Help me get my leechblock back!

June 9, 2009 7:04 AM

Firefox add-ons have stopped working - help!

Details: two PCs, one desktop, one laptop, both running XP Pro, and Firefox 3.0.10 with the following add-ons installed (on the laptop; the desktop has fewer, but the same problem has arisen):

Adblock Plus (NOT working)
Athens Toolbar (UK academic: working fine)
AVG Safe Search (?)
British English Dictionary (?)
Chatzilla (?)
Dictionnaire HunSpell en Francais (?)
Greasemonkey 0.8.20090123.1 (?)
Java Quick Starter (?)
Leechblock (NOT working)
PC Sync 2 Synchronisation Extension (Nokia phone related - no idea if working or not)
RealPlayer Browser Record Plugin (greyed out with "Not compatible with Firefox 3.0.10" comment: I don't need it, and can't uninstall it as far as I can see).

Those with (?) next to them, I either don't use, don't know what they are or don't care if they are working or not.

Leechblock and Adblock Plus, though, are essential to my working life, and I'd love to be able to use them again. I seem to recall that NoScript (which I don't have installed on the laptop, but I do on the desktop) isn't working either. By "not working" I mean that in the Add-ons menu they appear to be installed and operational - there is a "disable" button by each one - but none of my Leechblocked sites are blocked, and I see all the ads that used to be hidden from me.

I've searched around but can't filter through the information to get to the relevant parts. Can anyone help?

posted by altolinguistic to computers & internet (6 comments total)

You can try disabling them all and turning them on one by one to see if they work that way.

You could also uninstall everything (especially the ones you are not using) and reinstall to see if they work after that.

Do these computers connect with one another? Through a usb port or network folder sharing?
posted by royalsong at 7:08 AM on June 9

no connection between them - I use my desktop for work at home, and my laptop on the road. They both have the latest version of Firefox as far as I know, which makes me wonder if there's something about this upgrade that wrecks these add-ons. However, I haven't managed to find out anything relevant.
posted by altolinguistic at 7:16 AM on June 9

Have you accidentally updated to the v3.5.0 preview release? According to this link the browser will update to that if you do a manual "Check for Updates...", and the 3.5.0 preview probably wouldn't run those addons properly.
posted by SamuelBowman at 10:05 AM on June 9

I'm using 3.0.10 and I've had no problems with add-ons.

It could be a borked profile, but on two computers? Odd. I would try creating a new profile using "firefox.exe -profilemanager" and see whether you can get the add-ons to work.

But it might be easier to specifically disable your add-ons one by one to see if any of them are the culprit. If you don't use an add-on, remove it, because they can affect browser performance.

I would also, just for the hell of it, run a malware detector such as Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, given the ad situation.
posted by dhartung at 12:53 PM on June 9

Thanks all. I'll try all your suggestions (anti-malware scan currently running). I don't think I have the 3.5.0 preview release - Help>About shows 3.0.10.
posted by altolinguistic at 1:34 AM on June 10

Thanks all - I did create a new profile in the end, which has cleared the matter up on one PC - the other is still troublesome. Haven't got time to sort it out, though.
posted by altolinguistic at 6:04 AM on July 10