I run Portable Firefox on 3 PC's and sync the Profile directories between them.
Each time, just after a sync, I start up firefox it has lost any Add-on updates that have been applied since I changed to 4 from 3.6. If I then update Add-ons and restart then everything is fine until I swap to another PC and the same happens again.
Has anyone got any ideas where to look?
On all 3 PC's the install directory of the Portable Apps are the same
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Why don't you just put Firefox Portable on your flash drive. Aren't you defeating the point by having separate copies on each computer? Doing it this way should solve the problem.
Second question: are they all version 4 or are some version 3.6? If they are all version 4, this might solve the problem.
Also some add-ons only work on one version, though I've never seen one that won't work on 3.6, but will work on 4.
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
My use of Google indicates that I am insane.
all are the same version
I find it slow running direct from the flash drive so sync to the HDD on my work PC and Laptop and my personal machine.
If I run on the same PC without copying then the issue never occurs, its only after syncing the profile (and I have tried the whole Firefox portable folder as well). I was just wondering if there's anything outside of the portable folder that's getting left behind
could you tell us what addons it is all concerning?
and how do they loose updates? You mean that simply the version they were initially installed will remain active and operational but any updates which came later not?
Or will simply the version before last update be here and active, but not the current one?
If it is most extentions, then those are simply files in the profile but may need entries in config as well.
If it is plugins, well this is different, they can be local, in fact they are all initially. One can copy some of them to the portable profile, but this is different story.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland
Flashgot v1.2.8.5
InFormEnter v0.5.5.9
WebMail Notifier v2.7.6
Download Statusbar v0.9.8
Embedded Objects v2.8
All appear disabled when I sync to another PC, check for updates and they apply OK, to the current version of the add-on. If I then copy to another PC then they have the same issue, add-ons disabled.
I will check tomorrow if the versions roll back to older ones or not after a copy of the firefox folder as I have not noted the versions until now.
they all have the same version as the updates? so I don't understand why it shows the add-in is not compatible with Firefox 4 every time I copy the Firefox folder between PC's
mostly when the whole folder was moved, but this is then partially due to changed path.
But number of extensions seems to be quite touchy, I noticed that even when moved just to other stick with the same path, some extensions were inactive, but become active upon 'update'.
I noticed, that by the 'update' which is in fact not an update at all, the kind of cryptic names the folders containig extension have will change for what ever reason.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland
You noted that your version numbers didn't change after the "update", this means that the "update" is only a Compatibility Update. As such this has already been reported Here, though you might want to point out in the thread that it's a problem for you without a Path Change too.
As a workaround, you could dig into the
FirefoxPortable\Data\profile\extensionsfolder and find which of the .xpi files for the offending extensions (open them in 7-Zip select install.rdf, right-click it, and click "Edit", and find them by looking at the "<em:name>[Extension Name]</em:name>" tag), and edit the "<em:maxVersion>[Version.number].*</em:maxVersion>" value to say "<em:maxVersion>4.0.*</em:maxVersion>".Note: Although 7-Zip can open read and write
*.zipfiles, it seems to have some difficulty with writing to pre-existing ones when they're named*.xpi, so you may need to rename the*.xpifiles to*.zip(perhaps make a copy and keep the original as a backup in case this workaround somehow screws something up [which it never has for me]) then open it with 7-Zip, Edit theinstall.rdf, and rename them back to*.xpi~3D1T0R
Thanks for the help, I will try to modify the xpi files as suggested.
I have double checked and I did state in my original message that the Portable Apps directories were the same path on all computers.
I saw that you stated that, thus I was suggesting that you make sure that the thread which is already being tracked as a [Bug] gets the information that this bug is occurring when only the Drive-Letter is changed (or is the Drive-Letter the same between these computers too?), and thus is not a Path-Change specific problem.
~3D1T0R
It's much easier to do in the browser than in the xpi files.
Either create a boolean variable
extensions.checkCompatibility.4.0set to false inabout:config, or install the Nightly Tester Tools addon and turn on its "force addon compatibility" switch.I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.
“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1
The about:config entry for disabling the Compatibility Check should also work if you type it correctly, but I didn't know they'd added the version number on the end, thus when I last tried it, it didn't work :O.
And it had been so long since Nightly Tester Tools had been updated that I had given up on it, good to see it's up-to-date again. (*installing*)
(and it's hard to tell someone "You can install an add-on that lets you disable the Compatibility check, but you'll have to edit it to make Firefox think it's compatible before you can install it, THEN you can use it to tell Firefox not to check if add-ons are compatible.")
~3D1T0R
Download the Add-on Compatibility Reporter here
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
My use of Google indicates that I am insane.
This issue is now fixed in the new 5.0 release. Please refer to this bug report for additional details: https://portableapps.com/node/27310
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!