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ancestry family tree won't open in firefox

  • 2 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
  • 22 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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When I try to open my family tree in Ancestry, instead of opening on the Ancestry website, I get a dialog box that says it is a Firefox HTML file. This never happened when I worked on my Ancestry tree earlier this year. When I click on the "open in Firefox" option, a new page opens but there is no information. Ancestry says that it may be a problem with Firefox. Any suggestions?

When I try to open my family tree in Ancestry, instead of opening on the Ancestry website, I get a dialog box that says it is a Firefox HTML file. This never happened when I worked on my Ancestry tree earlier this year. When I click on the "open in Firefox" option, a new page opens but there is no information. Ancestry says that it may be a problem with Firefox. Any suggestions?

All Replies (2)

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It sounds like something is downloading or getting saved instead of opened within Firefox.

If you are using an old bookmark or link, try starting at the main address of the site and search/click your way to what you're looking for. Does that work any better?

If a site is generally known to work in Firefox, these are standard suggestions to try when it stops working normally:

Double-check content blockers: Firefox's Tracking Protection feature, and extensions that counter ads and tracking, may break websites that embed third party content (meaning, from a secondary server).

(A) The shield icon toward the left end of the address bar usually turns a bit purplish when content is blocked. Click the icon to learn more or make an exception. See: Enhanced Tracking Protection in Firefox for desktop.

(B) Extensions such as Adblock Plus, Blur, Disconnect, DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials, Ghostery, NoScript, Privacy Badger, uBlock Origin or uMatrix usually provide a toolbar button to manage blocked content in a page. There may or may not be a number on the icon indicating the number of blocked items; you sometimes need to click the button to see what's going on and test whether you need to make an exception for this site.

Cache and Cookies: When you have a problem with one particular site, a good "first thing to try" is clearing your Firefox cache and deleting your saved cookies for the site.

(1) Clear Firefox's Cache

See: How to clear the Firefox cache

If you have a large hard drive, this might take a few minutes.

(2) Remove the site's cookies (save any pending work first). While viewing a page on the site, click the lock icon at the left end of the address bar. After a moment, a "Clear Cookies and Site Data" button should appear at the bottom. Go ahead and click that.

In the dialog that opens, you will see one or more matches to the current address so you can remove the site's cookies individually without affecting other sites.

Then try reloading the page. Does that help?

Testing in Firefox's Safe Mode: In its Safe Mode, Firefox temporarily deactivates extensions, hardware acceleration, and some other advanced features to help you assess whether these are causing the problem.

If Firefox is running: You can restart Firefox in Safe Mode using either:

  • "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled
  • (menu bar) Help menu > Restart with Add-ons Disabled

and OK the restart. A small dialog should appear. Click "Start in Safe Mode" (not Refresh).

If Firefox is not running: Hold down the Shift key when starting Firefox. (On Mac, hold down the option/alt key instead of the Shift key.) A small dialog should appear. Click "Start in Safe Mode" (not Refresh).

Any improvement?

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Quote: it is a Firefox HTML file

What kind of file do you get if you download and save the file and open this file in a Firefox tab ?

Is this an HTML or anther file type ?