Firefox Bug Kills Ad-Blocker And Other Add-Ins

[GhostShip]

An epic disaster has occured for those enjoying ad free browsing 

https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/03/a-glitch-is-breaking-all-firefox-extensions/

Reports are pouring in of a glitch that has spontaneously disabled effectively all Firefox extensions.

Each extension is now being listed as a “legacy” extension, alongside a warning that it “could not be verified for use in Firefox and has been disabled”.

A ticket submitted to Mozilla’s Bugzilla bug tracker first hit at around 5:40 PM Pacific, and suggests the sudden failure is due to a code signing certificate built into the browser that expired just after 5 PM (or midnight on May 4th in UTC time).

Because the glitch stems from an underlying certificate, re-installing extensions won’t work — if you try, you’ll likely just be met with a different error message. Getting extensions back for everyone is going to require Mozilla to issue a patch.

I know you wont see any ads on this site as there are none here but for now use another browser until a fix has been created for your firefox install as this will limit any potential problems when they have a fix.

Palemoon that I use remained unaffected strangely 

For Windows users.

https://www.palemoon.org/download.shtml

For Linux users

http://linux.palemoon.org/   

[reef]

This worked for me....

To provide this fix on short notice, we are using the Studies system. This system is enabled by default, and no action is needed unless Studies have been disabled. Firefox users can check if they have Studies enabled by going to:

    Firefox Options/Preferences -> Privacy & Security -> Allow Firefox to install and run studies (scroll down to find the setting)

[GhostShip]

That is a valid solutuion in the short term 

I did read about that solution but decided I personally wasnt going to reward mozilla with my data since they caused the problem in the first place, as you know I value my privacy.

[White Stripes]

this bug was fixed early the next day as far as i could tell.... odd it didnt affect my linux installs, it only broke on windows...

@ghostship; palemoon should be in your linux distros repo.. better to use that version than one downloaded from the site...

[nylly444]

That option is greyed out on my installation via debian.
What you can do to enable add-ons is:
got to about:config and set xpinstall.signatures.required to false
After a restart the add-ons will be enabled (but you'll still be seeing a warning about them not being able to be verified)
This should only be a temporary solution of course, but at least you'll get your add-ons back

This worked for me....

To provide this fix on short notice, we are using the Studies system. This system is enabled by default, and no action is needed unless Studies have been disabled. Firefox users can check if they have Studies enabled by going to:

    Firefox Options/Preferences -> Privacy & Security -> Allow Firefox to install and run studies (scroll down to find the setting)

[GhostShip]

@Stripes

I dont see how it was fixed given that I have more than 2 machines here still suffering.
All the add ins are removed and will require reinstallation and configuration, currently you cant download the add-in's to reinstall them, that is not what I call a working solution.

Do you have a link to the Mozilla solutuion ?

[White Stripes]

What you can do to enable add-ons is:
got to about:config and set xpinstall.signatures.required to false
After a restart the add-ons will be enabled (but you'll still be seeing a warning about them not being able to be verified)

i read that this option is only applicable for the nightly builds and is disabled for beta and stable releases (????)

@Stripes

I dont see how it was fixed given that I have more than 2 machines here still suffering.
All the add ins are removed and will require reinstallation and configuration, currently you cant download the add-in's to reinstall them, that is not what I call a working solution.

Do you have a link to the Mozilla solutuion ?

if you still have machines suffering you might need to reinstall firefox? i dunno what the official fix is cos the one windows install this broke on fixed itself without help... your extensions arent 'removed' they are disabled and considered 'legacy' so they should come back once the signing error is fixed.. i just dont know what the manual fix to that error is...

[GhostShip]

I just rechecked and the extensions have been removed, I believe the issue I suffer with is created by the Firefox version I use, as you know I dont use a current O/s and theres a special end-of-line firefox for this build ESR.

It seems its impossible to fix the issue unless you re-install Firefox (as you suggest) and any add-ins and reconfig them all , this sounds nothing like a real "fix" to a problem Mozilla created, most orgs would have issued an apology for such a catastrophic failure but given the limited choice of supported browsers we will simply have to put up with it.

I hope that sounded grumpy enough for the bots 

Heres some further data on the issue that might be useful to someone ..

https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/05/04/update-regarding-add-ons-in-firefox/

[White Stripes]

as you know I dont use a current O/s and theres a special end-of-line firefox for this build ESR.

i cant test this, and it may be far too late anyway, but i read that the ESRs aren't covered... you need the latest version...   ....and you need a current OS.. anything with a gig of ram and sse2 support will run a modern linux distro or windows 10... or 8.1 if you dont want 10... 7 dies in 2020.. and XP(POSReady version anyway) died just last month...