The Firefox installation and automatic upgrade process has worked like a charm for me, too -- until today that is. Late last night I got a dialog box indicating that Firefox had automatically installed version 2.0.0.8 and I should restart the browser for the updates to come into effect. Well, I chose instead to close the browser and read the newspapers before heading for the cot.

What a surprise I was in for when I opened Firefox this morning. I discovered that the tabs had been moved from where I like them at the bottom of the window to the top. From several years of experience I automatically looked for the Tab Mix Plus extension's options panel so that I could move the tabs down to the bottom again, but was flummoxed when I couldn't even find the options panel.

Then I discovered that not just Tab Mix Plus but all of the extensions had been deactivated, with the  Add-ons manager stating for each of them either "This add-on will be upgraded when Firefox is restarted" or more puzzlingly (since they already were installed) "This add-on will be installed when Firefox is restarted."

To my dismay, restarting the Firefox does not fix the problem. I have enough other IT skills to be concerned with that I definitely don't want to have to learn the inner workings of Firefox too. It's a nice product, and like most users I just want to install and forget without being involved with any of its technical intricacies.

Having been burnt before, I decided to at least skim through the Firefox forums to see if I was alone in having this problem and hopefully find a quick fix for it. Well, it seems that I'm not alone and there's something fairly seriously wrong with the 2.0.8.8 automatic update. Add-ons that were all working perfectly well under version 2.0.0.7 suddenly are entirely non-functional under today's update.

I hope that the Mozilla developers do something about it quickly, and please, please, please don't come back and say "Reinstall Firefox and all of the add-ons" or anything approaching that!

For reference, see mozillaZine - Firefox Bugs at http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=9

T prove that I'm not the only sufferer, in the Firefox forum already there are several related posts, such as Unable to install themes or extensions - Firefox at
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Unable_to_install_themes_or_extensions_-_Firefox as well as Firefox updated to v2.0.0.8 without permission at http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=594227 and also FF 2.0.0.8 forgets open tabs and toolbars are messed up at http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=594456

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any quick fix, or even a complicated fix, so despite their best efforts the Firefox team seem to have fumbled something this time around. As I still spend a fair bit of my time designing and developing software, I know how that feels! ... Ideas, anybody?

UPDATE - 23 October 2007:

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Browsers  Software  Tony Austin