Recovering sites from dead machine
-
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:06 am
Recovering sites from dead machine
I have been bashing my head against this problem for a while now. Some may say it's become an obsession!
My computer died a death recently and I decided to replace rather than repair. I have quite a good list of whitelisted and blacklisted sites on my plugin, so I figured I would hook up the hard drive and slide them over. How hard could it be?
Turns out, pretty damn hard.
To give you some background. I don't have a browser account, so there is no sync between accounts. I thought I could simply go to the profile folder on the drive and copy a database across. Initially I thought this was the storage-sync.sqlite, but that appears to only hold the default list when shut down and only holds the full list when powered on. I have looked through the extension folders and even tried tracing where the files are written too. No luck. And I obviously can't export from the web UI.
At this point it would be easier and faster to re-create the list manually, but as I am stuck in quarantine and already going nuts, I really need this!
In the code I can see that storage.remote is used, which from my googling appears to push a small amount of data to the Mozilla cloud, but that seems to only be if the user has an account to sync.
I will be honest, this has become less about retrieving my data and more about needing an answer on this if someone could please put me out of my misery and tell me which damn file holds the whitelist/blacklist I would be eternally grateful.
My computer died a death recently and I decided to replace rather than repair. I have quite a good list of whitelisted and blacklisted sites on my plugin, so I figured I would hook up the hard drive and slide them over. How hard could it be?
Turns out, pretty damn hard.
To give you some background. I don't have a browser account, so there is no sync between accounts. I thought I could simply go to the profile folder on the drive and copy a database across. Initially I thought this was the storage-sync.sqlite, but that appears to only hold the default list when shut down and only holds the full list when powered on. I have looked through the extension folders and even tried tracing where the files are written too. No luck. And I obviously can't export from the web UI.
At this point it would be easier and faster to re-create the list manually, but as I am stuck in quarantine and already going nuts, I really need this!
In the code I can see that storage.remote is used, which from my googling appears to push a small amount of data to the Mozilla cloud, but that seems to only be if the user has an account to sync.
I will be honest, this has become less about retrieving my data and more about needing an answer on this if someone could please put me out of my misery and tell me which damn file holds the whitelist/blacklist I would be eternally grateful.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/81.0.4044.129 Safari/537.36
Re: Recovering sites from dead machine
You talk about Firefox specifics in your post, but your UA string indicates you're using Chrome? Which browser (& version) are you trying to recover your NoScript data from?
*Always* check the changelogs BEFORE updating that important software!
-
-
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:06 am
Re: Recovering sites from dead machine
Firefox
Guessing you can't disable the UA thing at the bottom
Guessing you can't disable the UA thing at the bottom
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/81.0.4044.129 Safari/537.36
-
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:06 am
Re: Recovering sites from dead machine
I can always post from FF if that makes you feel better?
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:33.0) Gecko/20120101 Firefox/33.0
Re: Recovering sites from dead machine
Firefox 33 needs an old version of NoScript Classic (NoScript 2.9.0.14), so your NoScript settings should be stored in prefs.js or accessible through about:config.
IIRC the whitelist is "capability.policy.maonoscript.sites" and the blacklist is "noscript.untrusted".
IIRC the whitelist is "capability.policy.maonoscript.sites" and the blacklist is "noscript.untrusted".
*Always* check the changelogs BEFORE updating that important software!
-
-
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:06 am
Re: Recovering sites from dead machine
It's the latest version of Firefox and NoScript. Like I said, from an old dead machine
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 10.0; Windows Phone 8.0; Trident/6.0; IEMobile/10.0; ARM; Touch; NOKIA; Lumia 920)
-
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:06 am
Re: Recovering sites from dead machine
But I appreciate the reply
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_9_3) AppleWebKit/537.75.14 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0.3 Safari/7046A194A
Re: Recovering sites from dead machine
Have you tried this? -
1) create a new, separate Firefox profile
2) completely quit Firefox
3) delete entire contents of the new profile folder, copy your entire backed-up profile into the new profile
4) start Firefox with the new profile with -purgecaches command-line option https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Mozi ... ne_Options
Does that load NoScript with your old settings?
1) create a new, separate Firefox profile
2) completely quit Firefox
3) delete entire contents of the new profile folder, copy your entire backed-up profile into the new profile
4) start Firefox with the new profile with -purgecaches command-line option https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Mozi ... ne_Options
Does that load NoScript with your old settings?
*Always* check the changelogs BEFORE updating that important software!
-
-
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:06 am
Re: Recovering sites from dead machine
I thought of that, but it doesn't answer the scratching question that is still bugging me. Where does NoScript save the data.
I may just do some trial and error testing by copying a folder at a time from within the profile. I have done string searches across the drive to see if the domains are held anywhere. Nothing held in clear text thats for sure. So they are either encoded, encrypted or compressed (or held in the cloud and Mozilla are lying about needing an account).
I may just do some trial and error testing by copying a folder at a time from within the profile. I have done string searches across the drive to see if the domains are held anywhere. Nothing held in clear text thats for sure. So they are either encoded, encrypted or compressed (or held in the cloud and Mozilla are lying about needing an account).
Mozilla/5.0 (WindoNT 14.0; ShortShorts; xxx) PearWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) FireFox
Re: Recovering sites from dead machine
*Always* check the changelogs BEFORE updating that important software!
-
-
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:06 am
Re: Recovering sites from dead machine
Thanks for the response. I have looked in those folders too, but no obvious data in there.
I will do some deeper investigation, maybe see if I can trace read/writes to those folders. I have tried with FF, but it's one noisy beast!
Good to know I was looking in the correct places, just weird that I'm not finding what I should be
I will do some deeper investigation, maybe see if I can trace read/writes to those folders. I have tried with FF, but it's one noisy beast!
Good to know I was looking in the correct places, just weird that I'm not finding what I should be
Mozilla/5.0 (Operating System from Hell) KHTML, like a Boss) FireFox
Re: Recovering sites from dead machine
To note, Bug 1429838 [Opened 3 years ago] After restoring profile to a different location, paths in extensions.json are incorrect (potentially causing issues, like extensions not working ).
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14 Pinball NoScript FlashGot AdblockPlus
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 SeaMonkey/2.49.5