650952 - Firefox Start Page has blank snippet block and missing Google image for search

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 749477

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Jay Patel [:jay]]

This is an oddity that I have not been able to resolve since upgrading to Firefox 4.  I believe this happened when I upgraded from the last beta to RC... but can't be sure.

Here is what I see when I startup Firefox now: http://imm.io/54xx

As you can see a few elements from t hat page are missing.   I am seeing this with my regular profile that has lots of add-ons and other profile data from over 2-3 years of use... as well as in safe mode with add-ons disabled.

Other than that, I haven't tried much to see if I can get the snippets and image back.  Any ideas?

Comment 1

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

Do you usually launch firefox through a shortcut that has an hardcoded url in it?
Or did you disable domstorage in about:config?
This is probably just dupe of bug 615785.

Comment 2

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

Btw, quick workaround is:
1. go to about:config
2. reset browser.startup.homepage_override.buildID pref
3. close Firefox, restart it from the common shortcut

Comment 3

[Jay Patel [:jay]]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Do you usually launch firefox through a shortcut that has an hardcoded url in
> it?

Nope.  I have always launched from a link on my taskbar on Windows 7.

> Or did you disable domstorage in about:config?

that pref is still set to "true"

> This is probably just dupe of bug 615785.

perhaps.  https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=615785#c7 seems to be very similar to my case.  though the prefs looks slightly different from what dholbert reduced to in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=615785#c9

my .buildID = 20110413222027 (i just updated today to 4.0.1, not sure what happened on 4/13... since I thought I had updated to 4.0 on launch day)
my .mstone = rv:2.0.1

Comment 4

[Jay Patel [:jay]]

resetting the buildid and mstone prefs didn't do much... but i did get a restore session button!  which i was not seeing before.

http://imm.io/54Ak

Comment 5

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

You should not have reset mstone, we don't use mstone to update this data.
Those pref change at every program update, so it's common to have them set differently, dholbert's ones are for 4.0.

Btw, if resetting buildId and restarting the browser didn't do anything, there is clearly something other preventing this from working.

1. Close Firefox, shift+right-click the Firefox icon in the Windows taskbar, select Properties and check the destination of the shortcut. Does it have any additional command line params? (it should just be a plain "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe")

2. Maybe some add-on is killing us. just in case, try to repeat steps in comment 2, but this time restart the browser in safe mode (hold down shift while clicking on the Firefox shortcut, till the safe mode window appears)

3. check in your profile folder if you have a chromeappsstore.sqlite file. If so please mail it to me.

Comment 6

[Jay Patel [:jay]]

(In reply to comment #5)
> You should not have reset mstone, we don't use mstone to update this data.
> Those pref change at every program update, so it's common to have them set
> differently, dholbert's ones are for 4.0.
> 
> Btw, if resetting buildId and restarting the browser didn't do anything, there
> is clearly something other preventing this from working.
> 
> 1. Close Firefox, shift+right-click the Firefox icon in the Windows taskbar,
> select Properties and check the destination of the shortcut. Does it have any
> additional command line params? (it should just be a plain "C:\Program Files
> (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe")

I run multiple Firefox instances on my machine often, so for Fx4, my shortcut target looks like this:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox 4.0 Beta 7\firefox.exe" -no-remote -P

> 
> 2. Maybe some add-on is killing us. just in case, try to repeat steps in
> comment 2, but this time restart the browser in safe mode (hold down shift
> while clicking on the Firefox shortcut, till the safe mode window appears)

I've already done this a few times, once before resetting the prefs and twice after.  No change in behavior... still get blank snippet.

> 
> 3. check in your profile folder if you have a chromeappsstore.sqlite file. If
> so please mail it to me.

I do have the chromeappsstore.sqlite file in my profile... last modified 11/10/2010.  Let me know if you need me to send that to you.

Comment 7

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

(In reply to comment #6)
> I run multiple Firefox instances on my machine often, so for Fx4, my shortcut
> target looks like this:
> "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox 4.0 Beta 7\firefox.exe" -no-remote -P

should be fine then.

> > 3. check in your profile folder if you have a chromeappsstore.sqlite file. If
> > so please mail it to me.
> 
> I do have the chromeappsstore.sqlite file in my profile... last modified
> 11/10/2010.  Let me know if you need me to send that to you.

interesting, that date seems bogus. yes I'd like to check it.

Comment 8

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

I got the chromeappsstore.sqlite file, it is fine and after putting it into an existing profile it was correctly updated (I launched through a shortcut with the same -no-remote -P command lines arguments to be sure).
If you create a new profile does it work correctly? At this point we'd have to figure out what's special in your profile...

Comment 9

[Picl]

Hi there, I have exactly the same problem with the start page as Jay. I'm on Windows 7 x64 Pro and upgraded from the latest german Firefox 3 version to the german 4.0.1

My Startpage looks exactly like the second screenshot Jay linked to (the one with the possibility to restore the session) just with german text of course.

Add-Ons installed are Adblock Plus, Noscript, Better Privacy, FlashGot and Web Developer.

My Firefox Link seems to be standard: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" and resetting the buildid had no effect.

I sent you my chromeappsstore.sqlite file, hope it helps!

Comment 10

[Picl]

Just forgot to mention, that while I can enter text into the search field on the start page, it doesn't do anything if I hit ENTER. Guess that's the same for Jay.

Comment 11

[Picl]

Hi Marco, as mentioned, most of your questions are answered in my posts above.
And here are the missing ones:

browser.search.defaultenginename: "Web Search..."
dom.storage.enabled: "True"

I have indeed (but already in Firefox 3) changed my privacy settings to the following (sorry if the names don't match, I'm on the german version as I said):

User defined history
- save visited pages
- don't save download history
- save search and formula history
- accept cookies (no excepitions)
-- accept cookies from third-party
-- keep cookies until Firefox is closed
- delete history when Firefox is closed
-- History (Delete Cookies, Download-History, Active Logins, Cache)
-- Data (Delete Saved Passwords, Offline-Website-Data, Flash-Cookies)

Comment 12

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

this is broken
browser.search.defaultenginename: "Web Search..."
Could have been some extension...

Reset it (should go back to "Google") and then reset also browser.startup.homepage_override.buildID (only this one).
Restart browser and let me know if things are better.

Comment 13

[Picl]

Worked for me :)
Thanks a lot!

Comment 14

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

Jay, could browser.search.defaultenginename be related to your case as well?

Comment 15

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

I've verified that changing defaultenginename no longer breaks about:home.

I wonder if this can be closed?

Comment 16

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Actually, I'm wrong.

If you set defaultenginename to something else (Bing), clear the chromeappstore and then go to about:home, it's broken.

about:home should really not be this fragile.