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Firefox suddenly disabled all my add-ons

  • 53 replies
  • 44 have this problem
  • 52 views
  • Last reply by Chris Ilias

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I got home, turned on the PC, loaded up Firefox, and ALL my addons are disabled and tossed into their 'legacy' pool of crap. No happy colorful theme, NO adblocker, no Ghostery... it even disabled my Bitdefender add-ons. Something is NOT right here. Anyone know what's going on? Firefox has NOT updated in at least a week or two, so I doubt it was an update breaking anything.

I got home, turned on the PC, loaded up Firefox, and ALL my addons are disabled and tossed into their 'legacy' pool of crap. No happy colorful theme, NO adblocker, no Ghostery... it even disabled my Bitdefender add-ons. Something is NOT right here. Anyone know what's going on? Firefox has NOT updated in at least a week or two, so I doubt it was an update breaking anything.

Chosen solution

Mozilla has rolled-out a fix for this. The fix will be automatically applied in the background within the next few hours, you don’t need to take active steps.

In order to be able to provide this fix on short notice, they are using the Studies system. You can check if you have studies enabled

  1. Go to [=] > Options > Privacy & Security.
  2. Make sure Allow Firefox to install and run studies is check marked.

I you had it disabled, you can disable studies again after your add-ons have been re-enabled.

They are working on a general fix that doesn't need to rely on this and will keep you updated.

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All Replies (13)

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blueboy714 said

Has anyone had any success getting their add-ons back? Do we have reinstall the add-ons or do they automatically get reinstalled whenever we get this Mozilla update?

Just personally- when I turned on Firefox this morning my addons were re-enabled, just not the themes. So if you have the "studies" enabled as said by the mod a bit further up, Firefox should automatically fix itself and re-enable some of the add ons at least.

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Pretzelisdead said

blueboy714 said
Has anyone had any success getting their add-ons back? Do we have reinstall the add-ons or do they automatically get reinstalled whenever we get this Mozilla update?

Just personally- when I turned on Firefox this morning my addons were re-enabled, just not the themes. So if you have the "studies" enabled as said by the mod a bit further up, Firefox should automatically fix itself and re-enable some of the add ons at least.

Thanks Pretzelisdead. I'm not exactly sure what a "studies" is vs. a standard update - but I just turned it on and everything worked (except themes like you said).

Can I turn "studies enabled" off again or does it have to stay on?

Modified by blueboy714

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blueboy714 said

Thanks Pretzelisdead. I'm not exactly sure what a "studies" is vs. a standard update - but I just turned it on and everything worked (except themes like you said). Can I turn "studies enabled" off again or does it have to stay on?

Once the two studies run, I believe you are done with them and you can turn studies off. If there is a new study to fix it further, someone probably will mention it here somewhere.

More info on studies: About Studies.

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Chris Ilias said

Mozilla has rolled-out a fix for this. The fix will be automatically applied in the background within the next few hours, you don’t need to take active steps. In order to be able to provide this fix on short notice, they are using the Studies system. You can check if you have studies enabled
  1. Go to [=] > Options > Privacy & Security.
  2. Make sure Allow Firefox to install and run studies is check marked.
I you had it disabled, you can disable studies again after your add-ons have been re-enabled. They are working on a general fix that doesn't need to rely on this and will keep you updated.

I see this time stamped at 4:07AM. (Assuming my time, computers are good at that.) Well my time EST is almost 1pm. MORE than "a few hours." Do we have any more updates?

Oh and I did JUST enable studies in mine... so maybe "a few hours" after I did that?

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Hi Artmaker, by default, Firefox checks for new studies every six hours. Since yours might never have checked before, I don't know whether it will check sooner or not until then. Possibly exiting/quitting Firefox and starting it up again will hasten the check? I couldn't tell you for sure.

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Well just tried quitting and restarting, nope, doesn't do it. But if it checks every six hours, that's good to know. At least I have a clue when to hope for this being fixed.

Thanks for the updates. I get that stuff like this happens, but at least your all on it and posting as you go. So you know, some FYI for the team, I never cared for firefox much. The only reasons I use firefox now... 1. I put off upgrading until I simply have to and just finally got to the point I had to. ON high sierra now. Since then, Safari (my main browser till now) got slower than 1990s dial up. Unusable! 2. Chrome is owned by Google who I detest. And unlike here, they have ZERO support what so ever. NONE. Closest they have to support is user to user forums. Snarky, mean, useless and horrible. Real support I have not once ever seen in there. 3. I do have opera installed but learned that too is owned by google. It's absolutely my last resort and if I ever use it, I'd be clearing history, cookies, and cache with each use. (I use those things, so this is not convenient.) 4. As far as I know, there are no other browsers for Mac out there. (If anyone can post one please do.)

Got use to firefox now (despite having to click "not now" on your update notice each and every time I turn it on with no way to disable that. Annoying but just a click so I do it.) and the add ons are a real plus. Looking forward to getting those back.

Edited; OH MY! IT'S ALL WORKING AGAIN!!!!!! YEA! Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!

Modified by Artmaker

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Hi Artmaker, for the record, Opera is a separate company from Google, but the Opera browser has the "rendering engine" at its core as the Chrome browser.

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jscher2000 said

Hi Artmaker, for the record, Opera is a separate company from Google, but the Opera browser has the "rendering engine" at its core as the Chrome browser.

If only I understood what that means. Good to know it's a separate company though, won't be so hesitant to use it if I have to.

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Hey, this might be slightly off topic, but I've been signed up on a site called mysurvey for years now. Recently they got taken over by one called lifepointspanel. Since then I have been unable to take any surveys because I get some prompt telling me to disable adblockers. I have tried, and keep getting the same thing. About to give up on them but after this add on mess, with EVERY add on disabled I thought I'd try again. And again I got "disable your adblock." HOW can that be with nothing at all running? I sent them screenshots of ALL my extensions disabled and their stupid notice. (not that it will do any good, their support is almost as bad as google.)

Just wondering if you knew, or anyone for that matter.

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Hi Artmaker, sites that detect some elements missing or not running may assume you have an ad blocker. In the old days, they probably would have assumed something else. In addition to add-ons, this could be caused by Firefox's built-in Content Blocking feature. You may have noticed a "shield" icon showing up more frequently toward the left end of the address bar. when you click that, the drop-down panel provides information on whether Firefox is currently blocking (or is able to block) trackers and cookies from the site, and to make an exception if needed to get the full functionality.

More info: Content blocking

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Artmaker said

If only I understood what that means. Good to know it's a separate company though, won't be so hesitant to use it if I have to.

That means that the part of the programm that makes the websites display on your screen and handles all that code that websites are made up off, is the same component. it's called chromium (not chrome). On that note, even Microsoft Edge uses Chromium nowadays and a whoole bunch of other Browser aplications.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)#Browsers_based_on_Chromium

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Glad someone figured it out, I hate browsing the internet naked.

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Hi, This thread is marked as solved, and I don't see any further posts from the question owner.

Because this thread is solved and more people might start using it for their own questions, I'm going to lock it.

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