Recommended addons will not install

[David_Pimentel]

I have been having problems installing addons since a recent upgrade from FF 78esr(64-bit) to FF 91esr(64-bit):

“Installation aborted because the add-on appears to be corrupt.”

For what it’s worth, my OS is RHEL8.

I also experience this failure with many recommended addons like the following:

Tab Reloader (page auto refresh) – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox (en-US)

I created a new profile, and the problem persists.

I have even set the following about:config option to false without success:

xpinstall.signatures.required

Thanks in advance.

[freaktechnik (Martin Giger)]

The classic troubleshooting step is to make sure that your clock correct.

[David_Pimentel]

That is not likely the problem on this machine. I regularly use various authentication methods that are clock-dependent.

[jscher2000]

Could you test this:

(1) If you right-click the Add to Firefox button and Save Link As…, can the extension file be downloaded?

(2) If that downloaded, try dragging and dropping it into a Firefox tab. Switch to the Firefox window and after some delay, Firefox should show the extension installation drop-down from the left end of the address bar. Does it?

[David_Pimentel]

Just to verify what I’ve seen in past attempts, I tried what you suggested without success:

The package that I attempted to install was Tab Reloader.

My installation of FF 91.3 must be corrupted somehow, but I don’t know how to repair it without a complete uninstall/install.

Thanks.

[jscher2000]

To detangle any downloading problem from from the verification issue, if you “unzip” the downloaded XPI file (you might need to change the extension from .xpi to .zip), does it contain the actual extension contents?

[David_Pimentel]

Aside from the file time stamps, I see the same list:

[jscher2000]

I think the time stamps are different because you haven’t yet extracted the files to a folder, which should cause them to have a current time stamp.

Could you test in a separate profile? It take a few minutes but doesn’t disturb your regular Firefox experience. This is just to check that the program files are not corrupted, and that we should suspect a setting/add-on/customization in your main profile.

New Profile Creation

Inside Firefox, type or paste about:profiles in the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it.

Take a quick glance at the page and make a mental note of which Profile has this notation: This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted. That is your current default profile.

Click the “Create a New Profile” button, then click Next. Assign a name like Nov2021, ignore the option to relocate the profile folder, and click the Finish button.

Firefox will switch your default profile to the new one, so click the Set as Default Profile button for your regular one to avoid an unwanted surprise at your next startup.

Testing

Scroll down to Nov2021 and click its Launch profile in new browser button.

Firefox should open a new window that looks like a brand new, uncustomized installation. (Your existing Firefox window(s) should not be affected.) Please ignore any tabs enticing you to connect to a Sync account or to activate extensions found on your system to get a clean test.

Can you install any extensions in the new profile?

When you are done with the experiment, you can close the extra window without affecting your regular Firefox profile. (Nov2021 will remain available for future testing.)

[David_Pimentel]

I think the time stamps are different because you haven’t yet extracted the files to a folder, which should cause them to have a current time stamp.

That’s not what happens. Note the Dec. 1979 timestamps:

 %: unzip tab_reloader_page_auto_refresh-0.3.7-fx.zip
 Archive:  tab_reloader_page_auto_refresh-0.3.7-fx.zip
  inflating: plugins.js              
  inflating: manifest.json           
  inflating: common.js               
  inflating: plugins/badge/core.js   
  inflating: plugins/badge/.eslintrc  
  inflating: data/options/matched.json  
  inflating: data/options/index.html  
  inflating: data/options/matched.js  
  inflating: data/options/index.js   
  inflating: data/options/index.css  
  inflating: data/popup/index.html   
  inflating: data/popup/fontello.woff  
  inflating: data/popup/index.js     
  inflating: data/popup/index.css    
  inflating: data/popup/fontello.css  
  inflating: data/icons/48.png       
  inflating: data/icons/64.png       
  inflating: data/icons/128.png      
  inflating: data/icons/512.png      
  inflating: data/icons/16.png       
  inflating: data/icons/38.png       
  inflating: data/icons/256.png      
  inflating: data/icons/36.png       
  inflating: data/icons/32.png       
  inflating: data/icons/18.png       
  inflating: data/icons/19.png       
  inflating: data/icons/disabled/16.png  
  inflating: data/icons/disabled/38.png  
  inflating: data/icons/disabled/36.png  
  inflating: data/icons/disabled/32.png  
  inflating: data/icons/disabled/18.png  
  inflating: data/icons/disabled/19.png  
  inflating: mozilla-recommendation.json  
  inflating: META-INF/cose.manifest  
  inflating: META-INF/cose.sig       
  inflating: META-INF/manifest.mf    
  inflating: META-INF/mozilla.sf     
  inflating: META-INF/mozilla.rsa    
%: ll -g
total 196
drwxr-x---. 2 davidp     99 Nov 14 16:41 META-INF/
-rw-r-----. 1 davidp  22532 Dec 31  1979 common.js
drwxr-x---. 5 davidp     47 Nov 14 16:41 data/
-rw-r-----. 1 davidp   1297 Dec 31  1979 manifest.json
-rw-r-----. 1 davidp    183 Dec 31  1979 mozilla-recommendation.json
drwxr-x---. 3 davidp     19 Nov 14 16:41 plugins/
-rw-r-----. 1 davidp    577 Dec 31  1979 plugins.js
-rw-r-----. 1 davidp 158028 Nov  9 21:27 tab_reloader_page_auto_refresh-0.3.7-fx.zip
-rw-r-----. 1 davidp   2146 Nov 14 16:46 unzip.stdout

Never the less, although I have attempted this in the past, I followed your instructions for a new profile, and the same result occurs when I attempted to install the downloaded XPI file (tab_reloader_page_auto_refresh-0.3.7-fx.xpi):

The same result occurs at the addons web site: Tab Reloader (page auto refresh) – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox (en-US)