Mozilla and incompatible addons after update!

cormie

It happens almost every time there's a new release for FireFox or Thunderbird, a few addons will be marked as incompatible. I'm avoiding updating Thunderbird at the moment as one add on I use all the time is marked as unavailable. I keep getting the prompt to update and warning of security issues etc if I don't, but I don't want the hassle of not being able to use the add ons and having to go trawling for alternatives. Seems the developers of these, mostly one man projects are continually struggling with Mozilla's frequent releases.

I've seen ways to keep the addons compatible by messing with about:config, but not for FireFox 10 and I don't want to mess around with Thunderbird either.

Any suggestions other than waiting a few weeks to update each time to give time to the developers for making things compatible?

yoyo

Get the Addon compatibility Reporter. Most addons will work fine and this will force them to work, regardless of min version

Nick

cormie

Thanks Nick,
I see it says "Update to ACR: Due to "Default To Compatible" changes in Firefox 10+, the ACR's functionality has changed. It can no longer be used for force add-ons to be installed. Read more about the changes."

does this mean it still functions? Also, should I expect to see the addons work immediately, or will Mozilla, or the addon developer, need to resolve something first in order for it to work? Problem with that is that I don't want to upgrade if it means the addon will be disabled for any period of time

yoyo

cormie wrote: »

Thanks Nick,
I see it says "Update to ACR: Due to "Default To Compatible" changes in Firefox 10+, the ACR's functionality has changed. It can no longer be used for force add-ons to be installed. Read more about the changes."

does this mean it still functions? Also, should I expect to see the addons work immediately, or will Mozilla, or the addon developer, need to resolve something first in order for it to work? Problem with that is that I don't want to upgrade if it means the addon will be disabled for any period of time

Try this:

for firefox 10 : set extensions.strictCompatibility to true on about:config

Nick

cormie

Thanks again Nick, actually my FireFox addons have been fine, it's Thunderbird I'm putting off upgrading though as it's warned me before upgrading that 2 addons I constantly use won't be compatible. Will this help with them I wonder?

yoyo

cormie wrote: »

Thanks again Nick, actually my FireFox addons have been fine, it's Thunderbird I'm putting off upgrading though as it's warned me before upgrading that 2 addons I constantly use won't be compatible. Will this help with them I wonder?

Ok, I'll explain a workaround, it involves unpacking the .xpi file (a Mozilla extension) and changing the max version value.

• Download the .xpi file and save it on your desktop.
• Now open the .xpi file in Winrar (or any archiving program) and look for a install.rdf file.
• Extract this file on your dekstop and open it in a text editor (e.g: notepad)
• The file has an xml structure, look for <em:maxVersion></em:maxVersion> tags.
• Inside these put 10.x so you end up with:
• <em:maxVersion>10.x</em:maxVersion>
• Save the rdf file and add it to the .xpi file (through your archive program ,overwrite the existing)
• Now go into thunderbird and install the addon, it should work ok

Hope this helps,
Nick

cormie

As helpfu as ever Nick, thanks a lot, will give that a go if I can handle it Will report back to let you know how I get on

yoyo

cormie wrote: »

As helpfu as ever Nick, thanks a lot, will give that a go if I can handle it Will report back to let you know how I get on

If not let me know the addons and I'll mod them for you!

Nick

cormie

Just having a chance to look at this now. Do I need to modify the xpi file from scratch, or can I mod the already installed (and configured) file now and it won't throw up the incompatible message while trying to upgrade thunderbird itself?

The extensions are minimise to tray revived (MinTrayR) 1.0 and Quicktext 0.9.11.12

Was hoping there would be way to not have to re-configure all settings and text entries for each extension as there's a lot of customisation.

yoyo

Hi cormie,

I modded both extensions for you. So they now install in version 10. I don't think you'll loose customized settings, I think when you install these it will be seen like an upgrade.
Simply download both attached zips, extract the xpi and install them in Thunderbird, then restart thunderbird. If you have difficulty starting thunderbird then, look into Thunderbird Safe Mode

Nick

cormie

Thanks a lot for that Nick,
I tried (before upgrading to 10) to install them both by going to:

tools > add ons > the little clog wheel in the top right > install add on from file, selecting the file but it popped up a message saying each one was corrupt?

yoyo

cormie wrote: »

Thanks a lot for that Nick,
I tried (before upgrading to 10) to install them both by going to:

tools > add ons > the little clog wheel in the top right > install add on from file, selecting the file but it popped up a message saying each one was corrupt?

Not come accross that, must be a new feature unfortunately! You could try Nightly Tester Tools and see if it works to force addon compatability, that was the original tool you could use to do it without modifying the extension.
If that fails your at the mercy of the developer unfortunately I think!

Nick

cormie

Yeah, doesn't seem to have been updated in a while. If I upgrade to 10, then use the nightly tester thingy, and it doesn't work, can I revert back to 8? I don't know how I skipped 9..

yoyo

cormie wrote: »

Yeah, doesn't seem to have been updated in a while. If I upgrade to 10, then use the nightly tester thingy, and it doesn't work, can I revert back to 8? I don't know how I skipped 9..

I don't see why you couldn't downgrade, if your worried about data loss backup the Thunderbird profile, look here

Nick

cormie

Thanks again, will give suggestions a go and see how I get on

cormie

So I installed nightly tester tools before upgrading to 10 and after the upgrade, I didn't have to do anything the add ons are working fine so far I'm not sure if nightly tester tools did that or if they would have worked fine anyway but I'm happy either way, thanks again

yoyo

cormie wrote: »

So I installed nightly tester tools before upgrading to 10 and after the upgrade, I didn't have to do anything the add ons are working fine so far I'm not sure if nightly tester tools did that or if they would have worked fine anyway but I'm happy either way, thanks again

The nightly Tester tools enable all addons by default,

Nick