FF55 and DownThemAll!

[ianas]

I'm having a strange issue with dta, after upgrading to FF55 there is no window border for dta
https://imgur.com/F4jtzzQ
which makes dta unmovable and unclosable
I read somewhere that dta is dead which is bad news,
my question is is this just me or are other dta users experiencing this on FF55 it worked fine on 54

I guess the only choice for us addon users is to downgrade to FF-esr

ps can somebody recommend a decent download manager for FF (EagleGet and IDM break Firefox image links for me)

[Reflective]

Unless you took the precaution of backing up your profile before installing FF55, you can no longer switch to Firefox ESR. See this Ghacks.net article for details.

[allande]

If you wanted to install Firefox ESR, you could see issues like history not being kept and no favicons. To get Firefox ESR working properly you would need to do one of three things
1. use a <=54 backup profile
2. make a new profile and if copying information to the new profile, do not copy the places.sqlite file. You'll have to get your bookmarks over another way, using an exported bookmarks.html or backup json file. (This article except remember that places.sqlite is a no go.) http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_ ... _-_Firefox
3. This method is discouraged, and it removes ALL your extensions, which if you were willing to do you probably wouldn't need to downgrade anyway - but the "refresh firefox" feature will fix the breakage. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/re ... d-settings

[ianas]

I did do a successful downgrade using Firefox sync (deleted the old profile installed 52-esr reconnected to sync and got most of my settings back only the prefs I set in prefs.js wore gone but I redid them)
but then I found out this bug only occurs on some win7 systems not win10 or Linux so I installed 55 again as the dta devs did respond that they may fix things
https://github.com/downthemall/downthemall/issues/245

[c627627]

In at least three threads I asked if there were any other issues that anyone ever noticed besides just the cosmetic (favicons being reset, but are rebuilt immediately after you visit the same site) and of course reset of your browser history.

None of those two issues meet the definition of "You cannot downgrade Firefox 55 profiles".

If there are other issues, maybe someone else can post what they are, I would like to find out too. To be clear, of course it's "better" to not downgrade but I am having trouble finding a single legitimate reason to say it "can't be done". Simply resetting browsing history and favicons, both of which are rebuilt automatically from then on, is just not big enough deal to say "it can't be done".
Other things could be a bigger deal, but what are they?

[mightyglydd]

In at least three threads I asked if there were any other issues that anyone ever noticed besides just the cosmetic

And now you've trolled a fourth, are you under the misguided impression the any two users not using a vanilla untouched install have EXACTLY the same profile..

[Mark12547]

If there are other issues, maybe someone else can post what they are, I would like to find out too.

To quote from Bug 1357428 - Profiles used with Firefox 55 will no longer work with older versions of the browser - Comment 6

Firefox 55 changed the on-disk format of persistent storage in profiles. Once a profile has been used with Firefox 55 (or later), it should not be used with previous versions of Firefox. IndexedDB, the (DOM) Cache API, Service Workers, and the asm.js cache will all fail to operate, generating confusing errors and causing portions of Firefox and some websites to break.

(Emphasis added.)

Part of what isn't enumerated here is the favicons, which is probably the more obvious but also probably the least important part.

Comment 6 of the bug continues with a proposed remedy:

The profile can be made operable again in older versions of Firefox by using the profile "refresh" mechanism.

[mightyglydd]

The profile can be made operable again in older versions of Firefox by using the profile "refresh" mechanism.

Yep.. which has been mentioned here many times.

[c627627]

Thank you very much Mark12547 for posting that.

May I ask how is the Refresh mechanism executed?

[TheVisitor]

Thank you very much Mark12547 for posting that.

May I ask how is the Refresh mechanism executed?

Address/URL bar enter: about:support
Upper right corner button - Refresh Firefox

BE advised when doing this you will have re-install any addons you have and/or reconfigure them

[Mark12547]

(And, in Nightly, as of yesterday, you won't even be able to reinstall at least some Legacy extensions, even with extensions.legacy.enabled set to True; AMO will flag those as "This add-on is not compatible with your version of Firefox." and the "+ Add to Firefox" button will be grayed out.)