For those whose Firefox didn't automatically fix itself

[sonia]

My addons did not automatically start working again after Firefox automagically disabled them all (and doesn't it give me pause that that can happen!), so I dug into it.

I found a blog post explaining that they used the "studies" feature as a hot fix delivery mechanism. I had disabled it, since I don't want anyone messing with my browser behind my back (AHEM!). In the comments for the post there is a direct link to the hot fix so you don't have to mess with enabling studies and then waiting up to 6 hours for the hot fix to apply itself and then remember to disable it again. I suppose it was a risk to go ahead and install that, but so far so good.

My addons work again. For now. I remember when I owned the computer and the software on it, and it kept functioning until I decided to change something. MUTTERS. A LOT.

Comments

[matrixmann]

Tried that too and it only partly worked.
Mainly things like Adblocker, Classic Theme Restorer, Tab Mix Plus - the more important addons - didn't return to a working state.
Biggest contradition, I find, was: The diagnostic tool addons for Adblocker Plus were shown to work, but the main addon not... WTF.

Had it now with that crap and try my luck with Waterfox, as this is known for long to offer support to all addons of the old type that were working no more since Firefox version 57 (or so).

Still, it pisses me off because that "update" came in by surprise and gave me an unnecessary amount of work to do.
Even though I had disabled updates and changes on the browser for long already.

[sonia]

Yeah, I hear you! I looked into Waterfox a while ago, but (ironically!) it didn't run an addon I need, so I didn't switch over.

[matrixmann]

Think I looked into it a while ago, maybe as the last major change with version 57 came up...
But, you may know it yourself - something big needs to happen until you get pissed off so much that you decide to make the switch... (*sigh*)

Too bad, that addon didn't work for you in that program environment.
May I ask what it was? Not that it's a bigger one I'll run into myself, you know.

[silveradept]

I hope there's been a lot of looking around at Mozilla to make sure something like this doesn't happen again, because it's not a good look for them to have something so mission-critical break so easily.

[sonia]

... yeah. That's a good thought. I suppose it's better if it was an accident than if they did it on purpose and then thought better of it.