1624224 - All firefox extensions disappear/uninstall after update

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, task)

Description

[thedonquixotic]

Attachment: acme.jpg

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:74.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/74.0

Steps to reproduce:

This has happened multiple times and I'm not sure why but I think it happens in response to either Firefox or Windows updating.

Actual results:

I opened my browser and noticed that all the previously installed extensions are now gone. They still appear installed under the "add ons" section of the options page but they are no longer functional .

Expected results:

They should just continue working as they did before.

Comment 1

[Andrei Purice]

Hello,

I tried to reproduce this issue by updating from old versions of nightly, beta and release to Nightly 76.0a1 (2020-03-25), beta 75.0b9 and release 74.0 but the addons were working on my side.
I even tried with some of the addons you had installed and they were working after the update.

Can you try to reproduce this issue using the Nightly build? You can get an older version from here : http://archive.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/nightly/ install the addons and upgrade to the latest one.

Comment 2

[thedonquixotic]

(In reply to Andrei Purice from comment #1)

Hello,

I tried to reproduce this issue by updating from old versions of nightly, beta and release to Nightly 76.0a1 (2020-03-25), beta 75.0b9 and release 74.0 but the addons were working on my side.
I even tried with some of the addons you had installed and they were working after the update.

Can you try to reproduce this issue using the Nightly build? You can get an older version from here : http://archive.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/nightly/ install the addons and upgrade to the latest one.

I did not try the nightly build but my computer just crashed (been having battery problems) and I see the exact same thing happened again. So perhaps this has something to do with when firefox shuts down unexpected and/or restarts?

Comment 3

[Andrei Purice]

Adding a component for this issue in order to get the dev team involved.
Feel free to change it to a more appropriate one if it's incorrect.

Comment 4

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

The agent in the report is windows, but there is a Gnome shell integration addon. Can you verify the platform that you're having the issue on?

Comment 5

[thedonquixotic]

I having trouble in Windows. I own both a linux and windows machine. I've also had problems on my Linux machine immediately after updates, where all my extensions are uninstalled, but in this case the problem has only appeared in this form on my Windows machine so far.

Comment 6

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The priority flag is not set for this bug.
:mixedpuppy, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 7

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The priority flag is not set for this bug.
:mixedpuppy, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 8

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

Because this bug's Severity has not been changed from the default since it was filed, and it's Priority is -- (Backlog,) indicating it has has not been previously triaged, the bug's Severity is being updated to -- (default, untriaged.)

Comment 9

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

Because this bug's Severity has not been changed from the default since it was filed, and it's Priority is -- (Backlog,) indicating it has has not been previously triaged, the bug's Severity is being updated to -- (default, untriaged.)

Comment 10

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

Because this bug's Severity has not been changed from the default since it was filed, and it's Priority is -- (Backlog,) indicating it has has not been previously triaged, the bug's Severity is being updated to -- (default, untriaged.)

Comment 11

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

The severity of these bugs was changed, mistakenly, from normal to S3.

Because these bugs have a priority of --, indicating that they have not been previously triaged, these bugs should be changed to Severity of --.

Comment 12

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:mixedpuppy, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 13

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

When you say they are no longer functional, what is the behavior you see that indicates that? If you created a new profile and ran with that, do you still have the problem?

Comment 14

[thedonquixotic]

(In reply to Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy) from comment #13)

When you say they are no longer functional, what is the behavior you see that indicates that? If you created a new profile and ran with that, do you still have the problem?

By non-functional I mean they aren't doing anything. In order to get them functional, alls I have to do is deactivate and reactivate them. I assume that creating a new profile would reactivate them and get them working again also, but IDK if creating a new profile and using that would permanently fix the issue. Is that something I need to do? I'm not sure if I can do that and use same email address etc, so if this is an account side issue do I need to delete my old account and create a new one if I want to reuse my same email address?

Comment 15

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

By non-functional I mean they aren't doing anything.

What I'm asking is what indicates they "aren't doing anything"? e.g. Do the browser action buttons appear but not open? Do they not appear at all? I'm just trying to determine some state that they may be in, hopefully providing a better indication what may be happening.

The image you attached shows that the addonmanager itself sees the extensions and believes they are running.

IDK if creating a new profile and using that would permanently fix the issue. Is that something I need to do? I'm not sure if I can do that and use same email address etc, so if this is an account side issue do I need to delete my old account and create a new one if I want to reuse my same email address?

You don't need new email addresses or anything, but you'll likely have to reconfigure, login again, etc. etc.

You can create a new profile without destroying the old profile, and you can always go back to the old profile. Here's a document describing this:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles

Ideally you wouldn't refresh or delete the current profile, so that if the problem goes away in a new profile, we could look back at the old to see what differences there may be.

Comment 16

[thedonquixotic]

What I'm asking is what indicates they "aren't doing anything"? e.g. Do the browser action buttons appear but not open? Do they not appear at all? I'm just trying to determine some state that they may be in, hopefully providing a better indication what may be happening.

They don't function and do not appear in the address bar. So for instance the bitwarden password manager extension does not appear and does not activate when a login is processed. The "add to pinterest" extension does not appear in the right click menu. The "reverse search on tineye image" extension does not appear in the right click menu.

I will reset my profile. No clue if that will help or not as this issue happens intermittently so I don't really have a way to confirm that it has fixed the issue.

Comment 17

[thedonquixotic]

Okay so I'm a little confused... is there a difference between my firefox profile, my firefox account, and firefox sync?

Comment 18

[thedonquixotic]

I'm created a new profile but when I opened a new window it asked me to login with firefox sync, which I did but then asked for 2FA info. I thought I had transferred my 2FA info over to bitwarden a couple of months ago but can't find it and the recovery codes I found for it don't work. When I tried to login to firefox sync in the other window (that is still operating under the old profile), I was able to log in, but apparently 2FA hadn't been set for firefox sync. So I set it up but the recovery codes it gives me are less than the 10 digits that the firefox sync 2FA is requesting in my new profile window...

Also trying to set up 2FA using instructions from here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/secure-firefox-account-two-step-authentication

and the instructions don't match my firefox UI at all. There is no "Firefox Account panel" under options: https://imgur.com/OYUunKl

There is however a manage accounts under the profile button in the hamburger menu but this doesn't jive with the tutorial I linked above: https://imgur.com/LPxfsg5

Comment 19

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

(In reply to thedonquixotic from comment #17)

Okay so I'm a little confused... is there a difference between my firefox profile, my firefox account, and firefox sync?

Yes, the profile is an on-disk profile where data is stored, extensions are install, preferences are tracked, etc. The account and sync are online services we provide. Once you're in a new profile, you should be able to just login to those, sync would actually pull any sync data down into the new profile.

Let me see if I can get any info about the 2fa issues you're having.

Comment 20

[thedonquixotic]

Okay got the 2FA issues all sorted out and my new ff profile correctly logged in with ff sync.

I understand the difference between FF sync/account and FF profile now but I'm not clear on the difference between FF account and FF sync. Is there a difference or are those two different words for the same basic online system? Or is FF sync like a sub subsection of my FF account perhaps?

I was able to fix the 2FA issue though the official documention appears to be out of date.

Anyway yeah created a new profile and I'm logged in to it with my FF sync/account etc, but like I said it's hard to prove this fixes anything since the issue is intermittent. Not sure how ya'll want to treat that issue etc, but just making sure I keep you up to date on my status.

Comment 21

[Alex Davis [:adavis]]

Or is FF sync like a sub subsection of my FF account perhaps?

That's about right. Think of it like using a Google Account to sign in to Chrome, Gmail and YouTube.

You can use your FF account for a few things. Sync is one of them.

Comment 22

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

After moving to a fresh profile, has the problem been resolved? If so, we may want to look at what differences there are in preferences (and perhaps some other profile data).

Comment 23

[thedonquixotic]

(In reply to Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy) from comment #22)

After moving to a fresh profile, has the problem been resolved? If so, we may want to look at what differences there are in preferences (and perhaps some other profile data).

Hard to say if it's fixed or not, as the problem was intermittent and there were gaps of sometimes months between it happening. It has not reoccurred since I made that change at least.

Should I upload those profile files to you? Where should I look for them?

Comment 24

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

If you still have a profile, send it to me via email or some private file sharing, don't attach it to this bug. Note that there is likely private data in the profile that you'd be sharing with me.

Comment 25

[thedonquixotic]

Which part of the profile folder do I need to send? Everything? There's a lot of private information in here and I'm not sure what's useful and what's not. I assume all my autofill information isn't necessary but unsure as there's a lot of folders and files.

Also do you need the AppData\Roaming or from AppData\Local ? Or both?

Comment 26

[thedonquixotic]

Need info tag was requested without specifying what data is safe to send etc. I'm guessing this is probably a no go and should just be marked "won't fix" etc. No worries, I mean I haven't had this problem lately so I think it's probably fixed. I'll check back in if that status changes.

Comment 27

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

Sorry, the needinfo was for me to followup here.

probably the prefs.js file (has user pref changes), addonStartup.json.lz4, extensions.json, extension-settings.json, the extensions section from about:support, I think that may be enough to look at and see if there is some indication of what happened.

Comment 28

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

I don't see a reasonable resolution on this at this point, closing.