WebExtensions broken, unable to store or retain data

Discussion of bugs in Mozilla Firefox
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Gingerbread Man
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Joined: January 30th, 2007, 10:55 am

WebExtensions broken, unable to store or retain data

Post by Gingerbread Man »

Symptoms include the options pages and menus of these extensions failing to open, being unable to save any preference changes, or data being discarded after restarting Firefox. If that sounds familiar, be aware it might be caused by having cookies off, using Private Browsing mode or clearing history.

Examples of affected extensions include uBlock Origin 1.14.14, Greasemonkey 4.0a, Referer Control 1.27 and Feedbro 3.30.3.

Bug 1406675 - WebExtension cannot use IndexedDB at all if "Accept cookies from websites" is disabled
Bug 1313401 - Background Page LocalStorage is cleared along with site storage
Bug 781982 - IndexedDB does not function in private browsing mode

The cookie issue can be worked around by creating an exception for the extension, as you would for a website. For instance, if you open uBlock Origin's dashboard, the location bar will show something like this:

Code: Select all

moz-extension://9a86b180-1776-1337-bd69-2ec004f0135f/dashboard.html
That first bit, moz-extension://UUID, minus the folder path and file name is what you use as the exception URL. That string of characters is different for each Firefox profile. If you can't get to the extension's options page, enter about:debugging into the location bar and look for it there.
Last edited by LIMPET235 on November 23rd, 2017, 5:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Made it a sticky...
morat
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Joined: February 3rd, 2009, 6:29 pm

Re: WebExtensions broken, unable to store or retain data

Post by morat »

Firefox 57.0rc1 is out and these bugs are still not fixed.

Instant Translate 4.4.1 affected by bug 1313401.

Sticky thread?
.tommygun.
Posts: 17
Joined: November 6th, 2017, 8:03 am

Re: WebExtensions broken, unable to store or retain data

Post by .tommygun. »

....... when will the Firefox developers finally fix this ?
Apparently this issue was already present before the Firefox Quantum release.
Small, but very annoying issue to me .......

P.S.
Sticky Thread ?
Probably a good idea
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Gingerbread Man
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Joined: January 30th, 2007, 10:55 am

Re: WebExtensions broken, unable to store or retain data

Post by Gingerbread Man »

.tommygun. wrote:....... when will the Firefox developers finally fix this ?
Cookies - Will probably be resolved in Firefox 59.
LocalStorage cleared - It depends on the cookie problem being resolved first. The developer working on that took it over a couple of weeks ago, so I guess he'll start working on this afterwards.
Private Browsing - Most recent patch is 1 year old. The person it's assigned to last participated in the bug report 9 months ago. In short, it's not likely to be fixed any time soon.
.tommygun.
Posts: 17
Joined: November 6th, 2017, 8:03 am

Re: WebExtensions broken, unable to store or retain data

Post by .tommygun. »

....... it's not the reply I was hoping for.
That's the new "Firefox Quantum" browser which is going to take over the competition that doesn't have these particular issues ???
Privacy is top priority - Sounds a bit like a Joke in this case.
Anyway, I'll stick with Firefox but it's a shame isn't it ...?...
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Gingerbread Man
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Re: WebExtensions broken, unable to store or retain data

Post by Gingerbread Man »

Gingerbread Man wrote:Bug 1406675 - WebExtension cannot use IndexedDB at all if "Accept cookies from websites" is disabled
Patch landed December 6th =D>
.tommygun.
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Joined: November 6th, 2017, 8:03 am

Re: WebExtensions broken, unable to store or retain data

Post by .tommygun. »

....... thanks for the news, but the extension in question changed it's name and the developer is asking for cash now.
Even though I liked this add-on (very well done by the way) it doesn't interest me any more.
Still good news that this bug is patched .......
Elhem Enohpi
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Joined: March 19th, 2016, 8:49 am

Re: WebExtensions broken, unable to store or retain data

Post by Elhem Enohpi »

The workaround in the first post isn't effective in all cases. For example, Mate Translate, formerly Instant Translate, the one .tommygun. was talking about. With cookies disabled, it's badly broken, you can't even open its preferences. If you whitelist its "moz-extension://UUID", it sort-of works, you can at least open the preferences, but it still won't do a translation on a page. It only works if cookies are also allowed for the page you're trying to translate - in other words, you have to allow cookies globally, for all sites. I don't know if it's related to actual cookies, or indexedDB, or what.
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Gingerbread Man
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Re: WebExtensions broken, unable to store or retain data

Post by Gingerbread Man »

Mate Translate doesn't work with cookies off in Nightly either, so it's not bug 1406675. I really don't think fetching the current selection from a web page would require cookies, so I'm inclined to think it's a bug in the add-on. Contact the developers at support<at>matetranslate<dot>com and let us know what they say.
Elhem Enohpi
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Joined: March 19th, 2016, 8:49 am

Re: WebExtensions broken, unable to store or retain data

Post by Elhem Enohpi »

I tried already a while ago, they didn't answer. Maybe I'll try again, though it's not so important to me now that S3 Translator is ported to WE.
grahamperrin
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Joined: July 19th, 2009, 3:56 pm

IndexedDB: Mozilla bug 944918

Post by grahamperrin »

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