Firefox Nuked addons

Networking and broadband talkabout. Need help with that new router or setting up a network?
User avatar
Err
Life Member
Posts: 5842
Joined: Thu Nov 22, 2007 11:54 am

Firefox Nuked addons

Post by Err »

My Ublock Origin was disabled by Firefox so I uninstalled it and tried reinstalling from the website. All I get is a failure to download error. I checked the subreddit and this seems to be across the board. For some reason, all addons suddenly became unverified. Good Job Mozilla.
User avatar
FlyingPenguin
Flightless Bird
Posts: 32773
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:13 am
Location: Central Florida
Contact:

Re: Firefox Nuked addons

Post by FlyingPenguin »

No problems here but I haven't tried to update today (I do it manually). UBlock Origin running fine for me.
"Turns out I’m 'woke.' All along, I thought I was just compassionate, kind, and good at history. "

Image
User avatar
Err
Life Member
Posts: 5842
Joined: Thu Nov 22, 2007 11:54 am

Re: Firefox Nuked addons

Post by Err »

I'm glad you didn't get hit. Here's the details of the bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1548973
User avatar
Executioner
Life Member
Posts: 10133
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:34 am
Location: Woodland, CA USA

Re: Firefox Nuked addons

Post by Executioner »

I'm sure they will have it fix quickly. I just read somewhere that their share has been increasing the last month or so.

Maybe going forward would be to disable auto update then wait for a few days.
User avatar
FlyingPenguin
Flightless Bird
Posts: 32773
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:13 am
Location: Central Florida
Contact:

Re: Firefox Nuked addons

Post by FlyingPenguin »

Okay read up on that thread and a few other reports and Firefox's official Twitter feed.

The good news is that they pushed out a patch to fix the problem this morning and it'll take a couple hours to propagate through the system but hopefully by the end of the day it'll be working again.

What happened is that Firefox's addons server generates a security certificate on the fly when you download an add-on. Looks like somebody got careless and forgot to renew their Master certificate and expired on May 4th.

So after May 4th if your Firefox did an update, it failed because the security cert was invalid.
"Turns out I’m 'woke.' All along, I thought I was just compassionate, kind, and good at history. "

Image
User avatar
FlyingPenguin
Flightless Bird
Posts: 32773
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:13 am
Location: Central Florida
Contact:

Re: Firefox Nuked addons

Post by FlyingPenguin »

Here is the Twitter feed:

https://mobile.twitter.com/mozamo
"Turns out I’m 'woke.' All along, I thought I was just compassionate, kind, and good at history. "

Image
User avatar
Err
Life Member
Posts: 5842
Joined: Thu Nov 22, 2007 11:54 am

Re: Firefox Nuked addons

Post by Err »

This reddit thread has a direct link to the hotfix: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/commen ... addons_in/

Right Click-->save as. Then drag the file into Firefox. This allowed me to get UBlock Origins installed again.

I have the Studies turned on and it said the update was active. However, nothing would work for me because I uninstalled Ublock. I had the use the file above to install it again.
User avatar
Executioner
Life Member
Posts: 10133
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:34 am
Location: Woodland, CA USA

Re: Firefox Nuked addons

Post by Executioner »

This is weird. My FF on my windows 7 desktop is working fine with my addons, but on my laptop with windows 10, nothing yet. I even enabled the studies, waited hours, and still nothing. I'm currently typing this using Edge. I'm surprised they haven't rolled out an update to 60.0.4 to fix it.
User avatar
Genom
Steely Eyed Missile Man
Posts: 866
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2014 4:14 pm
Location: Hotlanta

Re: Firefox Nuked addons

Post by Genom »

Went to use the restroom, came back and literally all my addons are toast. No reboot or other such nonsense. Pretty funny. Hope the update propagates soon.
User avatar
Executioner
Life Member
Posts: 10133
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:34 am
Location: Woodland, CA USA

Re: Firefox Nuked addons

Post by Executioner »

I was able to fix my Linux Mint 18.3 version by enabling studies. Took only a few minutes, and I did not have to restart FF. On my windows 10 laptop, a different story. Shows studies enabled and the fix installed, but nothing. The only way I got it to work was:
Just go to 'about:debugging' and check the box 'addon debugging', then load in the xpi file for the addons you need.
The xpi files are located in your profile: user>AppData>Roaming>Mozilla>Firefox>Profiles
Once they are located, simply click on each one and they are reinstalled.

If you close FF and re-open it, you have to repeat the process above again.
User avatar
FlyingPenguin
Flightless Bird
Posts: 32773
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:13 am
Location: Central Florida
Contact:

Re: Firefox Nuked addons

Post by FlyingPenguin »

My add-ons in Firefox on Android got nuked yesterday (I use UBlock Origin). Doesn't look like there's a fix for it yet.

My PCs are still fine because addon updates are set to manual and they never got the updates with the bad cert.

I would think that if you have a drive image from before this happened you can extract the .xpi files and install them manually. Should work because those xpi files will have a valid certificate.

Might try that tonight with my laptop just to see if it works.

I'm really surprised is taking them this long to fix the problem.
"Turns out I’m 'woke.' All along, I thought I was just compassionate, kind, and good at history. "

Image
User avatar
Executioner
Life Member
Posts: 10133
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:34 am
Location: Woodland, CA USA

Re: Firefox Nuked addons

Post by Executioner »

I just tried that. I had a backup image from March, and I extracted those xpi files and overwrote the ones that were there. Did not solve the issue.
User avatar
Executioner
Life Member
Posts: 10133
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:34 am
Location: Woodland, CA USA

Re: Firefox Nuked addons

Post by Executioner »

Update: got it now fixed on my windows 10 laptop.

I actually downloaded the Mozilla xpi file fix from here:
https://storage.googleapis.com/moz-fx-n ... signed.xpi

Then bring up FF, go to Add-Ons, click on the Extensions on the left, then click on the GEAR icon and select Install add-on from file.
Then your addons are back.
User avatar
FlyingPenguin
Flightless Bird
Posts: 32773
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:13 am
Location: Central Florida
Contact:

Re: Firefox Nuked addons

Post by FlyingPenguin »

I actually downloaded the Mozilla xpi file fix from here:
https://storage.googleapis.com/moz-fx-n ... signed.xpi
Yup. Just had to do that. Something they did reset my addons to auto-update and it nuked them on my workstation PC, but not the gaming PC (probabaly becuase it's turned off when not in use). Curiously restoring a backup of my profile folder didn't work. Addon's got nuked as soon as Firefox connected to the home base.

I was damned if I was going to turn on the data collection (which I normally disable) and wait "up to six hours" for the fix to be pushed out via Studies. So I found that fix download link, same as you did. Although I didn't have to "install extension from file". I just restarted Firefox and all the extensions were back.

I dunno why Mozilla didn't just post the link to the download themselves.

Now if they'll just release a fix for FF Android...
"Turns out I’m 'woke.' All along, I thought I was just compassionate, kind, and good at history. "

Image
User avatar
FlyingPenguin
Flightless Bird
Posts: 32773
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:13 am
Location: Central Florida
Contact:

Re: Firefox Nuked addons

Post by FlyingPenguin »

Holy crap! That fix DOES work for Android Firefox as well!
"Turns out I’m 'woke.' All along, I thought I was just compassionate, kind, and good at history. "

Image
Post Reply