Where can I find a link to Brief 2.4.0 ?
I found a page of old versions, but it only goes back to 2.5.0
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/brief/versions/
I’m looking for 2.4.0 so I can use it with Waterfox.
@LarryK I’ve put it on the 2.4.0 Github page. However, you may want to check whether later versions actually work (Waterfox seems to support WebExtensions too).
@bege10 Sorry for being late. Unfortunately, I don’t see any special properties that page would have. Does it still behave that way in case you still use Brief?
Re: frequent cookies
I was not correct with the update frequency, it is every several hours. Other pages with that frequency showed the same behavior. They all work correct with Feedbro. So it is not an issue of the pages but perhaps of Brief with update frequency in hours range. Brief seems to check too often.
I remember that in old versions briefs still worked in private mode, now it is not possible, at least not in my case, when I am in private mode and I open the brief tab, nothing is shown.
Is this for privacy reasons? or is there any way to enable it also firefox private mode?
Note that Brief fetches the items in non-private mode anyway. Given that, I’m not sure whether it’s a good idea to allow reading them in “private”.
That being said, at the moment this is not an intentional limitation, but some internal technical problem. Off the top of my head I’m not sure how much time would fixing that require.
Since a recent Firefox update forced me to create a new FF profile, Brief no longer believes any RSS feeds are there, although the folder with the bookmarks is present, and there doesn’t seem to be any way of getting it to load bookmarks from the folder.
Brief has no access to these bookmarks for some years already (if the data is even still there, which I’m not sure about).
Firefox should have exported your live bookmarks as an opml file when the live bookmark support was dropped, and you can import that. However, note that new feeds added in recent years will not be there.
Alternatively, you can copy the Brief database from the old profile’s default storage (when Firefox is not running) or export the feed list in the old profile and import in the new one.
OK, so there’s a JavaScript file in ./browser-extension-data/brief@mozdev.org in the old profile (call it profile A) that on examination in a text editor contains RSS feeds. Suspiciously old and declaring a weird file type (MIGRATED), but RSS feeds.
Let’s copy it to the new profile (call it profile B).
That path does not exist in profile B, although Brief is installed and its .xpi is there in profile B’s /extensions/ folder.
But! there is also a mystery new profile C! which does have /browser-extension-data/ ! let’s copy the file into it!
restart FF. no feeds. ho hum.
Close, but not that one. You need to open about:debugging and look up Brief’s UUID in both profiles (it will be different). The main Brief database is in the old profile in ./storage/default/moz-extension+++$OLD_UUID/idb/*bfrei.sqlite (not sure about the number in the filename whether it’s the same or not). I’d try placing it into the respective place in the new profile (with the new UUID, of course).
right, the *bfrei number is the same. done, no effect. presumably there is some other layer of complexity and the db is cached elsewhere?
further, copied over all the files in the /files subfolder next to it. brief is now just unresponsive.
I have opened another profile and extracted an OPML from May 2020. But I would rather not have data thrown away. I have identified the various folders by UUID and transferred everything (inc /cache and METADATA files) over. Brief is still not just without feeds, but broken.
Here’s debugging output:
The Components object is deprecated. It will soon be removed. regex.js:12:20
Initializing the feed request monitor request-monitor.js:2:13
Brief: opening database in persistent storage database.js:138:17
The ‘storage’ attribute in options passed to indexedDB.open is deprecated and will soon be removed. To get persistent storage, please use navigator.storage.persist() instead. database.js:148:31
Found no database in persistent storage database.js:162:29
Brief: opening database in default storage with upgrade database.js:138:17
Error opening database: UnknownError The operation failed for reasons unrelated to the database itself and not covered by any other error code. database.js:167:25
Uncaught (in promise)TypeError: this._db is null
loadFeeds moz-extension://b787ebe5-d8b9-4406-8402-3a217e5d450d/modules/database.js:305
init moz-extension://b787ebe5-d8b9-4406-8402-3a217e5d450d/modules/database.js:90
database.js:305:18
extension is undefined 4 ExtensionParent.jsm:321
Brief: opening database in default storage database.js:138:17
Error opening database: UnknownError The operation failed for reasons unrelated to the database itself and not covered by any other error code. database.js:167:25
_open moz-extension://b787ebe5-d8b9-4406-8402-3a217e5d450d/modules/database.js:167
Uncaught (in promise)TypeError: this._db is null
loadFeeds moz-extension://b787ebe5-d8b9-4406-8402-3a217e5d450d/modules/database.js:305
init moz-extension://b787ebe5-d8b9-4406-8402-3a217e5d450d/modules/database.js:90
After installing Brief, how do I open it? There is an icon in the address bar, but apparently it is only for subscribing.
If you’ve just installed Brief in a recent Firefox version, it’s likely available in the extensions list behind the extensions “puzzle piece” button next to the Firefox menu button.
I have been using the “brief” RSS reader extension for Firefox for years and it fits my needs well. A couple of days ago the feeds were just blank, and it has not recovered. Developer is not very responsive, doesn’t look like any updates for a long time. Any ideas for how to get it back? I have about a hundred feeds that I subscribe to, would not want to lose them. I do see the feeds are in storage.js.migrated but I would need to convert that to OPML to use another RSS reader - any one know how to do that? Thanks!
This issue has been fixed. I now have another issue - Brief 2.6.1 - all of the posts in the right hand panel are collapsed to the headline only. They used to be the full post, which I prefer. How do I get that back?
As of Feb 2024 brief seems to be broken. For some feeds I get dozens of repeats of the same feed. Marking as read or deleting doesn’t make them go away and they come back on refresh. Some persist for many days. It’s not a problem on Feedly, where they work OK, so I assume it’s a Brief problem. It’s not all feeds. Example feed that exhibits behavour
Thank you for your report and especially for the example feed, I’ve opened an issue report for it and will look into it.
Update - the problem articles don’t just come back after I’ve read them - they also come back and repeat if I don’t delete/read! them. So if I just keep refreshing the feed without marking articles as read then the articles will duplicate with every refresh and I’ll end up with dozens of copies of the same articles. I’ve set the feed to not mark changed items as unread but it makes no difference.
Hi - me again. The problem seems to have eased a lot in the past couple of days, so maybe it was a poblem at the feed end.