1612038 - All add-ons stop working simultaneously at random, until restart

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1355239

(WebExtensions :: Frontend, defect)

Description

[AnotherFFUser]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:72.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/72.0

Steps to reproduce:

"All add-ons disable simultaneously, randomly, then persists; Menu shows they're still active"

Version: 72.0.2

This issue began after the update nearer to the start of this month (Jan.2020). I'll just be using Firefox with a number of add-ons, as I have been for years, and at some point, without notice, all the add-ons will become disabled despite the Add-Ons menu showing they're all still active (buttons all clicked to "On"/Enabled). It's happened about a 20 times at very least. At that point I just restart and it works again but then randomly all disable again. Not sure how to "reproduce", etc. since everything looks normal and everything works for a while and then at some anywhere from an hour after a restart to a couple of days I'll click to use an add-on and all I get is a small, truncated version of the graphic that would dropdown below the add-on button in the top bar designating it's working (ex: Page Saver WE) or nothing at all.
I'm new to this and not even sure if I'm in the most appropriate place to present this issue. And the nature of the issue being bound by "add-ons / disable" makes this hard to search for; regardless I haven't found anything after a number of iterations.

Comment 1

[Gingerbread Man]

(In reply to AnotherFFUser from comment #0)

all the add-ons will become disabled despite the Add-Ons menu showing they're all still active (buttons all clicked to "On"/Enabled).

If the Add-ons Manager shows that the add-ons are enabled, then they're enabled.

all I get is a small, truncated version of the graphic that would dropdown below the add-on button in the top bar designating it's working (ex: Page Saver WE) or nothing at all.

Sounds like attachment 9078821 [details] so I'll mark this as a duplicate of bug 1566937. Please reopen and clarify if that's not the case.

Not sure how to "reproduce", etc. since everything looks normal and everything works for a while and then at some anywhere from an hour after a restart to a couple of days…

Definitely sounds like bug 1566937, comment 3.

Comment 2

[AnotherFFUser]

You stated my submission was a copy of this other issue titled: "Addon menu not showing when addon icon on toolbar".

My issue had nothing to do with the 'addon menu' not showing an addon icon 'on the toolbar'. All icons on the toolbar are where they always are but suddenly stop functioning despite being shown as 'Enabled' in the 'Addons Menu'.

My issue is that all addons are shown as enabled in the "addon menu" and also all show on the toolbar. For example, the stop-functioning of 'uBlock' will become apparent on various sites including Youtube when adverts start playing at the start of videos. Or 'Page Saver WE' won't take a picture with the automatically-resolving, square notification speech-bubble animation that pops up below it that shows a 2"x1.5" square with a completion-% bar and relevant text which only really shows for more than a fraction of a second if there's a heavy cpu load ; when it is apparent all addons are non-functioning it will just show a 0.25"x0.25" square without any text as is seen in the example of the other cited issue you linked. So just some sort of indicator of the addon stalling/hanging that doesn't designate completion of the task the icon is supposed to complete. So for instant-action icons with a left-click the action will stall/hang and not complete. But then right-clicking to see the icon's menu will work but nothing will happen if an action in the menu is left-clicked. And again, all these failures to complete action from icon-clicking while the 'Addons Menu' shows all the 'Enabled' switches flipped to 'Enabled'. When an icon-click fails to complete its respective action is the indication that all addons are nonfunctioning (essentially 'Disabled' despite as showing they're 'Enabled').

I recently put a number of security addons in the upper bar of the browser next to the File/Edit/View/History/Etc menubar that have actively updated and animated numbers on the icon designating their respective activity (uBO-Scope, Disconnect, Decentraleyes, etc) and those too will fail to show any of those active numbers designating they're blocking/detecting something, etc once it's clear that other icons are not functioning. Then 'OneTab' and 'Tree Style Tab' won't function when icon is clicked. 'Tree Style Tab' will actually open up the sidebar menu block but will only show an animated loading-% completion bar that cycles/flashes as if loading tabs but that fails to complete. And so on. All icons are there in the toolbar but nonfunctional despite 'Addon Menu' showing them as 'Enabled'.

The appearance of the issue happens a good amount of time after Firefox is restarted, sometimes hours, sometimes days, with no obviously perceptible triggering event so the the task of 'reproducing the issue' (something I'm wholly unfamiliar with already) seems daunting if it really does require that each single addon is disabled and then one-by-one added back...waiting hours to days for the problem to reoccur to signify the culprit (then addon-to-addon problems multiplies the complexity even more).

I really don't know how reproducing issues or fixing them works here as I'm just a basic user so I apologize for all of this.
Also if there is a submission format I missed please point me in the right direction (ie: is it helpful or required that OS, FF version, list of all addons, etc. are listed?)

Comment 3

[Gingerbread Man]

(In reply to AnotherFFUser from comment #2)

when it is apparent all addons are non-functioning it will just show a 0.25"x0.25" square without any text as is seen in the example of the other cited issue you linked.

To summarize, the popup menus are blank like in attachment 9078821 [details] but additionally the add-ons don't work (e.g. web content isn't blocked)? This may still be a duplicate of bug 1566937, but I've only ever seen the issue with an add-on that performs a function on demand, which of course wasn't possible without a functioning menu. I'll undupe this so someone can have a look.

Also if there is a submission format I missed please point me in the right direction

→ Bug writing guidelines

It may be useful if you enter about:support into the address bar, click one of the copy buttons there, paste the text into Notepad, then click the Attach New File button above the description here to upload the file. A screen recording or screenshot might also help.

Comment 4

[Clara Guerrero ( Need Info Brindusa Tot Please)]

Hi,

I'm unable to reproduce this issue on windows 10 pro, Firefox Nightly version 74.0a1 (2020-02-05) (64-bit), Beta 73.0 (64-bit), Release 72.0.2 (64-bit)

Have you tried this on the latest version of nightly? You can download it from here: https://nightly.mozilla.org/ (I've notice you specified this happens in release 72.0)

This was already moved over to a component so developers can take a look over it.

Thanks for the report.

Best regards, Clara.

Comment 5

[Tomislav Jovanovic :zombie]

(In reply to AnotherFFUser from comment #2)

I really don't know how reproducing issues or fixing them works here as I'm just a basic user so I apologize for all of this.
Also if there is a submission format I missed please point me in the right direction (ie: is it helpful or required that OS, FF version, list of all addons, etc. are listed?)

No need to apologize, thank you for your all the effort and details you already provided.

This seems most likely to be the extensions process crash, aka bug 1355239. You could try disabling half of your addons and seeing if it happens again, and then half of suspect batch, etc, until you are left with just one and disable it permanently.

Other than that, you could list addons you use here, and also check about:crashes in your browser right after this happens to confirm if it is indeed a process crash.

Closing as duplicate of bug 1355239, but please post if you have any info to the contrary.