Filters getting deleted

cvieor · Post by **cvieor** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 5:49 am

All of my filters randomly get deleted. I have to reimport them every once in a while. This only started with 0.7. Any ideas why?

rick752 · Post by **rick752** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 5:57 am

Hmmm... that's a new one.

Is it a subscription import or your OWN filters?

cvieor · Post by **cvieor** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:15 am

Both. My subscription to easylist and my own filters got deleted. I saw someone on the mozilla extension site that had the same problem.

pirlouy · Post by **pirlouy** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 1:24 pm

Then, give all informations which can help. (OS, firefox version,extensions and plugins)

Try to reproduce the problem with a new test (clean) profile, and if you can reproduce it easily, you can open a bug (with all informations) here:
http://adblockplus.mozdev.org/bugs.html (like that, the dev won't forget)

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 1:39 pm

cvieor wrote:Both. My subscription to easylist and my own filters got deleted. I saw someone on the mozilla extension site that had the same problem.

Don't know if this means anything, but do you have an older version of Adblock still installed?
Sounds like there is something happening to the patterns.ini file.

rick752 · Post by **rick752** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 1:40 pm

login: my post above

cvieor · Post by **cvieor** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 4:49 pm

No, just 0.7 is installed.

rick752 · Post by **rick752** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 5:33 pm

Sounds like one for Wladimir to figure out.

What would be interesting, the next time that they disappear, is to see if your "adblockplus/patterns.ini" file in your Firefox profile still has any filter information in it.

Master X · Post by **Master X** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 6:15 pm

There are automatically generated at least 5 backups of the patterns.ini. So at least there should be something...

If there is nothing, perhaps you have a problem with your rights.

cvieor · Post by **cvieor** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 8:08 am

Just happened again, sigh.

Wladimir Palant · Post by **Wladimir Palant** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 8:33 pm

As pirlouy already pointed out I need additional information - browser version, operating system. And yes, please check the directory adblockplus in your Firefox (?) profile next time this happens - is it there? What files are there? What size?

ryncar · Post by **ryncar** » Sat Jul 08, 2006 10:14 pm

I just had this exact same problem with my filters randomly deleting themselves in adblock plus 0.7.1. I did a search and this thread seems to be the only one I found dealing with this topic. I have no idea what caused this bug, so I know I couldn't intentionally reproduce it.

This is the first time this has happened and it occured randomly while I was using Firefox today. No specific site caused it (since I was just browsing my normal sites when I saw ads and pop-ups suddenly reappear).

I tried re-blocking some of the ads immediately after I saw the problem, but the filters weren't working. I would create a filter, see it in the main adblocked list, then go to block another... but when I clicked for the next filter, the list had deleted itself again. I just tried using the filter again and it seems to be behaving normally now (this about 10 minutes or so after the original problem, without having restarted the browser).

I am not using any subscription type filters - everything in the list were ones I added. I also checked, and I only have the newest version of adblock plus installed.

Okay, here are the system specs:
Windows XP Pro, (up to date, SP2)
Firefox 1.5.0.4
No themes
No plug-ins

Extensions:
Download Manager Tweak 0.7.1
Session Saver .2 dl * nightly 31
Adblock Plus 0.7.1
IE View 1.2.7
ColorZilla 0.8.3.1
undoclosetab 20051204
Fission 0.8.5
Bookmark All 1.2.1
Talkback 1.5.0.4

All of my extensions are the most recent versions (according the the extension update manager).

I went and checked the patterns.ini file, and the most current one is only 1 kb. The backup files are: 10 kb for patterns-backup1.ini, and 8kb for patterns-backup3, 4, and 5. There is no backup2... not sure if that's relavent or not.

If you need any other information, just let me know... hopefully I've covered everything that might be useful.

rick752 · Post by **rick752** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 1:25 am

I don't know if this will do anything, but let me try to be a little more specific about an above post.

With Firefox closed, try doing a search for your "prefs.js" file in you Firefox profile. Make a backup copy. Open the original 'prefs.js' with a text editor (like Notepad) and delete any lines in it that start with "adblock". If you've ever used an older Adblock, there should be a small group of lines near the very top of the list .... one will usually contain old filter strings from a previous version. Delete all of the lines (but only within that group). There are "adblockplus" ones that ARE used down below ... don't delete those if adblock plus is installed.

If you have never used a 0.5 version of Adblock/Adblock Plus then there is no need to look. These lines are un-used in Adblock Plus 0.7 .... they are leftover from older Adblock versions. It could be some oddball conflict.

I have asked a couple of people about doing this on posts in different forums and the topics have ended at that point. I don't know if it worked or if it didn't!

If you try this, please relay your results back to us here. Thanx

ryncar · Post by **ryncar** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 3:09 am

I just checked, and I only have references to adblockplus (nothing from adblock alone), so it doesn't seem like the conflict is caused by that.

Thank you for your suggestions though! I want to try and prevent this from happening again, so any ideas are helpful

ryncar · Post by **ryncar** » Sun Jul 16, 2006 12:37 am

It just happened again - all my filters are gone. When I checked the backups both the patterns.ini and the patterns backup 1 files were back down to 1 kb (while all the other backups were still at 10kb).

I had opened a folder from my bookmarks all at once (middle clicked the folder, so I had about 10ish tabs open at the same time), and all the pages had banner advertisements. Looking at the pages some have ads and some do not... but I'm not sure if that's because the filters slowly disappeared as the pages opened, or if the pages with no ads were from the few I had blocked using just firefox.

Could it be a setting or one of my other extensions that's causing a conflict? While this is only the second time this has happened, I've never had this problem until I upgraded to the newest adblock. While I've kept everything upgraded, I haven't actually gotten any new filters in about 2 months, so if it is a conflict, it would have to have been caused by an upgrade (rather than by a new extension).

I'm not sure what other information would be helpful at this point, but if there's any other info you need please let me know.