Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

On startup, all my add-ons are deactivated, and a few empty tabs are open.

  • 5 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by cor-el

more options

As said in the title, every time I open Firefox, all my add-ons are deactivated, although they don't show as such in the add-ons tab. In order to have them working again, I have to deactivate and reactivate them.

On top of this, a few empty tabs show up. I use the "restore all my last session's tab on startup" setting, so these just appear after all the normal ones. A few of them show up with an address like this : " open.data:application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml;charset=utf-8,<window/> ", while the other show up with the address of the pinned tabs I have, only incomplete, with just root address ( I mean like this : "support.mozilla.org" instead of that : "https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new/desktop/fix-problems/form?search=On+startup%2C+all+ [...]" ). There is no webpage loaded in any of those tabs, but it doesn't say "New Tab" either, just an empty tab. When I click anywhere, "New tab" appears on all the previously empty tabs.

Here are a couple screenshots to illustrate all of that : before clicking : http://puu.sh/gAs1S/7ed9e1ac3f.jpg and after : http://puu.sh/gAs2j/cfb622c945.jpg

As said in the title, every time I open Firefox, all my add-ons are deactivated, although they don't show as such in the add-ons tab. In order to have them working again, I have to deactivate and reactivate them. On top of this, a few empty tabs show up. I use the "restore all my last session's tab on startup" setting, so these just appear after all the normal ones. A few of them show up with an address like this : " open.data:application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml;charset=utf-8,<window/> ", while the other show up with the address of the pinned tabs I have, only incomplete, with just root address ( I mean like this : "support.mozilla.org" instead of that : "https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new/desktop/fix-problems/form?search=On+startup%2C+all+ [...]" ). There is no webpage loaded in any of those tabs, but it doesn't say "New Tab" either, just an empty tab. When I click anywhere, "New tab" appears on all the previously empty tabs. Here are a couple screenshots to illustrate all of that : before clicking : http://puu.sh/gAs1S/7ed9e1ac3f.jpg and after : http://puu.sh/gAs2j/cfb622c945.jpg

Chosen solution

FredMcD said

Delete a possible user.js file and numbered prefs-##.js files and rename (or delete) the prefs.js file to reset all prefs to the default http://kb.mozillazine.org/Preferences_not_saved

It looks like this fixed it. Unfortunately, at the same time it lost all of the open tabs and tabs groups I had. :(

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (5)

more options

Delete a possible user.js file and numbered prefs-##.js files and rename (or delete) the prefs.js file to reset all prefs to the default http://kb.mozillazine.org/Preferences_not_saved

more options

It is possible that there is a problem with the file(s) that store the extensions registry.

Delete the extensions.* files (e.g. extensions.json, extensions.sqlite, extensions.ini) and compatibility.ini in the Firefox profile folder to reset the extensions registry.

You can use this button to go to the currently used Firefox profile folder:

New files will be created when required.

See "Corrupt extension files":

If you see disabled or not compatible extensions in "Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions" then click the Tools button at the left end of the Search bar to check if there is a compatibility update available.

If this hasn't helped then also delete possible addons.json and addons.sqlite files.

more options

Chosen Solution

FredMcD said

Delete a possible user.js file and numbered prefs-##.js files and rename (or delete) the prefs.js file to reset all prefs to the default http://kb.mozillazine.org/Preferences_not_saved

It looks like this fixed it. Unfortunately, at the same time it lost all of the open tabs and tabs groups I had. :(

more options

SThor said

Unfortunately, at the same time it lost all of the open tabs and tabs groups I had. :(

I managed to get back most of my tabs by using a few weeks old backup that I had.

more options

Tabs and Tab groups are in the sessionstore.js file, so modifications to prefs.js shouldn't effect that.