Search icons gone after update to FF68

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tomri
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Joined: November 18th, 2004, 3:30 am

Re: Search icons gone after update to FF68

Post by tomri »

Bad luck: after restarting FF one more time; the same 3 out of 12 icons were gone again. I then restored an old version of search.json.mozlz4 from a backup. On first start, all icons there; on second start: the same 3 icons gone again. So it if FF who removes them. I'm giving up for now and hope for upstream to change their code, maybe they fix it just accidentally. ;-)
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Diorser
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Joined: June 22nd, 2005, 6:57 am

Re: Search icons gone after update to FF68

Post by Diorser »

The root cause with lost extension icons seems to be that some extension do not embed their icon, but looking for an external icon.
Example for language pack: looking for https://addons.cdn.mozilla.net/static/i ... ult-32.png

When the icon is lost, the solution is to download the icon for example in the extension folder and edit extensions.json by replacing
https://addons.cdn.mozilla.net/static/i ... ult-32.png by default-32.png.

There is something wrong with these lost icons.
The rule should be that Search engines or extensions should include their icons, instead of looking for external icons.
Brummelchen
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Joined: March 19th, 2005, 10:51 am

Re: Search icons gone after update to FF68

Post by Brummelchen »

if you speak about the plugin symbol - please wait until firefox 69, the issue is resolved.
i use my own extensions and dictionary and those had no icon until beta 5. regular installations have a symbol and is loaded from amo itself.
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Diorser
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Re: Search icons gone after update to FF68

Post by Diorser »

I don't expect to use Fx69.
Will stick to 68 ESR, because Fx69 will have his own new bugs which will be fixed in Fx70, and so on and so on.

The reasonable rule would really be to request the extension icons to be integrated in the xpi file because it is simply ridiculous to request a network connection to get an icon for a local file.
Never have had this problem before.
Brummelchen
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Re: Search icons gone after update to FF68

Post by Brummelchen »

lol funny dude using a security hole, good luck and better answer next time.
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James
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Re: Search icons gone after update to FF68

Post by James »

Diorser wrote:I don't expect to use Fx69.
Will stick to 68 ESR, because Fx69 will have his own new bugs which will be fixed in Fx70, and so on and so on.
But what if Fx 68.0 has bugs that was fixed in Fx 69.0

ESR only gets security and allowed stability fixes that keeps it stable. So even if they could fix a issue(s) in 68 ESR they may not until 69.0 and on.
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Diorser
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Joined: June 22nd, 2005, 6:57 am

Re: Search icons gone after update to FF68

Post by Diorser »

James wrote:But what if Fx 68.0 has bugs that was fixed in Fx 69.0
ESR only gets security and allowed stability fixes that keeps it stable. .
Debian stable is currently using Firefox ESR 60.8.
If estimated mature enough, the next one should be 68 ESR, i believe may be in October.
Let's hope Linux packagers are clever enough to identify what should be solved before releasing next ESR.
https://www.mozilla.org/media/img/firef ... 8f2dd1.png
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therube
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Re: Search icons gone after update to FF68

Post by therube »

Security hole or not, he is correct that there is no longer stability in "releases".
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
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James
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Re: Search icons gone after update to FF68

Post by James »

therube wrote:he is correct that there is no longer stability in "releases".
No I did not say that.
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therube
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Re: Search icons gone after update to FF68

Post by therube »

(Diorser alluded to Quantum being in a perpetual state of BUG. Brummelchen mentioned the security aspect [due to not updating].)
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
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jscher2000
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Re: Search icons gone after update to FF68

Post by jscher2000 »

Diorser wrote:The root cause with lost extension icons seems to be that some extension do not embed their icon, but looking for an external icon. ... The rule should be that Search engines or extensions should include their icons, instead of looking for external icons.
Each of the XPI's for the built-in search engine extensions in Firefox 68 includes a favicon.ico file. The search.json.mozl4 file has a moz-extension:// link to that file, instead of importing the data of the icon. That introduces some fragility.

A moz-extension:// path may become obsolete if the internal unique ID of the extension changes.

I was testing a policy file to "uninstall" search engine plugins (thread) and that could be one reason that all of the icons were blanked out in a test profile even after removing the policy and seeing the search engines return. Hiding search.json.mozlz4 and letting Firefox regenerate the file solved it, and the paths changed to reflect the current internal IDs.

Old Bing icon path: moz-extension://06efe612-ba53-411c-8836-2bec914add4f/favicon.ico

New Bing icon path: moz-extension://4b8dd75f-e83c-4e68-b31a-de2674d6af0f/favicon.ico

(I have a page I use to decompress the file: https://www.jeffersonscher.com/ffu/searchjson.html)

However, I don't know what would trigger an internal ID change under normal circumstances. Firefox probably should check for that around startup.
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Diorser
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Re: Search icons gone after update to FF68

Post by Diorser »

Anyway, I don't lose the icons anymore for some days. Not sure of the chronology, due to different Fx releases / new profiles.
I have seen some time ago 2 icon lines in search.json.mozlz4, then confusing.
"_iconURL":
"_icon":

Now I see only "_iconURL": with icon converted in "_iconURL": data:image/x-icon;base64,AAABA.... " , then correct.
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dickvl
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Re: Search icons gone after update to FF68

Post by dickvl »

If you disable an extension then it loses its GUID and a new GUID is generated when you enable the extension.
That is also why there was dataloss when extensions got disabled due to the expired intermediate certificate.

I don't think that disabling search engines via policies.json is supported.
Normally you hide search engines by excluding them from "visibleDefaultEngines" set as you can see in lists.json
resource://search-extensions/
resource://search-extensions/list.json
tomri
Posts: 43
Joined: November 18th, 2004, 3:30 am

Re: Search icons gone after update to FF68

Post by tomri »

Several FF releases later and the problem is still there. I just reiterated the following attempt to repair:
- exited FF
- deleted search.json.mozlz4
- restarted FF
Result: 6 search engines that I believe must be the default were restored and all were showing their favicon.
I then exited FF once more. After restarting it, all 6 search engines were without icon.

Attempts to also delete extensions.json ultimately led to a state where FF would not display any *extension* icon in the toolbar, no matter how often I reinstalled individual extensions. This situation could not be fixed by restoring the original extensions.json, which I had kept. So I assume going this route is not a good idea. It did not seem to have any positive effect on the search favicon problem.

I should add that I never added search engines through extensions. I once edited the search.json.mozlz4 by hand using the Extension "mozlz4-edit". Thus it is possible that I introduced issues into the file. Now since deleting that file does not solve the problem, I must assume that FF keeps state related to search engines somewhere else. But where?
kerft
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Joined: January 30th, 2019, 9:38 am

Re: Search icons gone after update to FF68

Post by kerft »

Since this is not reported as a common problem, a fix should be:
Backup your profiles.
In case you edited omni.ja or anything in program files \ mozilla firefox , uninstall and reinstall the firefox program.
Make a new profile and do not touch search.json.mozlz4 at all. Then recover some files if needed from an old profile to the new profile. This describes files http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_ ... _-_Firefox Do not restore search.json.mozlz4 .

You do not use Firefox portable, correct?
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