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Extentions getting uninstalled without my permission

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  • Last reply by alan_r

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For the past week or so, whenever firefox is closed, ALL of my add-ons are uninstalled and I get several tabs asking me to reinstall them with the words: "another program on your computer would like to modify firefox with the following add-on".

This has never happened before and I have not installed nor have any programs that would cause this to happen.

I am having to reinstall all my extensions every time the browser closes, even by accident, and its getting irritating.

For the past week or so, whenever firefox is closed, ALL of my add-ons are uninstalled and I get several tabs asking me to reinstall them with the words: "another program on your computer would like to modify firefox with the following add-on". This has never happened before and I have not installed nor have any programs that would cause this to happen. I am having to reinstall all my extensions every time the browser closes, even by accident, and its getting irritating.

All Replies (3)

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Slight edit: The browser seems to do this every other time. Once and a while, the browser restarts and everything is perfectly fine.

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There is software like Advanced SystemCare with its Surfing Protection feature that can protect files in the Firefox profile folder against changes. If you have such software or other cleanup software then check the settings or uninstall this software.


You can check for problems with preferences. Delete possible user.js and numbered prefs-##.js files and rename (or delete) the prefs.js file to reset all prefs to the default value including prefs set via user.js and prefs that are no longer supported in current Firefox releases.

It is possible that there is a problem with the file(s) that store the extensions registry.

Delete the extensions.* files (e.g. extensions.json, extensions.sqlite, extensions.ini) and compatibility.ini in the Firefox profile folder to reset the extensions registry.

New files will be created when required.

See "Corrupt extension files":

If you see disabled or not compatible extensions in "Firefox menu button/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions" then click the Tools button at the left end of the Search bar to check if there is a compatibility update available.

If this hasn't helped then also delete the addons.json file.

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A little housekeeping - you have two versions of Shockwave Flash; remove the older one.

I don't know anything specific against it but your Happy Cloud Web Plugin seems to attract a lot of removal advice. Try disabling it for a while.

Modified by alan_r