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Ghostery doesn't block anything, doesn't show up, and the preferences page is blank

I'm running Firefox 35.0.1 on Ubuntu 14.04 and I have Ghostery 5.4.1. I've been using Ghostery for about six months now and have loved it, but a few weeks ago it suddenly stopped working. I don't see the icon in the corner, there's no button in the tool bar and, worst of all, when I try to pull up the preferences page for Ghostery, it's completely blank so I can't even try to fix it.

Please help, the targeted ads are coming for me...
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  • Pete (Senior Communications Manager) February 02, 2015 14:43
    Hey There,

    Thanks for reaching out to Ghostery!

    Can you try this in a new Firefox profile and see if you have the same issue? I can't replicate it. Don't delete your current profile so you can revert back after the test.
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  • I am seeing the same problem on the same OS and Firefox revision.

    Ghostery doesn't appear to be active since I'm seeing the "sharing" buttons on sites. That's when I checked the preferences and found them blank.
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  • I have the same issue with Ghostery 5.4.2-- options page is blank, and ghostery appears not to be doing anything. Running 32-bit Linux Mint 13 (corresponding to Ubuntu 12.04). Firefox version is 35.0.1+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1 from the precise-updates repository. I'm not sure what Ghostery version I had prior to the update, but I hadn't updated Ghostery in a while.

    The options page has this URL:
    resource://firefox-at-ghostery-dot-com/ghostery/data/options.html
    Looking at the page source for this HTML file, it appears to just be a blank file:
    http://pastebin.com/zAibX0yy
    I'm not sure how it would ever be able to display anything-- it has some stuff in the <head> section but nothing really in the <body> section.

    I can see a few possibilities here:
    * The HTML I linked to is fine and I don't know what I'm talking about (very possible, I don't really know HTML.)
    * If the HTML is supposed to be static, it didn't get installed correctly when the addon was installed or wasn't packaged correctly when the xpi was built.
    * If the HTML is supposed to be dynamic, some CGI script somewhere isn't working.
    * The options button is supposed to send me to a different URL.

    The Firefox console and debugger sidebars do not appear to contain any output, but then again I don't really know how to use those tools.

    I saw this issue reported in the blog post for Ghostery 5.4.1's release, but I'm just confirming that it exists in 5.4.2 as well. The advice seems to be "reset your Firefox profile." I am not willing to reset my Firefox profile, but if you believe it will help you isolate the issue, I am willing to start a separate Firefox profile for troubleshooting purposes.

    In case this issue is caused by an interaction with another extension, here are all the ones I have:
    * Adblock Plus
    * Add-on Compatibility Reporter
    * Classic Theme Restorer
    * Custom Tab Width
    * DownloadHelper
    * Element Hiding Helper for Adblock Plus
    * Flash Game Maximizer
    * GreaseMonkey
    * HTTPS-Everywhere
    * It's All Text!
    * MEGA
    * Personal Menu
    * Stylish
    * Suspend background tabs
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  • Same problem... fresh install of ubuntu 14.04 with latest Firefox and latest Ghostery versions.
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