Firefox won't install add-ons even after clean install
Add-on installation fails in one of the following ways:
1. Unexpected installation error -203, or 2. The add-on appears in the "Extensions" tab as "Not compatible with Firefox 3.6.3", even though it is.
Sometimes I get the first error, sometimes the second, but all attempts to install add-ons fail with one of them.
I have tried all the troubleshooting advice in the knowledge bases (e.g. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Unable_to_install_themes_or_extensions_-_Firefox#Unexpected_installation_error_-203) but with no success. I even did a clean reinstall of Firefox in a new directory (as described here: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Uninstalling_Firefox#On_Mac_OS_X) but the problem remains.
What else can I do?
This happened
Every time Firefox opened
I tried to install a new add-on.
User Agent
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_3; en-US) AppleWebKit/533.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/5.0.375.38 Safari/533.4
All Replies (7)
Hello Konstantina.
I believe I've come across the same problem as you, although only the second message. However, my Firefox has its add-on compatibility check disabled, so it doesn't bother me.
The only thing I can tell you is that you may want to disable the compatibility check and force Firefox to use all extensions you install. There are multiple ways to do so. One is to read this page:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Extensions.checkCompatibility
To know how to change that configuration, read this:
Dear Morbus,
thank you for the suggestion. Unfortunately it didn't help either. I introduced a new "extensions.checkCompatibility" setting with value "false" but I still get the same "Not compatible with Firefox 3.6.3" message for any new attempts at add-on installation. :(
It's quite puzzling...
As it says in the page I liked to, for Firefox 3.6, the old extensions.checkCompatibility doesn't work. You have to create a string that's called "extensions.checkCompatibility.versionNumber" where version number is the version you want to "pretend" to be. Basically, if you put "extensions.checkCompatibility.3.*" it should work. Or even "http://kb.mozillazine.org/Extensions.checkCompatibility.*.*" or something like that.
In the end, the underlying problem may not be solved, but at least you can install extensions. Or should be able to.
Oh sorry, I missed that part earlier. Thanks, now compatibility check is properly disabled.
However, I still cannot install add-ons! The Extensions tab displays on top "Add-on compatibility checking is disabled. You may have incompatible add-ons", and further down shows my add-ons as "Not compatible", exactly as before. (And they are indeed not working!)
I even tried to revert to Firefox 3.5.9 but that did not bring anything either...
That is very weird.
I'm not a mac user so that doesn't help either :( I can only thing that, for some reason, something is preventing Firefox from interacting correctly with the profile folder. Some Firewall or something... Other than that, I'm out of ideas, I'm sorry.
I have the same problem : impossible to install or update extensions; either by download (error -228) or by installing a local file (error -203). This is true for all situations : existing or new Firefox profile, different system users, etc.
I searched the kb, asked Google and so, but no solutions worked. The problem happens on all current versions of Firefox : stable, nightly,32 bits and 64 bits.
File extensions.log contains lines of
2010-04-02 21:36:38 - ExtensionManager:_finishOperations - failure, catching exception - lineno: 359 - file: undefined - [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE) [nsIProperties.get]" nsresult: "0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)" location: "JS frame :: file:///Applications/Web/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/components/nsExtensionManager.js :: getDirInternal :: line 359" data: no]
My system is :
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; fr-FR; rv:1.9.3) Gecko/20100412 Minefield/3.7
Application Basics
Name
Firefox
Version
3.7
Profile Directory
Show in Finder
Installed Plugins
about:plugins
Build Configuration
about:buildconfig
Extensions
Name
Version
Enabled
ID
Adblock Plus
1.1.3
true
Adblock Plus: Element Hiding Helper
1.0.6
true
elemhidehelper@adblockplus.org
Add-on Collector
1.1.1
false
sharing@addons.mozilla.org
BetterPrivacy
1.47
true
Brief
1.2.5
true
brief@mozdev.org
British English Dictionary
1.19
false
en-GB@dictionaries.addons.mozilla.org
BugMeNot
2.2
true
{987311C6-B504-4aa2-90BF-60CC49808D42}
CustomizeGoogle
0.76
true
Dictionary Switcher
1.0.1
true
dictionary-switcher@design-noir.de
Dictionnaire français «Réforme 1990»
3.5
true
fr@dictionaries.addons.mozilla.org
Diigo Bookmarks and Web Annotations
4.1.0.46
true
Firefox PDF Plugin for Mac OS X
1.1.3
true
colesbury@gmail.com
FoxyProxy Standard
2.19.1
false
foxyproxy@eric.h.jung
Get jetable mail
0.4.1
true
{26af1522-982e-c0c4-f54a-7e69fb6432f5}
It's All Text!
1.4.1
true
itsalltext@docwhat.gerf.org
Lazarus: Form Recovery
2.0.5
true
lazarus@interclue.com
Personas
1.5.2
true
personas@christopher.beard
Tab in Textarea
0.9
true
Torbutton
1.2.4
false
URL Tooltip
1.2.1
true
url-tooltip@timothytate.net
User Agent Switcher
0.7.2
true
Xmarks
3.5.7
true
foxmarks@kei.com
Zotero
2.0.2
false
zotero@chnm.gmu.edu
Image Zoom
0.4.4
true
{1A2D0EC4-75F5-4c91-89C4-3656F6E44B68}
Firebug
1.5.3
false
firebug@software.joehewitt.com
Modified Preferences
Name
Value
accessibility.typeaheadfind.flashBar
0
browser.history_expire_days.mirror
180
browser.history_expire_days_min
7
browser.places.importBookmarksHTML
false
browser.places.smartBookmarksVersion
2
browser.startup.homepage
about:mozilla
browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone
rv:1.9.3
browser.tabs.warnOnClose
false
dom.disable_window_move_resize
true
dom.disable_window_status_change
false
dom.event.contextmenu.enabled
false
extensions.checkCompatibility
false
extensions.checkCompatibility.3.6
false
extensions.checkCompatibility.3.6b
false
extensions.checkCompatibility.3.7
false
extensions.checkCompatibility.3.7a
false
extensions.checkCompatibility.3.7a5
false
extensions.checkCompatibility.3.7b
false
extensions.lastAppVersion
3.7
font.minimum-size.x-western
11
font.name.monospace.x-western
DejaVu Sans Mono
font.name.sans-serif.x-western
DejaVu Sans
font.name.serif.x-western
DejaVu Serif
general.useragent.extra.betterprivacy
general.useragent.locale
fr-FR
javascript.options.showInConsole
true
keyword.URL
https://[www.google.com]/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=
network.cookie.prefsMigrated
true
network.http.max-connections
60
network.http.max-connections-per-server
30
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server
8
network.http.pipelining
true
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests
8
network.http.pipelining.ssl
true
network.http.proxy.pipelining
true
network.security.ports.banned
8118,8123,9050,9051
places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages
96636
places.last_vacuum
1276761638
print.macosx.pagesetup-2
PD94bWwgdmVyc2lvbj0iMS4wIiBlbmNvZGluZz0iVVRGLTgiPz4KPCFET0NUWVBFIHBsaXN0IFBVQkxJQyAiLS8vQXBwbGUvL0RURCBQTElTVCAxLjAvL0VO…
print.print_bgcolor
true
print.print_bgimages
true
print.print_command
print.print_downloadfonts
false
print.print_evenpages
true
print.print_footerleft
print.print_footerright
&PT
print.print_headerleft
print.print_headerright
&D
print.print_in_color
true
print.print_margin_bottom
0.5
print.print_margin_left
0.5
print.print_margin_right
0.5
print.print_margin_top
0.5
print.print_oddpages
true
print.print_orientation
0
print.print_pagedelay
500
print.print_paper_data
0
print.print_paper_height
11.00
print.print_paper_size_type
1
print.print_paper_size_unit
0
print.print_paper_width
8.50
print.print_printer
print.print_reversed
false
print.print_scaling
1.00
print.print_shrink_to_fit
true
print.print_to_file
false
print.print_unwriteable_margin_bottom
57
print.print_unwriteable_margin_left
25
print.print_unwriteable_margin_right
25
print.print_unwriteable_margin_top
25
privacy.cpd.cookies
false
privacy.cpd.formdata
false
privacy.cpd.sessions
false
privacy.sanitize.migrateFx3Prefs
true
privacy.sanitize.timeSpan
0
security.crl.autoupdate.dayCnt.
1
security.crl.autoupdate.enable.
true
security.crl.autoupdate.errCount.
0
security.crl.autoupdate.errDetail.
Download of the CRL failed due to Network problems.
security.crl.autoupdate.freqCnt.
1
security.crl.autoupdate.nextInstant.
03/07/10 23:00:00
security.crl.autoupdate.timingType.
1
security.crl.autoupdate.url.
http://crl.certificat.com/DGI/DGI_UsagerB.crl
security.disable_button.openCertManager
false
security.warn_viewing_mixed
false
I am making heavy use of soft links on my systems : ~/Library/* (temp, cache, preferences, etc) is spread onto several physical volumes, and the filetree is done with soft links. No applications has any problem, except Firefox.