InformAction Forums

Hi,

Over the last couple of days (I didn't do anything to cause this), Noscript (v2.6.8.37rc1) has started to block sites or content on them I visit often. It seems the entries for these sites disappeared from the whitelist. So I added them back with the "allow.." and each time the site started working again. Good! Well....

So I shut my PC down for the night and turn it back on the next day and bring up Firefox and WTF? The SAME sites are again NOT whitelisted and I check the options whitelist tab and they're NOT there but I did check the night before and they WERE there. So I whitelist them again, check to make sure they're there (Yup!) and I close and restart the browser and again they're GONE!

Something really screwy is going on.

I did check and NoScript Options|Advanced|HTTPS|Behavior|Forbid active web content is set to Never

The other weirdness I've seen for a while I've never been able to figure out is that when firefox starts up, instead of getting a noscript web page when an update happens, I get it every single browser restart and the web page link is showing a different older version even though a newer one (as above currently) is installed. Again, almost like firefox somehow is preventing noscript from updating its database somehow.

Help is greatly appreciated. I'm sure whats happening is something simple but so far I'm clueless as to what and recently with whitelisted sites all of a sudden becoming unwhitelisted where I can't whitelist them and have this remembered across browser restarts is really starting to bother me a lot.

Thanks.

Gene

Sorry, forgot to mention the version of Firefox I'm running in case thats important.

Its version 31.0 according to the help->about popup.

Something is either preventing your prefs.js from saving and/or loading, or reverting changes you make to your prefs.js. Check that you have write permissions to your profile directory and the files inside it, and that your user.js and lockpref file (if either exists) aren't blocking changes to NoScript's settings. Also, are you sure that there isn't some other program you've installed on your computer that's specifically blocking Firefox from reading or saving prefs.js (likely cuplrits could include disk protect software, sandboxing software, and security software)?

Is it only NoScript "Allows" or are other Prefs also not saved after a restart?

KB: Preferences not saved

OK, based on your suggestions I did some poking and it seems its not only Noscript that seems "constrained". I changed a parameter in firefox options and when I killed firefox and restarted, it was back to the old setting. So this is starting to look like its not NoScripts issue but what?

I looked at permissions for the profile directory and it came up read only. So, being an administrator I changed it, killed the properties box, did properties again and the damn directory is still showing read-only. But it seems like EVERY directory on the system I've looked at is showing read-only. HUH?

And I noticed something else. I was walking through various administrator tools and windows to see if I could figure out what was going on and I got to one where I could enable the roaming or local profile for windows and the roaming profile is grayed out and the local one is enabled and I can't change it. Something really strange is going on.

It also seems windows explorer won't remember across a boot changes to display settings.

Yet, I recently changed the desktop font size to a little bigger and that DID change and windows remembered this.

This is NOT a networked machine. Its a single home machine just with a DSL connection to the ISP.

The only thing I'm running is MSE (microsoft security essentials) which is a virus scanner/checker. That can't be doing it because this issue happened long after I started using that program.

Its almost like, as an administrator I'm not being allowed to change things I should be allowed to change. How is this possible? I've scanned the machine with malwarebytes and have MSE running and have scanned it with MSE recently (full scan meaning every single one of the million or more files on this thing) and its found nothing. They system seems clean. This has to be some errant setting somewhere but where?

Maybe this is 2 different problems? My windows settings being one and the Firefox one being the lack of a roaming profile? Just a thought.

I checked permissions again because I saw some of the files in the roaming profile directory had been updated today and I was looking at the head properties box under general on windows Vista. Looking in the security box, it seems the files/directories have full permissions with the exception of "special permissions" whatever that is. So the directories and files don't seem to be read only (that was confusing!).

So then why won't they update? Baffling? If Firefox can change the prefs.js and others, why does it lose settings? I don't get it.

Can you completely close Fx, then *backup your entire profile directory* *before* proceeding with this test, open prefs.js in some plain text editor (such as Notepad or gvim), add a line like and see if that change gets reverted? If it reverts, does it revert before opening Fx again? Or does it only revert when you open Fx? (when Fx is open, check for the pref's existence through about:config, otherwise use your text editor)
If the change does persist until you restart Fx, try Standard Diagnostic.

Let us know, thanks.