How I fixed my Firefox
25 April 2012
Sometimes, I use unusual techniques to diagnose and repair problems on my PC. I've considered writing about how I discovered the solution as the information may be useful to others or myself in the future (as I may forget). This is common in a corporate environment, where tech support will add to a knowledge base of diagnostics and solutions in the chance the problem may occur again the future.
So the problem I had for about the past month with Firefox is that background tabs didn't have favicons:
I know, toolbar mayhem. I use the MX3 theme for Firefox, and it happened after the theme was updated. I thought little of it, as the default theme worked fine, I figured the problem was with the MX3 theme. Somebody would report it, and it would be fixed shortly. Some time and a few updates later, the problem was still there. I looked up the theme and they don't have any support info (or a changelog, for that matter), so I took a look through the comments. This is when I realized, others weren't experiencing this issue and I may be the only one.
I started with the obvious, I deleted MX3 from my profile folder and reinstalled it. That didn't work. So I thought it must be conflicting with another add-on. I started by disabling obvious culprits, Tab Utilities, Stylish, etc. Nothing fixed it. I decided to disable all add-ons. Nope, still broken.
At this point, I tried installing MX3 in a clean install of Firefox (I simply renamed my profile folder). Voila! Favicons were working. So there has to be something wrong in my profile that's causing the issue.
At this point, it was time to start up Sandboxie so I could experiment with more drastic measures. I began by choosing Help -> Restart with Add-ons disabled. From there, I disabled all add-ons, reset all preferences to default, reset toolbars, etc. I had to reactive the theme. F**k, it's still not working! I followed up by uninstalling all add-ons. S**t, what the hell could be wrong?
It was time to kick it up a notch. I started deleting files in the profile folder (in Sandboxie, mind you!) until something finally gave. I started with more obvious culprits, but none of those fixed the problem. So I started deleting a number of files at a time, until the problem went away. And it finally did! I managed to narrow it down to five files, one of which was causing the problem. I reset Sandboxie and started over, deleted one file at a time, and I finally managed to narrow it down to one file: mimeTypes.rdf.
I have a vague idea of what MIME types are, but I have no idea why this would cause such a problem. A more reasonable fellow might have thought looking in the error console, but I prefer by barbaric methods of troubleshooting. I don't feel like I've learned anything from this, but at least I fixed the problem.
So the problem I had for about the past month with Firefox is that background tabs didn't have favicons:
I know, toolbar mayhem. I use the MX3 theme for Firefox, and it happened after the theme was updated. I thought little of it, as the default theme worked fine, I figured the problem was with the MX3 theme. Somebody would report it, and it would be fixed shortly. Some time and a few updates later, the problem was still there. I looked up the theme and they don't have any support info (or a changelog, for that matter), so I took a look through the comments. This is when I realized, others weren't experiencing this issue and I may be the only one.
I started with the obvious, I deleted MX3 from my profile folder and reinstalled it. That didn't work. So I thought it must be conflicting with another add-on. I started by disabling obvious culprits, Tab Utilities, Stylish, etc. Nothing fixed it. I decided to disable all add-ons. Nope, still broken.
At this point, I tried installing MX3 in a clean install of Firefox (I simply renamed my profile folder). Voila! Favicons were working. So there has to be something wrong in my profile that's causing the issue.
At this point, it was time to start up Sandboxie so I could experiment with more drastic measures. I began by choosing Help -> Restart with Add-ons disabled. From there, I disabled all add-ons, reset all preferences to default, reset toolbars, etc. I had to reactive the theme. F**k, it's still not working! I followed up by uninstalling all add-ons. S**t, what the hell could be wrong?
It was time to kick it up a notch. I started deleting files in the profile folder (in Sandboxie, mind you!) until something finally gave. I started with more obvious culprits, but none of those fixed the problem. So I started deleting a number of files at a time, until the problem went away. And it finally did! I managed to narrow it down to five files, one of which was causing the problem. I reset Sandboxie and started over, deleted one file at a time, and I finally managed to narrow it down to one file: mimeTypes.rdf.
I have a vague idea of what MIME types are, but I have no idea why this would cause such a problem. A more reasonable fellow might have thought looking in the error console, but I prefer by barbaric methods of troubleshooting. I don't feel like I've learned anything from this, but at least I fixed the problem.
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