Late on Friday May 3rd, we became aware of an issue with Firefox that prevented existing and new add-ons from running or being installed. We are very sorry for the inconvenience caused to people who use Firefox. See Add-ons disabled or fail to install on Firefox for more information.

We rolled-out a fix for release, beta and nightly users on Desktop. 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, we are using the Studies system. You can check if you have studies enabled as follows:

1. Click the menu button at the top right of the Firefox window.
2. Click on Options (Windows) or Preferences (Mac and Linux).
3. Select the Privacy & Security panel and scroll down to the Firefox Data Collection and Use section.
4. The box next to Allow Firefox to install and run studies should be checked.
   • If the box is not checked, click it to check mark the setting.
     

You can disable studies again, if you wish, after your add-ons have been re-enabled. See About Studies for more information.

Please do not delete your add-ons as an attempt to fix. You will lose any data related to the add-on. Disabled add-ons will not lose any data.

There are a number of work-arounds being discussed in the community. These are not recommended as they may conflict with fixes we are deploying. We’ll let you know when further updates are available that we recommend, and appreciate your patience.

We are still working on a fix for Firefox for Android. We’ll continue to provide updates on our blog post.

Thanks for prompt reply but the version of Firefox I have does not have the Studies option, I have looked under Privacy & Security.

The three add-ons mentioned in my orginal post say

Add-on could not be verified for use in Firefox and has been disabled

Considering I do not have studies option can I still expect Mozilla Firefox to correct this?

If you are unable to receive the latest hotfix, we are sorry for the inconvenience and encourage you to sit tight – an update is coming to you sometime soon via a deployed hotfix or a dot release. We’ll continue to provide updates on our blog post https://mzl.la/2LwSZrk

Firefox 56 was released on September 28, 2017. Their main concern right now is fixing the current Release version - 66.0.3 - which is in the process of happening as we speak. Next step is addressing the ESR 60.# version and Firefox for Android.

So, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Mozilla to fix Firefox 56 very fast, it they fix it at all. (It is very out-of-date after all.)

My guess is that they are probably going to create a "features" or "system" extension to install an updated intermediate certificate.

See if this this "hot-fix" extension works for you.

the-edmeister said

See if this this "hot-fix" extension works for you.

Thanks for suggestion, I was able to install that hotfix but it does not do anything, the add-ons still say they cannot be verified and so have been disabled.

Reading the release post

"Some users are reporting that they do not have the “hotfix-update-xpi-signing-intermediate-bug-1548973” study active in “about:studies”. Rather than using work-arounds, which can lead to issues later on, we strongly recommend that you continue to wait. If it’s possible for you to receive the hotfix, you should get it by 6am EDT, 24 hours after it was first released. For everyone else, we are working to ship a more permanent solution. (May 5, 00:54 EDT)"

Is this saying I should NOT install that hotfix?

the-edmeister said

Firefox 56 was released on September 28, 2017. Their main concern right now is fixing the current Release version - 66.0.3 - which is in the process of happening as we speak. Next step is addressing the ESR 60.# version and Firefox for Android. So, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Mozilla to fix Firefox 56 very fast, it they fix it at all. (It is very out-of-date after all.) My guess is that they are probably going to create a "features" or "system" extension to install an updated intermediate certificate.

I get that I am a "poor relation" in terms of priority and glad to see that Mozilla is taking this seriously, I just hope that I users such as myself are not forgotton. I may be a legacy user but there is a good reason for that, I depend on the updates that do not work in quantum but do work now (it is the ones above that do not work.

Surely there must be a way to disable the requirement for this verification, I am working on an old firefox environment at my own risk. The add-ons that have stopped working are mainstream, were installed by the author and do not need to be verified and re-verified each time I start.

I hate using chrome so I hope Mozilla will do something to undo the mess they created for all firefox users.

This https://twitter.com/mozamo/status/1124698401046577153 says there should be something out during Monday. Does anyone have new info about it?

I was able to get all my add-ons back in 56.0.2 by following the instructions in this reddit post. Had to open a second window to be able to carefully follow each step. There were a lot of red lines appearing (warnings?) after doing the fix and I have no idea what they meant. It may come back to bite me in the rear in the future so follow the instructions only if you are feeling brave. 2 days of using Chrome was enough for me.

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/bkspmk/addons_fix_for_5602_older/?sort=new

If you are feeling less brave you could try installing Waterfox

https://www.waterfox.net/releases/

There are 2 lists of the pre-quantum Firefox add-ons at this link that will/should work on Waterfox

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1257078

Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

goodwitch said

I was able to get all my add-ons back in 56.0.2 by following the instructions in this reddit post. Had to open a second window to be able to carefully follow each step. There were a lot of red lines appearing (warnings?) after doing the fix and I have no idea what they meant. It may come back to bite me in the rear in the future so follow the instructions only if you are feeling brave.

Hi goodwitch, where are the red lines? Are they still there if you exit out of Firefox and start it up again (i.e., not a temporary glitch)?

Hi jscher2000 - The red lines of script were in the browser console after I pasted the 2 lines of text from the Reddit post fix. They are gone now, but there are multiple lines referencing the change I made. Here are 2 screenshots showing the new changes. The Reddit ad was there before I made the change today, no idea where that came from.

I'm wondering if I made a huge mistake now.

Hi goodwitch, thank you for the screenshots. I think that means when some of your extensions started up, they told Firefox to do things that didn't work. However, that's unlikely to be a new problem. You probably would see the identical issues if you were to disable and re-enable each extensions on the Add-ons page.

I never learned to code legacy extensions. Very complicated and error-prone.

Thanks a million for putting my mind at rest jscher2000.

I have never needed to learn to code even though I have been working either on computers or preparing data for them for almost 50 years! Unless of course you can count WordPerfect DOS macros as code. Still prefer the DOS version to the newer windows ones.

Hi goodwitch, I loved WordPerfect for DOS, but learned "programming" on early versions of Word for Windows with the classic by Woody Leonhard, "Hacker's Guide to Word for Windows". Simpler times!!

goodwitch said

I was able to get all my add-ons back in 56.0.2 by following the instructions in this reddit post. Had to open a second window to be able to carefully follow each step. There were a lot of red lines appearing (warnings?) after doing the fix and I have no idea what they meant. It may come back to bite me in the rear in the future so follow the instructions only if you are feeling brave. 2 days of using Chrome was enough for me. https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/bkspmk/addons_fix_for_5602_older/?sort=new If you are feeling less brave you could try installing Waterfox https://www.waterfox.net/releases/ There are 2 lists of the pre-quantum Firefox add-ons at this link that will/should work on Waterfox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1257078 Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

Thank you for an extremely helpful post.

I am also going to look into waterfall, if I can get my add-ons working it may be a helpful way to stay in the past without all the damn nagware I get from Mozilla.

If it all works perfectly I would then install Quantum and test it for certain work while I wait for add-ons to be used.

If we were in a bar I would buy you a few beers.

I installed the XPI file (Normandy) from earlier in thread above but it did not work, but maybe it helped that fix work.

I did not even need to complete all of the functions,

I did the following

1. Save the block including the BEGIN & END lines in a text file with the extension .pem (I saved mine as icfix.pem)

2. Then import the certifcate into firefox into firefox via:

a. "Options", b. "Privacy & Security", c. down to "Certifcates" d. View Certifcates e. Select "Authorities" f. Import g. Select the PEM file h. Tick the checkboxes, then OK

I only ticked the 3rd box for software developers.

While I was copying the test to paste into Jconsole thing my plugins suddenly activated on the toolbar.

I appreciate this may not be the official fix but it gets me working, if an official fix comes out for 56 I will delete and re-install after removing the certificate. then apply the official fix.

Bit of-tangent but still related to this: how exactly do you know that they have finally fixed this problem?

Do the add-ons just suddenly start to work normally or do I need to activate them?

And if it's the latter, how do I know that the problem is fixed and I can load them again?

Hi kuopiofi, the two fixes so far installed a certificate and then triggered an immediate re-verification of extensions. This all happened behind the scenes, there was no visible notification. If there is an official add-on for old versions, it might have the same approach, but I have no idea.

So add-ons should just start working without any additional actions? Let's hope it works that way...

As I explained above it just started working, when an add-on has been disabled there is no enable button, it offers to update but fails at that anyway, but I would not want to try it.

So for me it was enough to get as far as the steps above, I then noticed the icons appear in the tool bar while I was copying the text suggested for the console. So as it started to work I did not carry on. I disabled the hotfix too just for good measure.

This is not a formal fix from Mozilla but it works.

jscher2000 said

Hi goodwitch, I loved WordPerfect for DOS, but learned "programming" on early versions of Word for Windows with the classic by Woody Leonhard, "Hacker's Guide to Word for Windows". Simpler times!!

Simpler times indeed my friend. Woody Leonhard is my hero, his posts on how to stop MS constantly bonking my WIndows 7 with their numerous buggy updates have been invaluable.