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Restore lost extensions (after using "Troubleshoot mode")

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  • Last reply by MLA

MLA
MLA
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After experiencing some problems (saved tabs being empty, menus gone etc.) I read about restarting into troubleshoot mode ("Help"-"Troubleshoot mode" menu) which solved those problems (I believe "Troubleshoot mode" might be the same as "Refreshing" Firefox, from what I've read -correct me if I'm wrong) . I'm on Firefox 98.0.2 on a Mac.

Following that I quit Firefox and opened it again the normal way which I assume means it went into the normal mode as before, but I realized all my extensions were gone! Reading through some older postings I see they're in a profile named "legacy_BAK.profile", and in addition I have recent Time Machine backups, so any files aren't lost, but I guess the simplest way to fix this is to re-install my extensions -but most extensions (inside the "extensions" folder within the profile folder) only have a cryptic numbered name with and .XPI extension. So how can I find out which extensions I used to have, and better yet -is there a quick way to just install everything back again with a single click (installing it from the legacy profile folder, or just moving something over to the new folder etc.)?

After experiencing some problems (saved tabs being empty, menus gone etc.) I read about restarting into troubleshoot mode ("'''Help'''"-"'''Troubleshoot mode'''" menu) which solved those problems (I believe "Troubleshoot mode" might be the same as "Refreshing" Firefox, from what I've read -correct me if I'm wrong) . I'm on Firefox 98.0.2 on a Mac. Following that I quit Firefox and opened it again the normal way which I assume means it went into the normal mode as before, but I realized all my extensions were gone! Reading through some older postings I see they're in a profile named "legacy_BAK.profile", and in addition I have recent Time Machine backups, so any files aren't lost, but I guess the simplest way to fix this is to re-install my extensions -but most extensions (inside the "''extensions''" folder within the profile folder) only have a cryptic numbered name with and .XPI extension. So how can I find out which extensions I used to have, and better yet -is there a quick way to just install everything back again with a single click (installing it from the legacy profile folder, or just moving something over to the new folder etc.)?

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MLA
MLA Question owner
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That's the page I read about the troubleshooting mode, but I only read through it quickly (enough to verify that it would keep my passwords, history, bookmarks and restore all my tabs -but I forgot about the extensions) prior to refresh my browser.

But I took another look after your response and got to the section named copying files between profile folders and realized it might just be that simple! So I quit Firefox, the copied the following files from the old profile (legacy_BAK.profile) over to the new one:

extensions (the entire folder with all its contents) extension-preferences.json extension-settings.json extensions.json

Then I started Firefox again, but was surprised to see that none of the extension icons were present in the toolbar, so I entered the "Tools"-"Add-ons and themes" menu, then the "Extensions" section where I could see all my extensions from before. So I tried something: within the same "Extensions" section I disabled (turned off) each extension, then on again. This resulted in them reappearing again! Well, mostly. The rest was fixed by right-clicking in the toolbar (the location around the URL area, forward/back/reload buttons etc) to arrange those icons. I also had to reconfigure custom settings for my extensions, but no big problem.