Plugin check is happening with each start up

[Frank Lion]

Frank - I still think that this has been triggered in some way by the latest update to Adobe Reader.

Possible. However, with the existing 5 or 6 existing locked threads on this problem containing not much more than vague threats and moaning (as though they are complaining about a pair of ill-fitting trousers, rather than complex computer programs) then it's hard to tell. Almost none have thought to list their plugins!

Certainly https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=514327 is the route path (been around a couple of years) that makes this possible at all, but whether one rogue plugin (Acrobat?) can trigger Quicktime and others to act up, is not clear.

For sure - disabling plugins will not stop this problem, only renaming the actual offending plugin.dll will and, whatever this problem is, it started suddenly very recently.

Non-technical users are advised to follow this - viewtopic.php?p=10896941#p10896941 until the picture becomes clearer.

[James]

Btw ~ Could 'Guests' use some sort of username? It's hard to know if I'm replying to the same guy or lots of guys.

The Guest on page one is same one based on IP.

[Looking In]

Frank - I still think that this has been triggered in some way by the latest update to Adobe Reader.

I have no intention of installing that particular bit of hideous bloatware, as I'm quite happy with Foxit 5 and have suspicions that Adobe screws that up as well if installed alongside it.

So, does anybody who has the problem not have Adobe Reader installed?

I don't have Adobe Reader and I am having the problem.

[Modaquitaine]

Hello,
Obviously there is a problem with plugin check FF 4.0. : on this forum, topics have proliferated to the same conclusion.
PluginCheck FF 4.0 does not work properly: he is unable to find updates on vulnerabilities in Adobe, Flash and Java;
there are many failures ;
Requires that the Mozilla Foundation responds to all this if not everyone will migrate to Chrome (it's starting to be seen in Europe): updates plugins are automatically sealed in chrome, including flashplayer!

[malliz]

See what you fail to realise is that Fx4 has been out for some time without the reported problems so something outside Firefox is throwing this error.
Also you should also know that we are not Mozilla so it is pointless getting on your high horse demanding things from us.
http://www.mozillazine.org/about/

[Frank Lion]

Obviously there is a problem with plugin check FF 4.0. : on this forum, topics have proliferated to the same conclusion.
PluginCheck FF 4.0 does not work properly

Obviously there is a problem with your reading: this problem is impacting on Firefox 3.6 as well.

Requires that the Mozilla Foundation responds to all this

A plugin list from you? No, a somewhat obvious 'something must be done!' post. *sigh*

[Modaquitaine]

In this case, I do not understand why the topic "plugin check" has been closed since it is apparently impossible to convey in this forum difficulties about plugin check "FF 4!
The topic viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2223329 was also closed...

Regards

[Vitesse]

Modaquitaine: the idea is to put all the information in one place.

There's also a unified thread at Mozilla Support. They are reporting that many people have solved this by uninstalling a plugin called Viewpoint Media Metastream. This is not a solution for everybody, but it is being narrowed down to a problem caused by Adobe Reader and/or QuickTime.

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/832793

[the-edmeister]

i did that, frank... so when i restarted FF, i got 2 tabs, homepage and a blank tab

Thanks. Can you now seek out plugins.update.notifyUser in about:config and toggle it to False (right click entry) if it is showing True and restart and see what we have? Do bear in mind that this is a Firefox 4+ problem (I think?) so don't use the 3.6.17 version you have showing in your post's UA string. Test with FF4+.

One thing for sure, this is a Firefox problem, not a plugin problem - those old, un-updated plugins that people have that seem to trigger this have, by definition, been sitting there for ages without causing any problems like this. In my view, tracking down those old plugins and eliminating them, is not the right way of looking at this one.

At about 0800 GMT 06-11-2011 I looked at the threads about this issue at SUMO and found that 8 out of 10 OP's were using 3.6.17 and only 2 were using 4.0.1. Of those ten OP's, 7 had the MetaStream 3 Plugin r4 (which uses a DLL from Viewpoint Media) listed as installed, and that one plugin was confirmed by a number of users (06-11-2011 like 1600GMT and later) as being their cause of the Plugin Check page appearing.

I figure that "something" was triggered Friday afternoon by Mozilla before they went home for the weekend, leaving "us" to deal with this crap until Monday. (Reminds me of a similar Friday "event" back in December [IIRC] when an update was turned on and all hell broke loose over the weekend. Since then updates have been turned on earlier in the week, like on a Tuesday or Wednesday.)

How the hell do they trigger the "detection mode"?
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=514327

Is there anyway a "switch" is triggered in the users PC via the blocklist.xml file??
I see that a few of my Profiles received an updated blocklist.xml file on 06-11-2011, but by the time I really got into trying to figure this problem out yesterday I had been up for 18 hours already and didn't have the energy to compare various blocklist.xml files and look for a "trigger". After getting up today I can't even remember which 3.6 Profile I used to get that Plugin Chack page to appear for me after toggling the pref to true - I have too damn many Profiles on this PC.

I checked like 16 Profiles for 3.6.x and 4.0.1 and none of them displayed that Plugin Check page, but the first thing I do with every new Profile is to disable all "updates" via about:config or with my user.js file - so that might have an affect on the Plugin Check page not appearing for me.


Ed

[Teddington]

It just came out of the blue - I was minding my own business on Friday, when I got this problem.

I have made no changes to Firefox at all, for several mounts - and I have auto updates off.
I am using FF 3.6

So I don't think it's because of anything the user has personally done.

Also, the problem has only been affecting people since Friday 10th June 2011 - not before that date!
So that date must be significant in some way.

All the people, or at least the vast majority of people reporting this problem, are using Firefox 3.6*


I hope some clever person can help us out - because loads of people are asking for help on the Firefox forum.

[Guest]

One thing I have noticed is that the problem can go away initially.

However, if I go to Flash Player 'Website Storage Settings panel' and 'delete all sites' the problem returns immediately I close and re-open Firefox.

It even happens if no sites are listed to be deleted.
If I hit 'delete all sites' the problem always returns, immediately on re-opening Firefox.

http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html

[Teddington]

BTW, my add-ons are:

Adobe Acrobat 9.00.332
iTunes Application Detector 1.0.0.0
Quicktime Plug-in 7.1.6.200 7.16.200
Shockwave Flash 10.3.181.22
Windows Presentation Foundation 3.5.30729.1


However my set-up as been the same for many months without any problems - until Friday.

And I've only just updated Shockwave Flash, to see if it would help with this problem - but it did not.

[teoli2003]

The Quicktime you have is an insecure version. You should update it.

[Alice]

Maybe Mozilla updated what information is added to blocklist.xml and that triggered the Plugin Check? I checked a blocklist.xml file dated 3/5/2011 (from unused Firefox 3.6 profile) for the viewpoint entry, and it shows this:

<pluginItem>
<match name="filename" exp="npViewpoint.dll"/>
<versionRange>
<targetApplication id="{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}">
<versionRange minVersion="3.0" maxVersion="*"/>
</targetApplication>
</versionRange>
</pluginItem>


I then checked my blocklist.xml dated 6/12/2011 (from a currently used Firefox 4 profile) and it shows this:

<pluginItem blockID="p32">
<match name="filename" exp="npViewpoint.dll" /> <versionRange severity="0">
<targetApplication id="{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}">
<versionRange minVersion="3.0" maxVersion="*" />
</targetApplication>
</versionRange>
</pluginItem>


I'm thinking that new information added to the file, <pluginItem blockID="p32"> and/or <versionRange severity="0"> triggered the Plugin Check page. I don't know when this was added to the blocklist.

[Oma1942]

Could it have something to do with this? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=514327

Bug 514327 - Detect outdated plugins and offer upgrade path - Modified: 2011-06-09 08:52 PDT

EDIT: see that the link was already posted.