2045930 - Extension Clippings stopped working: Clippings doesn't work when the Privacy settings are too restrictive in Firefox

Status: RESOLVED MOVED

(WebExtensions :: Developer Outreach, defect)

Description

[bullwinkle007_2001]

Attachment: Clippings Error.PNG

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:137.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/137.0

Steps to reproduce:

Firefox 137.0.2 was working this morning / went to use & could not access Clippings list (right click) / Restarted Firefox / now Clippings will not load w/ error in dialog box: Clippings doesn't work when the Privacy settings are too restrictive in Firefox.

I have made NO CHANGES / or Updates that I am aware of, ANY Settings, FF Update Pending to 138. Clippings Vers: 7.0.6

I noticed another 'bug' reported & resolved, related (?), not same:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1073987

Cross posted in Clippings: https://github.com/aecreations/clippings/issues/589

Actual results:

Clippings was working OK this AM, earlier today. I came back in - woke up my Laptop & Clippings was visible, but not navigable - aka I could not select another Clipping File/Folder. Restarted FF - now the Extension fails to load w/ this error dialog.

Expected results:

Clippings should be running & visible in it's own task window. Clippings selectable w/ right click.

Comment 1

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

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Firefox::Settings UI' component, but is not confident enough to move the bug to that component.

Comment 2

[bullwinkle007_2001]

Attachment: FF Error.PNG

After ~2nd FF restart. FireFox would NOT start.

Comment 3

[bullwinkle007_2001]

Subsequent Restart of FF gave an error: Couldn't Load XPCOM. Researching this says an error occurred during download of a new version - who likes new versions (?). The way to recover is to re-install FF from a download, so I did this in Chrome. When I started FF up this time it et from Version 137.0.2 ==>> 151.0.3 (WoW ! that many versions ?) <y passwords were still there - but the 2 extensions that I use were gone / Simple Tab Groups & Clippings. When I re-installed these - I had to restore from backup STG & Clippings - I had not backed up since 3/2025 (apparently) - so ALL my clippings are GONE ! (after that date).

Needless to say - I am NOT Impressed !

Comment 4

[Alex Cornestean]

Hello,

I could not reproduce the issue on the latest Nightly (153.0a1/20260614201851), Beta (152.0b10/20260610111934) nor Release (151.0.4/20260608154138) under Windows 11.

I’ve installed Clippings vers. 7.0.6 and I could create new clippings, move clippings, create folders and move folders. Using the Clippings context menu options on a form field also worked as expected i.e. the field was filled in with the clipping I selected.

I also checked the scenario from Comment 3, by installing Firefox Release vers. 137.0.2, installing both Clippings and Simple Tab Groups, setting up some clippings and some tab groups and then updating to the latest browser versions – 151.0.4.
Even after the update, both STG and Clippings were still installed and working as expected with no data loss.

Comment 5

[Tomislav Jovanovic :zombie]

Moving to developer outreach since this was also reported to developers of Clippings https://github.com/aecreations/clippings/issues/589.

In case they investigate the issue and determine it's a Firefox bug, feel free to file with more reproducible instructions.

Comment 6

[bullwinkle007_2001]

I will add: (haven't had time to respond / watch progress; thanks for testing) that at the time I rebooted I received a 'splash' screen from Microsoft giving me another opportunity to Upgrade to Windows 11 (declined - I AM running Win 10 Pro). I'm uncertain as to whether or not this 'may' have
predicated FF from crashing/unresponsive as described in the aftermath of Clippings not working.

Comment 7

[Alex Cornestean]

For good measure, I also verified on Windows 10 Pro using the steps from Comment 4. The results match my previous verification i.e the extensions remain installed and there is no data or functionality loss after the browser updates.