FireFox AddOns stopped working, they're trying to fix it

[Art Blade]

edit: it's officially fixed.

It disabled ALL addons, specifically important ones like NoScript, so beware!

https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/certificate-issue-causing-add-ons-to-be-disabled-or-fail-to-install/39047/

caitmuenster (Caitlin Neiman) May 4, 2019, 1:43am #1
At about 6:10 PST we received a report that a certificate issue for Firefox is causing add-ons to stop working and add-on installs to fail.

Our team is actively working on a fix. We will update as soon as we have more information.

[BinnZ]

My Adblocker is working properly at the moment as far as I can check. Both Outlook and a popular Dutch Tech site (the latter always complains that I don't allow their commercials ) can't show me advertisements

[Art Blade]

12:50 p.m. UTC / 03:50 a.m. PDT: 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 by going to Firefox Preferences -> Privacy & Security -> Allow Firefox to install and run studies.

You can disable studies again after your add-ons have been re-enabled.

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

[PZ]

I use a minimum of two PCs, one for anything that requires personal information, and on that I only browse to the sites I do business with, and the others for general browsing, I use sacrificial PCs that I do not care about because I do not divulge any personal information.

It is a sad state of affairs when one feels the need to have two computers, one for browsing the Internet, and the other for doing business because of how much fraud, spam, and outright criminal invasion one experiences.

[Art Blade]

  I don't understand the relation between FireFox's addons not working and what you said. I mean I do understand the reason behind having a "business" PC and one for everything else but not in this context. What did you mean?

[mandru]

Killing my perfect 4444 posts with this (was considering retiring from posting) but Firefox has restored all of my add-ons that were pulled off last night including my anti-virus.

So I got that all sorted out now.

[Art Blade]

I did what they suggested and everything worked like before. Still, it was quite a shock when not only dictionary addons and NoScript and uBlock Origins were gone, EVERYTHING was gone. It didn't make sense and I already thought my browser or PC might have been infected.

[fragger]

I was browsing when it happened. A message suddenly popped up saying something about an add-on not being able to be installed, then an ad popped up on You Tube and I was like, "Huh?" My FF theme also reverted to default. A quick perusal of the net revealed what had happened. A while later I used the "studies" fix and everything got restored.

I probably found out first about this prob by dint of my time-zone, which means I'm usually up when all you guys are asleep I don't think there are any other members within eight or nine time-zones of my location. I didn't report on it because I figured by the time you guys were up, they would have either fixed the prob or you'd discover for yourselves as soon as you fired up FF. Wasn't much point in warning you all because you'd have to get online to come here for the warning A sort of Catch-22 situation.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Hopefully you guys get it sorted soon if it isn't already. I use Chrome..... (I know, but eh it's easy)

[Art Blade]

I got chrome and opera installed as secondaries so that was my way around before they fixed FF.

When I "discovered" the bug I was checking this forum. My first thought was, "what if I had been snooping around on an infested site riddled with scripts and whatnot and then BANG, hello, gotcha.."

[mandru]

I too loaded Opera as soon as I realised Firefox had glitched up.

[PZ]

I don't understand the relation between FireFox's addons not working and what you said. I mean I do understand the reason behind having a "business" PC and one for everything else but not in this context. What did you mean?

Not related, but just a thought as I read this topic, since it has to do with Internet security and peace of mind.

[Art Blade]

haha good, thanks

[mandru]

When the Firefox (FF) update in question disconnected all of the Add-Ons I did a bit of digging and from the FF site there was an entire page describing the nature of this bollixed update.  I don't remember the exact click path I used but I found a formal statement that they (FF) were implementing a new heightened technology foundation for their FF product.

What happened was they jumped way out ahead of anyone/everyone trying to crate User Aids when browsing on FF with zero warning of what was going to happen.  In my opinion it seems that the flood of FF user screaming about having their anti-virus software neutered along with all other user protection utilities has caused FF to back off the restrictiveness.


Earlier today I fired up the other side of my dual boot OS to Ubuntu (which is notably slow on updating itself) and was slammed with this miserable kerfuffle all over again with the FF browser dumping all add-ons in Ubuntu.  Now I have to wait for Ubuntu updates to catch up with the times and fix itself. 

Until that happens I don't dare use that whole half of my system again. 

[Art Blade]

that's really crappy what they did. I mean, it really appears to have been updated without prior testing.