All (nearly) add-ons / extensions disappear after update to v15 then v16
This has happened to me twice now. After a FF update (first to v15?) all or most add-ons / extensions disappeared, didn't even appear in the menus. (At least I am sure my critical extensions (see below) were missing earlier. It has been awhile.) After trying the solutions posted in various topics I finally gave up and created a new profile. I installed my more critical add-ons, Firebug, Flash Firebug and Restartless restart. Everything was fine until the latest update to 16.0.1. Once again all add-ons disappear, including from the menus. Curiously "clear recent history" also seems to have been missing until I deleted the extension and compatibility files.
Going back to my previous profile, after deleting the extension and compatibility files and reloading FF I see that some add-ons now appear but not my critical ones.
Krejt Përgjigjet (7)
Try reinstalling the add-ons you need to have, and disable compatibility checking. Have you tried updating the add-ons that you want?
Do you still see the folders of all the extensions in the extensions folder in the Firefox Profile Folder?
Did you try to remove the addons.sqlite file as well?
It is possible that there is a problem with the file(s) that store the extensions registry.
Delete the files extensions.* (e.g. extensions.sqlite, extensions.ini, extensions.cache) and compatibility.ini in the Firefox profile folder to reset the extensions registry.
New files will be created when required.
See "Corrupt extension files":
- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Unable_to_install_themes_or_extensions
- https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Unable+to+install+add-ons
If you see disabled, not compatible, extensions in "Tools > Add-ons > Extensions" then click the Tools button at the left side of the Search Bar (or click the "Find Updates" button in older Firefox versions) to check if there is a compatibility update available.
If this hasn't helped then also try to delete the addons.sqlite file.
@finitarry
I have disabled, removed all add-ons so that the extensions folder was entirely empty. I downloaded any of the extensions again and reinstalled add-ons to no effect. FF does not report a compatibility issue. I'm a little unclear how to disable compatibility checking but will look into that tomorrow.
@cor-el
The extensions folder is still there and had all the extensions. After disabling and removing (above) the folder was empty until I reinstalled add-ons.
I deleted the compatibility.ini, extenstions.* and now addons.* files, restarted FF and.... no change. While the add-on show up as installed and enabled they don't even appear in the toolbar menus.
You can check for problems with the localstore.rdf file.
@cor-el,
So... With FF closed I deleted localstore.rdf, compatibility.ini, extenstions.* and addons.* files. Start FF, the files rebuild. No extensions appear so no change.
As a test I created a new profile and added extensions and of course, everything worked fine. Then I got slightly smart and restored the entire profile (and just that profile) from a backed up version before the FF update. Everything works again!
Conclusion: Something in the FF update process corrupted something other than the files we discussed above causing (nearly?) all add-ons to not work. So far it appears that whatever the update changed in the profile was not needed as restoring an older profile version seems to work fine.
It may have been a problem with files in the cache location that Firefox uses to speed up the start.
- C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>\
@cor-el,
Possibly. In any case I have a workaround the next time this happens.
Thanks to you and finitarry for the help.