1182168 - My add-ons are being uninstalled

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, defect)

Description

[(no longer active)]

Since yesterday, I am finding that something is uninstalling my add-ons behind my back.  I have lost most of my add-ons already, but I have narrowed down the problem to two of the add-ons that I have.  Every once in a while after I go to about:addons, I find that they are staged to be uninstalled after a restart, and I have to cancel it manually.

The add-ons that I have caught this happening to are:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/always-ask/?src=api
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/9652

I unfortunately have no idea what specific add-ons I have lost.  Two of the ones that I do remember (since they had buttons in the primary UI, and one of them was an adblocker so it being gone was quite noticeable) are uBlock and Interests Dashboard.

Comment 1

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Short of some rogue add-on in your install I can't think of a way this would be happening, particularly since you say you see them staged for uninstall in the UI. One thing is to look and see if there is an extensions.log file in your profile which might list bad errors. The other is to run with extensions.logging.enabled and check the console after it happens again to see if there are any messages in there that might be relevant.

Flagging myself to think more about this after I'm back from PTO.

Comment 2

[Dave Garrett]

I have seen system cleaners, antivirus, and other supposedly "security" software that will silently muck with Firefox profiles, including uninstalling or breaking addons. Check your A/V logs and quarantine if you have any. If they're actually being properly staged for uninstall, that's not something I've seen, but something could've started doing something dumber than usual so it's worth a quick check.

Comment 3

[(no longer active)]

I don't run any AV software (I'm on Mac) and reasonably sure that I have not installed or run anything new which may hve done this.  I turned on extensions.logging.enabled now, and my extensions.log seems to have a few bad things in it.  I will attach it in a sec.

Comment 4

[(no longer active)]

Attachment: extensions.log

Comment 5

[Dave Garrett]

(In reply to Ehsan Akhgari (not reviewing patches, not reading bugmail, needinfo? me!) from comment #3)
> I don't run any AV software (I'm on Mac)

Ah, ok. You filed with everything listed as "unspecified". I've updated the platform field. Please also indicate what version you're using. Is this stable or Nightly?

Based on the log, I ~think~ it might be dying in the DB migrator:
https://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/mozapps/extensions/internal/AddonRepository_SQLiteMigrator.jsm#357

Do you still have an old addons.sqlite file in your profile dir? If so, it might be trying to import from that, failing, but somehow partially doing something (?) and resulting in going back to addons at a prior state when you didn't have them installed.

The troubleshooting (but not debugging) step here is to delete addons.* & extensions.* files (not folder) in your profile and reset the extensions.xpiState & extensions.bootstrappedAddons prefs via about:config (or editing prefs.js with Firefox closed).

Comment 6

[(no longer active)]

(In reply to Dave Garrett from comment #5)
> (In reply to Ehsan Akhgari (not reviewing patches, not reading bugmail,
> needinfo? me!) from comment #3)
> > I don't run any AV software (I'm on Mac)
> 
> Ah, ok. You filed with everything listed as "unspecified". I've updated the
> platform field. Please also indicate what version you're using. Is this
> stable or Nightly?

Nightly on OSX 10.10.4.

> Based on the log, I ~think~ it might be dying in the DB migrator:
> https://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/mozapps/extensions/
> internal/AddonRepository_SQLiteMigrator.jsm#357
> 
> Do you still have an old addons.sqlite file in your profile dir? If so, it
> might be trying to import from that, failing, but somehow partially doing
> something (?) and resulting in going back to addons at a prior state when
> you didn't have them installed.

I have _an_ addons.sqlite file in my profile dir.  How can I tell if that's the old version you're pointing to?

> The troubleshooting (but not debugging) step here is to delete addons.* &
> extensions.* files (not folder) in your profile and reset the
> extensions.xpiState & extensions.bootstrappedAddons prefs via about:config
> (or editing prefs.js with Firefox closed).

Hmm.  Wouldn't that completely delete all of my add-ons?  This is my real browsing profile, so I'm kind of hesitant to do things like that to it.  :-)

Comment 7

[Dave Garrett]

(In reply to Ehsan Akhgari (not reviewing patches, not reading bugmail, needinfo? me!) from comment #6)
> I have _an_ addons.sqlite file in my profile dir.  How can I tell if that's
> the old version you're pointing to?

It is. The Addon Manager transitioned from sqlite to JSON for its files.

That said, I can't guarantee this is what is breaking everything.

> Hmm.  Wouldn't that completely delete all of my add-ons?

No. Leave the extensions dir and their individual files and preferences alone and Firefox should regenerate things on start. It will reset the DB state, which means you'll have to go in and re-disable anything you had disabled, but it won't touch the addon installations themselves.

> This is my real browsing profile, so I'm kind of hesitant to
> do things like that to it.  :-)

Back it all up first.

Just to be clear: it's the addons.* & extensions.* _files_ that I'm suggesting you delete. The extensions folder is where they're installed to and shouldn't be touched.

Comment 8

[(no longer active)]

OK, I'll try this.  But I'm not sure what effect I would look for.  Should I just restart and see if my add-ons are being uninstalled again?

(Note that I can no longer reproduce the bug...)

Comment 9

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Comment on attachment 8632226 [details]
extensions.log

This is quite an old log so isn't relevant. Not surprising since apparently we removed support for logging the kinds of errors that might be causing this to the disk log a while ago :(

I'm still not seeing anything (beyond disk I/O problems or malicious software) that could be causing the effects you're subscribing. I'm afraid that if you can no longer reproduce this I'm not sure we're going to be able to figure out what is going on.

Comment 10

[(no longer active)]

Yeah...  It's sad, but this bug isn't really actionable.  I'll reopen if this ever happens again.