Can't add search engines from Mycroft, or uBO filter lists

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agathon66
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Joined: July 7th, 2020, 7:11 pm

Can't add search engines from Mycroft, or uBO filter lists

Post by agathon66 »

Hello,
I suddenly can no longer add search engines from Mycroft, or filter lists for uBO from filterlists.com, in FF 78.0.1 on Win 7 Pro SP1 64-bit.

Thinking my profile had somehow become corrupted, I did a refresh/reset of FF, which did not fix it. Then I uninstalled FF completely with Revo, searched with Everything for all FF/Mozilla-related files/folders and deleted them, then re-booted and re-installed FF 78.0.1 from the full installer I downloaded from the Mozilla website. Still I cannot add search engines from Mycroft or filter lists for uBO. When I click to add a search engine or filter list, nothing happens.

Can someone please help? Thank you!
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DanRaisch
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Re: Can't add search engines from Mycroft, or uBO filter lis

Post by DanRaisch »

No offense, but when you deleted "Everything for all FF/Mozilla related files/folders" did that include the profile folder at C:\Users\<Windows login/user name>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile folder>?
agathon66
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Joined: July 7th, 2020, 7:11 pm

Re: Can't add search engines from Mycroft, or uBO filter lis

Post by agathon66 »

Thanks for your reply. Yes, the profile folder was deleted. Thinking the profile had somehow become corrupted, I wanted to start from scratch as if I was installing FF for the first time.

I have a copy of the profile folder which was deleted, as well as the current profile folder.

Do you have any idea why FF can no longer install search engines from Mycroft or uBO filter lists, and how to fix it? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
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DanRaisch
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Re: Can't add search engines from Mycroft, or uBO filter lis

Post by DanRaisch »

I'm not seeing that issue and haven't seen any other reports on the forums. Does the same thing occur if you launch the application in Mozilla Safe Mode? http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_mode
agathon66
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Re: Can't add search engines from Mycroft, or uBO filter lis

Post by agathon66 »

Hi, thanks for your reply. I think that the same thing occurs in Safe Mode--I think I tried that--but I am not completely sure so I can try again as soon as I have chance. I do note that the problem occurs immediately after installing 78.0.1 and with no extensions or themes or anything extraneous installed.

A little while ago today I used system restore to roll back to before last week's FF 78.0.1 update. Interestingly, the Mycroft problem does NOT occur on FF 77.0.1! However, the filterlists.com problem is there on 77.0.1, and I cannot add filter lists to uBO anymore.

In case it's useful for troubleshooting: the link https://mycroftproject.com/jsreq.html appears in the lower left corner of the browser when I click to install a search engine on Mycroft and nothing happens. And on filterlists.com the link abp:subscribe?location=https...etc. appears when I click to install and nothing happens.

Any idea why nothing is happening when clicking on those types of links? And why it works correctly in 77.0.1 but not in 78.0.1? At this time these are the only clues I can find to work with. Thank you again.
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mightyglydd
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Re: Can't add search engines from Mycroft, or uBO filter lis

Post by mightyglydd »

agathon66 wrote:I think that the same thing occurs in Safe Mode--I think I tried that--but I am not completely sure

It takes 15 seconds, just do it.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_Mode (already posted)
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tr ... -safe-mode

If that doesn't work.

System Restore can corrupt Firefox files.

Try a new test profile. add NOTHING.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Creating_a_ne ... on_Windows
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/pr ... x-profiles
#KeepFightingMichael and Alex.
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jscher2000
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Re: Can't add search engines from Mycroft, or uBO filter lis

Post by jscher2000 »

Firefox 78 finally retired a nonstandard method used by Mycroft and other sites to push a search engine to Firefox. Workarounds:

* Extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addo ... m-mycroft/
* Userscript: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/40575 ... firefox-78 (mine)
agathon66
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Re: Can't add search engines from Mycroft, or uBO filter lis

Post by agathon66 »

Problems still occur in Safe Mode and also when using a new test profile.

@jscher2000: Thanks for the info, extension, and script. I wasn't aware of that search engine change with FF 78.

Any idea why I can no longer add filter lists to uBO, and how to fix that? Never had this problem before.

It seems that the links for filter lists, which begin abp:subscribe?location=https...etc., are not being recognized by FF and/or not associated with uBO. Is there a way to make FF associate links which begin abp:subscribe with uBO?

Thanks to all for the help.
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malliz
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Re: Can't add search engines from Mycroft, or uBO filter lis

Post by malliz »

What security software are you using?
What sort of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.
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agathon66
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Re: Can't add search engines from Mycroft, or uBO filter lis

Post by agathon66 »

"What security software are you using?"

Same as I've always used for years before last week's FF 78.0.1 update when the problem was first detected: Emsisoft, and Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit. Windows 7 built-in Windows Defender is enabled.
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jscher2000
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Re: Can't add search engines from Mycroft, or uBO filter lis

Post by jscher2000 »

agathon66 wrote:It seems that the links for filter lists, which begin abp:subscribe?location=https... etc., are not being recognized by FF and/or not associated with uBO.
There was a change in Firefox 78 affecting novel protocols (like roblox-player: and whatever Microsoft Teams and GoToMeeting use). You could revert the change and see whether this is the issue:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

(2) In the search box on the page, type or paste disj and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the security.allow_disjointed_external_uri_loads preference to switch the value from false to true

Source: https://support.mozilla.org/forums/contributors/714313
dronarron
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Re: Can't add search engines from Mycroft, or uBO filter lis

Post by dronarron »

Seems my suspicion that Mozilla had deprecated something was right, then. (BTW that Mycroft Patch extension you link to claims the change happened back in Firefox 65?) I'm trying Firefox again after years of using Pale Moon as my primary browser and have been chipping away at all the customizations needed to make it more comfortable (I'm still really annoyed there's no Tab Mix Plus or good equivalent anymore). I was perplexed that I couldn't install search engines from Mycroft. I sent them a mail asking about the issue several days ago but haven't received any response. Do you think whoever operates the site is aware of this? As far as I can tell the install links don't work in Chrome either, despite that the site says Chrome supports OpenSearch. "Completely breaks the whole purpose of Mycroft" seems like a major enough issue they'd put up some kind of banner announcement if there were actually anyone home.

On the other topic, FWIW, that about:config preference was set to true by default for me.
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jscher2000
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Re: Can't add search engines from Mycroft, or uBO filter lis

Post by jscher2000 »

dronarron wrote:I sent them a mail asking about the issue several days ago but haven't received any response. Do you think whoever operates the site is aware of this?
I don't know if anyone is reading the emails or cares. I sent them a patch for their site a week before Firefox 78 launched. Crickets.
ccaygill
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Re: Can't add search engines from Mycroft, or uBO filter lis

Post by ccaygill »

jscher2000 wrote:I don't know if anyone is reading the emails or cares. I sent them a patch for their site a week before Firefox 78 launched. Crickets.
Yeah, sorry... there's only one of me and paid employment has distracted from Mycroft...
I've finally put in a first pass fix which just uses an interstitial html page - it may get javascript goodness next...
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jscher2000
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Re: Can't add search engines from Mycroft, or uBO filter lis

Post by jscher2000 »

ccaygill wrote:
jscher2000 wrote:I don't know if anyone is reading the emails or cares. I sent them a patch for their site a week before Firefox 78 launched. Crickets.
Yeah, sorry... there's only one of me and paid employment has distracted from Mycroft...
I've finally put in a first pass fix which just uses an interstitial html page - it may get javascript goodness next...
Thanks so much for that.
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