742369 - Java Plugin blocked and no option to enable anymore

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Toolkit :: Blocklist Policy Requests, defect)

Description

[craig.okata]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:11.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/11.0
Build ID: 20120312181643

Steps to reproduce:

Yesterday we received the message that our version of "Java has been blocked for your protection". 

However, we were able to bypass dis-abling the Plugin.


Actual results:

Today, the soft block has turned into a hard block and the browser has disabled the Java Plugin and doesn't provide the ability to re-enable it. 


Expected results:

Our technology group can re-enable the Java Plugin through about:config, but we cannot expect or want our users to attempt this action. 

We are using an IBM product which currently requires Java 1.6.0_23 and no higher. 

We have varying levels of Firefox in use (from 9.x to 11.0). 

We need to be able to enable the Java Plugin. This is an enterprise solution with potentially thousands of users. Your prompt reply is required. Our only alternative is to restrict users from Firefox and only use IE. To have users change their current environment without notice is not acceptable. 

Thanks

Comment 1

[Andre Klapper]

Please see https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/blocked/p80 for more information.
What is the exact JRE version used?

Comment 2

[craig.okata]

JRE 1.6.0_20-b02
We also have users on 1.6.0_23

Comment 3

[Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] (he/him)]

Yes, we have a fix for this. It should be pushed live shortly.

Comment 4

[Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] (he/him)]

This is fixed in production now. The block should now work as a softblock.

If you had your plugin disabled here's how to re-enable it:
1) Open about:support.
2) Look for the Profile Directory entry and click on the button next to it in order to open it.
3) Look for blocklist.xml and delete it.
4) Open about:addons
5) Enable the plugin again.

In a day or so (when the blocklist is reloaded) you'll see a new warning about the plugin (if you're using a vulnerable version), which you should be able to ignore. Even if you accidentally disable it again, you can follow steps 4 and 5 and this should correct the problem permanently.

There is no need to change any settings. Changing blocklist preferences can make your system very insecure and we strongly recommend against it.

Comment 5

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

Additional step for comment 4: I had to restart Firefox after deleting blocklist.xml to force it to forget the current block information. Waiting for a new blocklist update (tomorrow-ish) would also work. Either way you do have to manually reenable Java through the addons manager.