security update breaks oldbar and other things

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karenanne
Posts: 630
Joined: September 18th, 2004, 5:16 am

security update breaks oldbar and other things

Post by karenanne »

I have firefox set to not update automatically. So suddenly today it is broken in various ways. And before I started I saw for an instant a checking plugins for compatibility screen, so obviously it had done an update. I see by poking around that it did a security update. Fine. I understand that.

But it broke, among other things oldbar, so now I have this hideous "normal" url bar with suggestions in a giant font. And somehow control plus and control minus are malfunctioning so webpages that normally display well are a mess.'$##@@%^

So I try to figure out how to salvage things. Fortunately I have saved an old copy of Mozilla from Application Data from about a week ago. I disconnect from the Internet, swap that in for Mozilla and start firefox again planning to poke around ro see if I can fix this. However, somehow despite not being connected to the Internet it knows to still wreck things because it does the checking panel and comes up wrecked.

See, this is why I don't update.

What the heck, can I only use chrome now?
Brummelchen
Posts: 4480
Joined: March 19th, 2005, 10:51 am

Re: security update breaks oldbar and other things

Post by Brummelchen »

i dont see any problem when you use the latest esr
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/o ... tions/all/
but i dont know if you will can download it from there using outdated XP.

your description might include that you dont use the esr then you will get the latest build (57.0.3).
take your options for extensions and for firefox itself.
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James
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Joined: June 18th, 2003, 3:07 pm
Location: Made in Canada

Re: security update breaks oldbar and other things

Post by James »

Brummelchen wrote:but i dont know if you will can download it from there using outdated XP.

your description might include that you dont use the esr then you will get the latest build (57.0.3).
take your options for extensions and for firefox itself.
The Firefox 52 ESR is being served to WinXP/Vista users when they download from http://www.mozilla.org, http://www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/ and http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all/

Firefox 53.0 and later will not run on WinXP/Vista.
https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/53.0/releasenotes/
Brummelchen
Posts: 4480
Joined: March 19th, 2005, 10:51 am

Re: security update breaks oldbar and other things

Post by Brummelchen »

i remember a switch for xp machines but i did not try out - assuming the above, since v43. i take my options from file server directly (archive mozilla org).
but i still think she is using not the esr.

providing informations (text, not raw)
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/us ... ix-firefox
karenanne
Posts: 630
Joined: September 18th, 2004, 5:16 am

Re: security update breaks oldbar and other things

Post by karenanne »

What's an esr? I really appreciate the help, but I don't know of what you folks speak - I did not knowingly download anything. I just started firefox as usual, the checking for compatibility panel flashed up for a second, and then firefox started up in wrecked mode.

You think there is some way around this problem?

I am stuck on XP because I have mega expensive peripherals that don't run on later versions. (Most of the time I am not connected to the internet, and I run malwarebytes antimalware often. So far I have not seen signs of infection.)
Brummelchen
Posts: 4480
Joined: March 19th, 2005, 10:51 am

Re: security update breaks oldbar and other things

Post by Brummelchen »

go
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/o ... tions/all/
and click
"learn more"

if some provide you links then some expect you to click and read - any other is pointless.
Vitesse
Posts: 1238
Joined: April 21st, 2011, 6:03 pm

Re: security update breaks oldbar and other things

Post by Vitesse »

Brummelchen, why must you always be so bloody rude abrupt? You may know what ESR means - as do I - but a quick explanation rather than a suggestion just to 'read the links' would have been far more useful.

Karenanne: ESR is short for Extended Support Release. It's primarily designed for 'enterprise use', by companies and organizations which may not wish to update big fleets of older machines to the very latest Firefox version.

However, it is now the only version which supports XP - and your user string at the bottom of your posts shows that you are indeed using it on XP.

Without some more detail, it's difficult to diagnose what might be wrong in your case, but it may be that the enforced update has broken an old extension which you are still running. Your first step should be to open Firefox in Safe Mode and see if that solves the problems. If so, then that gives us something to work with.
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therube
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Joined: March 10th, 2004, 9:59 pm
Location: Maryland USA

Re: security update breaks oldbar and other things

Post by therube »

Go to about:support.
What does, Version show?

Presumably it would be 52.5.3, which would be the 52 ESR branch.

The only change with .3 was a fix for crashes inadvertently sending crash reports so you wouldn't expect that to be the cause of your issues.
Fire 750, bring back 250.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14 Pinball CopyURL+ FetchTextURL FlashGot NoScript
karenanne
Posts: 630
Joined: September 18th, 2004, 5:16 am

Re: security update breaks oldbar and other things

Post by karenanne »

Thanks, Vitesse.

Therube, the version I am running is 52.0.1 (32 bit) according to help about. That panel also says You are currently on the esr update channel.

When I was looking around to see if I had actually blocked updates and I saw that I had, I anyway clicked on the update history list and found this:

Firefox 52.0.1esr (20170316213902)
Security Update
Installed on: December 8, 2017. 6:08:41 PM
Status: The Update was successfully installed.
Brummelchen
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Joined: March 19th, 2005, 10:51 am

Re: security update breaks oldbar and other things

Post by Brummelchen »

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therube
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Location: Maryland USA

Re: security update breaks oldbar and other things

Post by therube »

So suddenly today ... I see by poking around that it did a security update.
Firefox 52.0.1esr ... Installed on: December 8, 2017
It would seem it did not do any type of update (suddenly today).
Fire 750, bring back 250.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14 Pinball CopyURL+ FetchTextURL FlashGot NoScript
karenanne
Posts: 630
Joined: September 18th, 2004, 5:16 am

Re: security update breaks oldbar and other things

Post by karenanne »

therube wrote:
So suddenly today ... I see by poking around that it did a security update.
Firefox 52.0.1esr ... Installed on: December 8, 2017
It would seem it did not do any type of update (suddenly today).
Thanks, I jumped to a conclusion. Now I'm baffled as to what happened. Whatever it was, was in the last 1-3 days. What changed was:

the brief panel about checking plugins was displayed as firefox started (one time only except when I was experimenting with restoring old copies of Mozilla from Application Data)

oldbar failing

oddities in login - where most sites used to automatically fill in the username and password, now they gave an insecure connection warning drop down which I learned how to turn off in about:config by googling, but they still don't fill in automatically, I have to select the (one only) option from a drop down.

Perhaps the oddities in control plus and control minus are related to the zoom level now being displayed in the url bar, which I am guessing is due to oldbar not working.

I was wondering if some addon had updated, but I can't imagine what would mess with the login stuff.

I am getting used to everything except the annoying login change and the magnification mess on some webpages.
allande
Posts: 188
Joined: July 20th, 2017, 11:58 am

Re: security update breaks oldbar and other things

Post by allande »

The insecure connection warning for http login fields was added recently. Go to about:config and set signon.autofillForms.http to true should have them fill in.

The top reviews of oldbar say it has issues with Firefox higher than Firefox 49. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... r/reviews/ Some tweaks are provided to use with userChrome.css for advanced users.
karenanne
Posts: 630
Joined: September 18th, 2004, 5:16 am

Re: security update breaks oldbar and other things

Post by karenanne »

Thanks, allande. But how did the insecure connection warning get added, when I have firefox updates turned off? The latter was the first thing I checked, that's how I saw the security update which as it turned out was not recent but a few weeks ago? I can see security fixes happening despite no updates being set, but could it have happened but not been recorded?

I've been considering myself lucky that oldbar seemed to keep working even though I did see the warnings, but whatever happened broke it. I'll take a look at the tweaks, thanks.
Vitesse
Posts: 1238
Joined: April 21st, 2011, 6:03 pm

Re: security update breaks oldbar and other things

Post by Vitesse »

The insecure connection warning was added on the ordinary Release Channel as part of Firefox 52. I've used third party password managers for years (previously LastPass and now Bitwarden) - those over-ride the Firefox preferences - but as makaiguy mentions in this thread, auto-fill for non-HTTPS logins was also turned off by default in Fx 52, although you can restore it via about:config:

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... &t=3028500
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