Upgrade problems

[slipkidder]

Hoping someone can help me.

My laptop (not this PC) was running Firefox v 38.0.5.

I needed to access a website for healthcare reimbursements (long story) which appeared to not be working correctly so I decided to try upgrading Firefox to the latest. I first made a restore point on my PC in case things did not work out (I am running XP btw - and I have NO OPTION to upgrade that so please don't hassle me about running an old O.S.).

After doing the upgrade I found it made no difference to the website, it still failed in the same bizarre ways. So the upgrade got me nothing there. Oh well.

But here is the BIG problem. ALL of my FIREFOX addons were DISABLED after the upgrade because of some kind of "unable to verify" this addon type status (never saw this b4). I don't have a lot of addons but the ones that I DO HAVE I need - EG: noscript, adblocker, and one that I PAID for which allows downloading of youtube videos (and it worked GREAT).

At that point I decided to back out the upgrade by restoring my PC to the point b4 I did the upgrade so I can at least be back how things were until I get enough time to figure all this out with newer Firefox version.

But now Firefox will not run at all. Clicking on the exe after the restore does NOTHING.

Is there anything I can do to get back to where I was b4?

If not can I install the new Firefox again BUT then HOW do I get my addons working??

Thanks for any clues.

[DanRaisch]

You can't run the latest version of Firefox (60.0.1) under Win XP. The last version of Firefox that can run under that OS is version 52ESR -- https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/o ... ll/#legacy

Close all applications and reboot the computer.
Delete any downloaded or partially downloaded installer files.
Clear the browser cache (of whatever browser you are using to download FF) and the Windows Temp directory.
Download a new copy of the full installer from https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/o ... ll/#legacy
Delete the directory C:\Program Files (X86)\Mozilla Firefox
Run the installer.

Uninstalling and reinstalling the application itself has absolutely no impact on your Profile, which is where saved preferences like your home page, extensions, and user selected settings reside, and where most problems arise.

[slipkidder]

You can't run the latest version of Firefox (60.0.1) under Win XP. The last version of Firefox that can run under that OS is version 52ESR -- https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/o ... ll/#legacy

Close all applications and reboot the computer.
Delete any downloaded or partially downloaded installer files.
Clear the browser cache (of whatever browser you are using to download FF) and the Windows Temp directory.
Download a new copy of the full installer from https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/o ... ll/#legacy
Delete the directory C:\Program Files (X86)\Mozilla Firefox
Run the installer.

Uninstalling and reinstalling the application itself has absolutely no impact on your Profile, which is where saved preferences like your home page, extensions, and user selected settings reside, and where most problems arise.

Thanks for your help!! But let me ask some followup questions:

Re: "Delete any downloaded or partially downloaded installer files."

Where do I look for them in order to delete them?


Re: "Delete the directory C:\Program Files (X86)\Mozilla Firefox"

I have no such directory either on C:\Program Files, or D:\Program Files (the D: drive is where I install all applications that allow me to specify where to put them).


Also note, after the upgrade the new version of Firefox ran fine (yet you say it is not supported by XP?). I tried to back it off by using a restore point since installing it broke all of my addons. At which point Firefox now will not run at all.

At this point it sounds like I need to:

- somehow uninstall the Firefox I have now that does not run (?). Or I think I could reverse the restore and go back to the upgraded one that DID run and then uninstall that????

- then try a fresh install but do so with "52ESR? Btw I did not make note of the version that I upgraded to. I simply let the program upgrade itself.

[slipkidder]

Wait a minute.

I just went back and undid my restore, so I could see what version of Firefox upgraded itself to.

It upgraded to 43.0.1.

That sounds as if it should work with XP (which it does). So my problem was NOT due to upgrading to a version that was incompatible with XP at all (as I understand it).

At this point I just want to get my add-ons working again.

According to the messages shown they "could not be verified for use in Firefox and have been disabled".

Is there anyway to OVERRIDE that and let them work anyway (like they used to)???? Or what are my other options here. Sorry if these are stupid questions but I never had these problems b4 with any older upgrades.

[therube]

(2.9.1 was actually a good release, 6 years ago.)
(Don't know why you'd use 38.0.5 when there was a 38.8.0 ESR released.)

Did you backup your Profile prior to starting all of this?
(Don't know if System Restore helps in that regard, & I wouldn't put much faith in it in any case.)

At the least, I would backup what you do have now.

Oh, there probably was an override Pref you could add, but at this point, I don't recall what it was?
(I seem to recall using overrides in SeaMonkey, but then at some point it became unnecessary.)

I'd (after backing up) uninstall as mentioned above.
Then install 38.0.5 (38.8.0).
Create a new Profile.
Copy existing Profile into new (with FF closed).
Open new & see what happens.

(You might be able to update to FF 52 ESR, depending on your XP SP level & CPU's support of SSE2.
Most likely ? the update would be from 38 to 43 [as it went already] to 52.
Again, don't recall as that's all too old to remember.
Depending on the ancient-isity <sp > of your extensions, the upgrade would likely not be of benefit without updating your extensions, so you might be stuck at a 38.)

You could always have a separate "install" of 52 ESR - with a separate Profile, & use that for your troublesome website.

[allande]

The override is in this link: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1101877
It only works if running version 44 or less I think, it should work on 43.

Some things that may break the verification are- if your clock is not set right, or if you do not have sp3 installed on your xp (service pack 3).

[James]

Firefox 53.0 and later Releases on Windows requires Windows 7, 8 (8.1), 10. The only other way you can use a more current release on your system would be to say dual boot with a light Link distro like Xubuntu or Lubuntu among other options that still supports the old 32-bit CPU's. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/en ... -and-vista

Firefox 52.9.0esr out on June 26 will be the last major update for the old 52 ESR branch apart from any minor 52.9.X esr updates for security and or stability fixes deemed necessary.

[slipkidder]

Thanks for the responses. I haven't had any time to come back up here since my last post....

I was able to fix FF already by:

- backing off my restore point to go back to the working FF upgrade version which had broken my add-ons
- removing then re-installing those broken add-ons

Whether I will go any further with upgrading I don't know; I was only trying to get a particular healthcare website to work which would not. But I solved that by installing the latest Google Chrome that works with XP; the website works with that.

Unfortunately I am bound to XP on the PCs I have at home now; & the limited resources of those PCs, limited funds & time on my part, makes it impossible for me to upgrade.

[James]

Chrome, Chromium and Opera dropped support of the old EOL WinXP and Vista OS's back in April 2016 so using Chrome on WinXP is not safe.

The ancient and vulnerable SeaMonkey 2.9.1 version you appear to be posting with came out over six years ago,