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Hi, Some of the about: protocols are missing in Firefox 9 (9.0.1). Is it by design? Thank you very much.

  • 13 replies
  • 125 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Vivek

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about:home and about:permissions gives a The URL is not valid and cannot be loaded error.

about:home and about:permissions gives a '''The URL is not valid and cannot be loaded''' error.

Chosen solution

Fixed in FF10+, see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=713167 (Microsoft.VC80.CRT SideBySide errors, browsercomps.dll)

Read this answer in context 👍 3

All Replies (13)

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I've attached the about:about screenshot.

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You seem to be missing quite a lot of them, including about:privatebrowsing and about:sessionrestore

Were there any problems with updating?

Did you try Save mode?

  • Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled

Create a new profile as a test to check if your current profile is causing the problems.

See "Basic Troubleshooting: Make a new profile":

There may be extensions and plugins installed by default in a new profile, so check that in "Tools > Add-ons > Extensions & Plugins" in case there are still problems.

If that new profile works then you can transfer some files from the old profile to that new profile, but be careful not to copy corrupted files.

See:

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Thanks cor-el. I think I was hasty. My question was wrong. The situation in my desktop is that I have both Aurora and Firefox installed. I cajoled my colleague to do the update and everything is normal after all. Anyway thanks very much. Your reply helped. Actually I was thinking this might be new in 9.

Any idea why this is happening, any configuration I can try to change. This did not happen earlier with Firefox 8 and Aurora 10.02. I tried the Safe Mode and new profile, but not yet a clean installation of the two versions. I usually run Aurora and Firefox side-by-side, the stable one for my mail, work etc. and Aurora for normal browsing, like that.

The updates were quick as normal.

Modified by Vivek

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Did you already install the latest Aurora 11.0a2 version?

I hope that you use a separate profile for each Firefox version to avoid any problems with files that are upgraded.

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Thanks co-rel for the link.

Actually it's not working on any XP SP3 and fully patched up to date installations and even on a new unpatched XP SP3 VM image with only a Firefox 9 installation. Some of the about:about options are missing.

All the about:about options are visible and working in Windows 7 + Firefox 9 & Aurora 11.02 and Fedora 15 and 16 + Firefox 8 & Aurora 11.02.

Modified by Vivek

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I have this exact same problem, also on XPSP3. Initially I upgraded a FF8 install, then on finding this issue I did a complete uninstall/reinstall. Problem persists. Maybe an XPSP3-specific bug? The same FF 9.0.1 install on Win7 is fine.

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I think the problem is solved for now. The Windows Event Viewer > System had errors regarding SxS. It looks like Firefox has an issue falling back from the Windows\WinSxS to it's own root folder for some referenced assemblies related to VCR8.0. The DLLs referenced in Microsoft.VC80.CRT.manifest in the Firefox folder are all present in the Firefox folder but missing in the WinSxS folder. Installing Visual C++ 2005 SP1 seems to have brought back all the about: protocols, alive and kicking.

or

Installing .Net Framework 3.5 (a very heavy download) also seems to help. .Net 1.1 or 4.0 didn't help.

edit:

Installing Visual C++ 2005 SP1 or .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 also seemed to eliminate a random The URL is not valid and cannot be loaded error on Windows XP SP3 + Firefox 9, when entering or opening a URL which has a legitimate sub domain part, for eg. ww- instead of www.

Modified by Vivek

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Yup, the C++ SP fixed it. 8-)

Modified by Droidberg

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I experienced the same issue on an XP SP3 install after an automatic update, where this never occurred before. Did not try a new install, as this should make no difference (as Droidberg wrote above). Default actions like profile tricks (default settiongs etc.) didn’t help either. No problems occur on Win2K and Win 7 though.

The same SxS / Microsoft.VC80.CRT errors appear in Event viewer - syslog, and there is actually a Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable - x86 9.0.30729.4148 installed on the system.

Vivek.Wilfred: I can understand your problem has been solved for now, but I don’t believe the basic solution is to upgrade such software packages (including .Net Framework), or rather, installing partiucular and not up-to-date versions. Also, if the about: issue never happened prior to 9, the Firefox 9 update should not have an issue with it either, should it?

I’m beginning to think this should deserve an entry in the Latest Firefox issues article. Any thoughts?

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Hi Tonnes,

Honestly I never looked beyond the temporary solution. I think the error pertained to C runtime version 8.0. If this issue is a Firefox issue and is widespread, then perhaps it should be included in the Latest Firefox issues. Perhaps a forum admin can better clarify.

And there is another kind of error related to this, I think. I've appended that to my previous post.

Modified by Vivek

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After installing "Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 and .NET Framework 3.5 Family Update (KB951847) x86", the problem went away. __ sol

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Chosen Solution

Fixed in FF10+, see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=713167 (Microsoft.VC80.CRT SideBySide errors, browsercomps.dll)

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Oxylatium: Thank you for the info.