After quite a few back and forths with Siber Systems including running their tracer program, I have now figured out why PortableFirefox does not work with RoboForm2Go and unfortunately this is a Firefox Portable issue, not a RoboForm issue.
Portable Firefox sits in a directory called x:\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable and when run from that directory, RoboForm will not attach to the browser. However, there is also an executable buried in x:\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable\App\Firefox
Running THAT executable allows Roboform2Go to work with Firefox Portable perfectly. Unfortunately, running that executable ALSO seems to disable all existing addons and extensions. I am assuming that the FirefoxPortable wrapper does something to enable addons and extensions that are otherwise unavailable in a portable environment.
So the bad news is we now have 2 products that don't play together, and while I hope the standard of each side saying its the other one's problem to fix does not apply here, there we are. Something about "FirefoxPortable.exe" is blocking RoboForm2Go that running "Firefox.exe" from the app directory doesn't.
While a fix would be great, does anyone know of a way to get extensions/addons to still run if one simply runs Firefox.exe from the E:\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable\App\Firefox directory and bypasses the FirefoxPortable.exe? If so, while the problem will not be solved, it will be masked.
Thanks!!
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If you run firefox.exe, you're running Firefox, not Firefox Portable. So it's using a local set of settings just like a locally-installed Firefox would. Roboform2Go is a commercial product that is not in PortableApps.com Format, so we don't support it. If they support Firefox Portable, they'll need to explain to you what the issue is. We'd love for them to be in PortableApps.com Format so that we could properly support it in connection with Firefox Portable as a true portable app.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
John - Thanks. FirefoxPortable USED to work with Roboform2Go until v7.0 of Firefox. Something in the Portable.exe is keeping RoboForm2Go from seeing that firefox is actually running.
If running Firefox.exe is simply running a local copy, then that will not help; i can always just run I/E if I wanted that.
If you ever do elect to look into it, FirefoxPortable is masking. Siber systems ALREADY made a change to Roboform to no longer require it to be "Firefox.exe" to be compatible. Something about the portable.exe is still blocking.
Thanks
Nothing on our end changed that would affect things in any way. We don't mask anything in any way within Firefox. We simply start it using the officially provided command line switches, adjust paths in its internal settings, and then cleanup the bits it leaves behind. Nothing in our launcher changed that would affect RoboForm2Go from version 5 to 6 or later. They could be using a plugin or extension directory that no longer works (for example, Firefox dropped support for the App\Firefox\plugins directory in v5 or 6).
In short, it's a bug in Roboform's product that we can't fix in our launcher. As their product is proprietary and mostly undocumented from a technical perspective, we have no idea how it works or how to fix it. We'd be happy to assist them with it and to get Roboform to be a true portable app, but they have not yet contacted us regarding this. You can feel free to let them know they can contact us regarding this.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Since this thread is the top listing on Google for searching on the problem, I figured I would report how I got it to work. Basically, I took ALL the files from
C:\TEMP\RoboForm\Firefox
(which is where RoboForm2GO dumps its files when it is first run), and copied them all into:
E:\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable\Data\profile\extensions\{22119944-ED35-4ab1-910B-E619EA06A115}
and into
E:\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable\Data\profile\extensions\{22119944-ED35-4ab1-910B-E619EA06A115}\chrome
Once I did that, Roboform2Go attached. I don't know if that 2211etc directory is a standard entry for everyone, or is just something that was injected into my registry, so your mileage may vary. I have reported this solution to the Roboform people in hopes they can figure out what is actually going wrong.