Adblock does not start first time

[mausebaer]

I have to admit that I'm a little confused now.
Since I'm watching the ADP icon the last two days, it ALWAYS startet without doing anything to the system...

[franz]

Mhh I've the same problem (Adblock Plus doesn't start the first time Firefox is open but it works if de-activeted and activated again) but I use a Mac Book Pro, so the issue is not only for portable devices. Any idea about how to fix it? Until few weeks ago I didn't have this problem, but sorry I cannot recall if and what updates I've done since then.

[Jetdog330]

I've been getting the exact same issue:

Dual-booting windows 7 x64 and Gentoo Linux x64. Loading firefox in a different operating system than that used in the last session always causes this to happen. I'm forced to manually disable ad-block and the manually re-enable it, and then subsequent startups of firefox (on that same operating system) work fine. It will stop working again if I try to load that same profile from another operating system.

Seems to be a problem with portable profiles.

[mausebaer]

I think I can reproduce the issue now every time...

If I start FF out of a hyperlink from outside (e.g. from TB), the icon is missing.
Subsequently FF starts always without the icon until I deactivate & reactivate ABP.

Starting FF from the direct FF-link: Starts without icon if the ABP was not de- & reactivated in the session before
Starting FF from the direct FF-link: Starts with icon if ABP was de- & reactivated in the session before

If second FF-window started from hyperlink after already started first window (showing icon) also the second window icon appears...

So, starting FF out of a hyperlink as first window seems to cause the problem.
Could you all plase try to reproduce it on your side?

Very strange....

[Laura]

Hello,

I think I've got the same problem ... anyone solved it yet?
I didn't understand everything, probably because I'm german and not sooo good in technical computer manners ... If you don't have problems any more, could you please try to explain what you did to solve it? That would be really nice.

Laura

[ultimate-tester]

Okay, combining the information I read here, we can state the following:

* The problem is with firefox, not with ABP (very important information);
* It seems to happen on both Windows 7 and MAC, some have reported it to occur on all operating systems;
* It may have something to do with the way Firefox handles extensions

Here are a few things I'd like to add:

1) I am not only having this problem with ABP, but also with Firebug and possibly others if I had any. Those extensions need to run immediately when firefox starts to hook into the user interface and such.
I don't have the problem with extensions that get loaded on a different way, like with a protocol or a specific website calling the extension.

2) If you are using FireFox Portable from PortableApps.com, please note that opening firefox using a URL or a shortcut on your desktop will open a DIFFERENT version of firefox. ALWAYS use the Firefox portable launcher to open Firefox, or profiles will be written to your local disk instead of your portable directory and thus the problem may not occur and give us false information.

[PRESERVED FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION UNTIL REPLIES HAVE BEEN MADE]

[mausebaer]

@ laura:

I didn't understand everything, probably because I'm german

I'm german, too...

@ ultimate-tester:

2) If you are using FireFox Portable from PortableApps.com, please note that opening firefox using a URL or a shortcut on your desktop will open a DIFFERENT version of firefox. ALWAYS use the Firefox portable launcher to open Firefox, or profiles will be written to your local disk instead of your portable directory and thus the problem may not occur and give us false information.

...I'm using FireFox Portable from PortableApps.com indeed.
You are right... but there is no FF version on my fixed disk.
The problem you described I tried to overcome like this:

Merely at "c:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\" there is an empty profile and a profiles.ini, which I edited this way that it points to the PortableFF profile...:

Code: Select all

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=0
Path=e:\Mozilla\FirefoxPortable\Data\profile
Default=1

Furthermore I linked hyperlinks, shortcuts & URL (*.htm, *.html) with standard programm "e:\Mozilla\FirefoxPortable\FirefoxPortable.exe" which is on a different disk.

Surprisingly all other addons work properly like this, except of ABP...

And this also seemed to have worked withh FF versions before 12.0

[ultimate-tester]

Surprisingly all other addons work properly like this, except of ABP...

Is adblockplus the only addon being bootstrapped? You can check this by opening the xpi files in your extensions directory (wich is in the profiles directory of the firefox directory) and check if there's a file called "bootstrap.js".
If adblockplus is the only extension being bootstrapped, then you're having the same problem as I and others do.

Further on topic:
By simply looking at the Error Console, I found out that "addons.xpi" is the cause of the problem. It keeps reporting (for each bootstrapped extension) that it has been moved (while the extensions haven't). It does this until I manually re-enable the extension.
I tried to find addons.xpi, but I guess it's packed with something because I am unable to find it as a file. Anyways, the problem lays there, proving it's a Firefox bug rather than an ABP problem.

Another thing I found is that it indeed has something to do with timestamps of (one of) the files of the extension. I have set (about:config) "extensions.alwaysUnpack" to "true" so I can edit the files of the extensions without unpacking/repacking it the whole time, and found out that if I just open the file in notepad, and then save it again without making changes (it updates the "last modified" timestamp), the extension will work without having the re-enable the extension manually. Although this is more work than the re-enable method, it is another step further in the investigation.

[mausebaer]

Is adblockplus the only addon being bootstrapped? You can check this by opening the xpi files in your extensions directory (wich is in the profiles directory of the firefox directory) and check if there's a file called "bootstrap.js".

Yes. I checked all *.xpi, only "{d10d0bf8-f5b5-c8b4-a8b2-2b9879e08c5d}.xpi" (ADP) has the file "bootstrap.js"

But I have one more idea...
There is a directory "c:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Extensions\" which is also empty. I'll be trying to have there a copy of {d10d0bf8-f5b5-c8b4-a8b2-2b9879e08c5d}.xpi, maybe then it works...

By simply looking at the Error Console, I found out that "addons.xpi" is the cause of the problem.

Ähhh ...where is the error console...? about:??? I'm blind at the moment...

But I found "extensions.log" where the same info seems to be:

Code: Select all

2012-07-19 10:37:58 ERROR addons.xpi: Error during startup file checks, rolling back any database changes: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80520015 (NS_ERROR_FILE_ACCESS_DENIED) [nsIPrefService.savePrefFile]"  nsresult: "0x80520015 (NS_ERROR_FILE_ACCESS_DENIED)"  location: "JS frame :: resource:///modules/XPIProvider.jsm :: XPIDB_openConnection :: line 4351"  data: no] at resource:///modules/XPIProvider.jsm:4351
2012-07-19 10:37:58 ERROR addons.manager: Exception calling provider startup: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE) 

a.s.o.

Unfortunately I'm not able to decode what that means... a JS issue?

[mausebaer]

But I have one more idea...
There is a directory "c:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Extensions\" which is also empty. I'll be trying to have there a copy of {d10d0bf8-f5b5-c8b4-a8b2-2b9879e08c5d}.xpi, maybe then it works...

No, it doesn't work. But what surprise, FF transferred the
"c:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Extensions\{d10d0bf8-f5b5-c8b4-a8b2-2b9879e08c5d}.xpi"
to a directory
"c:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Extensions-BackupByFirefoxPortable\{d10d0bf8-f5b5-c8b4-a8b2-2b9879e08c5d}.xpi"
and
"c:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Extensions\" is empty again...

Very, very strange....

[ultimate-tester]

Okay you just made sure that you are having the same problem as I am. Welcome to the team

The error console can be opened by pressing CTRL + SHIFT + J. Not only will it output firefox problems, but also website problems.
You might want to set your default homepage to be "about:blank" and then restarting firefox. This way you assure yourself that you won't get any output from websites, but pure output of the extensions.

The error you posted has to do with this bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=644856
It is an older log showing something went wrong during the update of one of your extensions but has as far as I know nothing to do with our actual problem.

[Juxxize]

Hi, I hope I'm posting in the correct section, my issue seems the same as the other posts, my issue is everyday when i start up my PC ad-block is disabled , ( the little red ad-block icon isn't where it should be next to my tabs) I don't notice till ads start popping up. When I go into my add-ons page it shows as add block enabled but it isn't so I have to disabled it and re-able it then it works fine till the next time I shut my PC down. The work-around works but it is abit of a pain in the neck so it would be great if it could be fixed
I'm on Firefox 14 now but I had this issue on Firefox 13 aswell , Windows 7/ 64bit .Also a few days ago I used the Firefox re-set option in the hope that using a clean version of Firefox and a fresh installation of Ad-block my solve the issue but it didn't. Also I don't have the ask toolbar .

[ultimate-tester]

Hello and welcome to the club. You are having the same problem as we are all having.
Although this seems to be the correct section to report the bug, it isn't. The correct section would be in the Bugs Section of the official Mozilla Firefox site/forum.

So far there have been found 2 work-a-rounds and one of them can be performed automatically.

1) Manually re-enable the addon by going to "about:addons" in your url bar and press disable. Press enable immediately after this.
2) Update the "last changed" timestamp of the extension. You can do this manually by opening it with by for example notepad, and then saving it without making changes.
There is software that can change/update the timestamp automatically. You'd have to read the manual of such software, but if you read a few posts back, someone explained how to do such thing automatically.

[mausebaer]

Manually re-enable the addon by going to "about:addons" in your url bar and press disable

That's the standard action to start ABP... But that's the boring one.

Update the "last changed" timestamp of the extension

I did that already, with the software you mentioned. But it didn't help...

But I installed the addon "Error Console 1.0" to see what's going on.
Surprisingly the ADP issue disappeared for a couple of days after installation of the Error Console, so I actually wanted to give the reccommendation to install thiss as workaround... but now I have the issue again.

[ultimate-tester]

The error console isn't an addon you have to install. It's built into Firefox already!

You can simply press CTRL + SHIFT + J to get the error console. Don't expect wonders from it. It simply does what it says it does: Print errors to the console.