1802699 - Firefox 107.0 wipes out Video Downloadhelper and companion app

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(WebExtensions :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[James Hodgkinson]

Steps to reproduce:

Installed FF 107.0 32bit EN-GB (Auto updated). The new update Causes Video Downloadhelper 7.6.0 to blank out (totally disables) as well as it's companion app (VdhCoApp 1.6.3) No explanation at all. Resolved by re-installing FF ver 106.5. Other video addons were affected but I didn't write them down - sorry. I am very new to this reporting.

Actual results:

Hi guys. My Firefox (Win32 EN-GB) just updated from 106.5 to 107.0. I notice immediately that Video DownloadHelper has been wiped out. No longer functions at all - and same with its 'Companion App' which is not even recognised. I searched everywhere to see if others have reported it yet. NO

Therefore, due to the BUG, I have reverted back to 106.5 (first - do your logins and bookmarks backups, and your xpi files as Firefox really does not like us reverting back to an older version and makes it quite difficult to retain/obtain these later)

After reverting back (installing over the top with 106.5 was the only way I could force it), and eventually, with some difficulty I managed to get my add-ons, logins, bookmarks etc back which was extremely time consuming for me. It was simply very difficult when trying to revert to the previous version.

Firefox 106.5 is back and is working fine and so is Video DownloadHelper and companion along with a few other add-ons that crashed after FF update 107.0. I will stay with 106.5 until I can see that future release notes have addressed the issues.

SUGGESTION for tool/enhancement (of sorts)
NOTE: Relative to the above issue/point: Due to the numerous bugs and issues that cause regular updates for Firefox, may I SUGGEST that it is high time for you wonderful developers to write in the ability to revert/restore back to the last working previous version of FF that we were using. In other words, when Firefox updates/upgrades, a fully functional restore backup is saved in a FF REVERT/RESTORE folder, so that users can (if they are having issues following a new update/upgrade, they can go to Firefox settings/help and choose to revert/restore back to the previous Version and with a pop-up option/suggestion to users to temporarily turn off automatic/background service updates in the meantime.

To you all - for the average end user (like me) coming across bugs and things not working as they were, is hard enough in itself. Having to deal with the issues and hassles in affected add-ons and various bugs created by the latest FF Version, is typically too much for most of us - I believe.

If any of you incredibly talented coders/writers could consider looking at the fixing the issue above as well as taking on board the suggestions, then THANK YOU

thanks, James
#Firefox #Bug #107.0 #Restore #Suggestion #Downloadhelper #Bugzilla #addon

Expected results:

The new FF version 107.0 should not have caused the addon to become dysfunctional OR, was maybe this issue intentionally planned in the latest release 107.0?. Final success, results came by manually re-installing FF 106.5 to regain addons back.

Comment 1

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

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'WebExtensions::Untriaged' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 2

[Alex Cornestean]

Hello,

I tried, but could not reproduce the issue on Firefox Release 106.0.5 updated to the latest Firefox Release (107.0/20221110173214). Tested on Windows 10 x64 and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

Initially I installed Video Downloadhelper on Firefox 106.0.5 and the companion app as well. Made sure the extension was working as intended i.e. it was enabled, the companion app was recognized and the add-on could download a video both with and without using the companion app. Up tot this point everything was behaving as intended.
I then updated the browser to the latest available version and ran the above tests again. This time as well, there were no issues. The extension was still installed in the browser, enabled, the companion app was recognized and videos could be downloaded with and without the companion app assistance.

Comment 3

[James Hodgkinson]

Hello Alex.

I guess that you also used the same versions of FF I used 106.0.5 32bit EN-GB and 107.0 32bit EN-GB ?
My OS is Win7 X64 - I am unsure whether that might be relevant to the issue

Reading your results (thank you), I am not sure I wish to go down the road of actually trying to reproduce the issue again, just in case I am faced with the same bug - not that you suggested this.

Perhaps the FF 107.0 update process blocked/corrupted the few addons as they were disabled with NO options to do anything with them as explained below.

The affected Firefox addon/extensions were disabled and looked transparent, with no option to re-enable or do anything at all with them. So, focusing just on the Video DownloadHelper extension (rather than the other extensions too), when I clicked on the "..." next to the Video Download Helper add-on, the "..." was blank (with nothing) when pressed, i.e. with no other options such as "Remove", "Report", & "Manage". and definitely No "Disable" or "Enable" option.

Even though 'companion app' was previously installed on my PC, I did not have to reinstall the companion app when reverting back to 106.5 as Video DownloadHelper automatically located it and Verified the "Companion App installed" -"Found companion app: VdhCoApp 1.6.3" - As previously alluded to, this is what was also missing for me after FF 107.0 auto update.

It is interesting that everything worked fine for me when I reverted back to FF 106.0.5 32bit EN-GB on my Win 7 Pro laptop

Again, thank you for your feedback and efforts here to try and reproduce the issue.
I am not sure where that leaves the situation for me, as you clearly had no issue in your testing.
Perhaps there are some things I could have tried further (that I do not yet know about), before going down the road of a full re-install to and older version....hmm

With appreciation

My FF 32 bit EN-GB Versions
106.0.5 (20221104133228) Original Auto update
107.0 (20221110173214) Original Auto update
106.0.5 (20221104133228) Revert/Re-isntalled version (current)

Comment 4

[Alex Cornestean]

Hey James,

I’ve given another shot at reproducing the issue as previously I used a 64-bit en-US Firefox on a 64-bit Windows 10. Unfortunately I don’t have Windows 7 on my machine, so the best I can do for the moment is to test on an environment as close to yours as possible i.e. I tested a 32-bit en-GB Firefox 106.0.5 which I updated to the latest version available.

As before, I installed the extension and companion app and made sure everything was in working order before updating the browser and then updated it. Even with a 32-bit browser I did not manage to reproduce the issue, the extension still being installed, enabled and working post-update.

It might be that Windows 7 has something to do with this and I’ll attempt to investigate further.

Comment 5

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

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

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 6

[Rob Wu [:robwu]]

James, are you able to reproduce this issue on your system? I.e.

1. Create a full backup of your profile directory.
2. Upgrade Firefox and start Firefox.
3. Visit about:addons to check if the extensions are still installed.

If the extensions are gone:

1. Take a screenshot of about:addons.
2. Close Firefox.
3. Go to your profile directory, and copy the extensions.json and addonStartup.json.lz4 files.
4. Share the screenshot (step 1) and two extension database files (step 3) here.

We have witnessed disappeared add-ons before, and that was often caused by faulty hardware (i.e. a broken disk) or interfering external software (e.g. antivirus).

Comment 7

[Rob Wu [:robwu]]

This bug report is not actionable. I'll re-open the bug if the requested information is provided.

Comment 8

[James Hodgkinson]

@Rob Wu [:robwu]
Thank you for your reply
I hadn't seen your post until today due to personal committments.

No need to re-open this thread, as I had mentioned above to @Alex Cornerstean, "I am not sure I wish to go down the road of actually trying to reproduce the issue again, just in case I am faced with the same bug - not that you suggested this."

Rob, I am not that advanced, and this is my only computer system. So please forgive me for not being prepared to re-produce the issue. I do not have the head-space nor the time should something go wrong again. The last time it occurred it took me so long to get Firefox back working 100% - hence my aversion. If I had a spare laptop to try things out - then I might have tried to re-produce the issue as you listed above.

I believe that I may have gone about trying to get back a working version of Firefox probably in an unconventional manner - but it did work for me. I had to manually re-install all my previous addons aswell. I just wish that Firefox when updating to a newer version, would keep a full image backup of the previous version in-case end users strike issues, and could then REVERT back with just a few clicks of the button - Kind of Like "Windows Restore"..... but just for firefox instead

Please note that absolutely everything was working 100% OK in Firefox and my PC, before the auto-update to FF v107.0 from v106.0.5.
I cannot place blame on my Norton antivirus as the only change to my system at that time was the Auto update of Firefox to 107.0
Once I re-installed 106.0.5 absolutely everything was fine again AND, still is working 100% OK = still using FF v106.0.5 32bit en-GB on Win7 Professional (x64) laptop.

With thanks again for your reply