Things I've learned about Firefox ( was "Firefox broken")

[Patrick Wiseman <pwiseman@gmail.com>]

On 6/9/05, I <pwiseman@gmail.com> wrote:

> I just upgraded all my extensions (from within Firefox), and now
> Firefox comes up, but is completely unresponsive.  I suspect that one
> of the extensions is bad or incompatible with another.  Any advice on
> how I can remove them all and then selectively reinstall?  I can't do
> it from within Firefox itself because, as I say, it's completely
> unresponsive.

I did a bunch of dumb things - reinstalling from scratch, trying
symlinks to my old profile directory, etc. - and then 'discovered' (I
know, I should have RTF man page sooner!) that Firefox can be launched
in safe mode ('firefox -safe-mode') and that I could decide which
profile to use ('firefox -P profile -safe-mode').  In safe mode, using
my 'broken' profile, extensions were disabled, but I could still pull
up the extensions manager and disable or uninstall extensions.  So I
disabled all extensions, and then tried enabling each one.  No joy -
all my extensions showed up in the list with the 'cog' icon,
apparently installed but nonfunctional.  So, I right-clicked on each,
selected its home page, and there selected the install link.  Every
one of them successfully installed, and after closing and restarting
Firefox for each one, they all work.

I have no idea what broke it all in the first place - I just updated
all extensions - but, if anyone's Firefox breaks after installing or
updating an extension, 'firefox -safe-mode' may be your friend!

Patrick