him)]

Mass-closing old Extension Compatibility bugs that relate to legacy add-ons or NPAPI plug-ins. If you think this bug is still valid, please reopen or comment.

Sorry for the bug spam, and happy Friday!