Help get this topic noticed by sharing it on Twitter, Facebook, or email.
I’m frustrated
doomster June 15, 2014 23:46

Ghostery present in one Firefox instance but not in another.

Hello. I have installed the Ghostery add-on to all of my laptop/PCs. I have a Mac Powerbook Pro, a Dell Inspiron laptop, a WinXP desktop, and a Win7 desktop.

I am running Firefox 28 on all of them.

I am seeing a weird problem on the Mac, Dell laptop, and Win7. If I have multiple Firefox instances running on a PC, Ghostery will be available for one instance but not the other.

(To avoid confusion, a Firefox instance would like File->New Window in Firefox if you were using Firefox on a Win7 or WinXP machine).

For example, I have one Firefox instance with 8 tabs. It will have the Ghostery icon in the Add-On Bar and block trackers. I'll have another Firefox instance with 8 tabs but this instance will not have the Ghostery icon in the Add-On Bar. Nor will this instance block trackers.

I tried adding the Ghostery icon from the View->Toolbars->Customize option but the Ghostery icon is not there. It's not present in the other Firefox instance (where the Ghostery icon is displayed in the Add-On Bar either).

I have seen this problem on my Mac laptop, Win7 box, and Dell laptop.

Any solutions for this?
1 person has
this question +1
Reply
  • CHAMP
    Eric P. Scott June 16, 2014 01:54
    Just to add another data point, I was unable to reproduce this on Linux using Firefox 28.0 + Ghostery 5.3.1. I used Customize... to move the button to the Add-on Bar, invoked File->New Window, and opened eight tabs in each. No matter what I did, neither icon ever disappeared, nor did detection/blocking ever fail to operate correctly.

    Note that a single Firefox instance can have multiple windows; the only way to run multiple instances is to have each one use a different profile, in which case Ghostery would need to be installed separately into each, and there would be no interaction between them.

    I don't expect this to be something where the operating system would make a difference. Perhaps you have some other extension installed that's wreaking havoc?

    Comment
    good answer! good answer! (undo)
  • (some HTML allowed)
    How does this make you feel?     Add Image
    I'm

    e.g. indifferent, undecided, unconcerned kidding, amused, unsure, silly sad, anxious, confused, frustrated happy, confident, thankful, excited

    Cancel
  • 1
    doomster August 05, 2014 07:40
    OK, I was able to recreate this problem.

    This problem occurs because of the interaction between Ghostery and the Firefox extension, Session Manager, which saves the pages that you were surfing if the Firefox crashes or the desktop reboots.

    To recreate

    1) Have the Ghostery *and* Session Manager extension installed for Firefox.

    2) Open 2+ windows of Firefox. These are windows, not new tabs. On Windows and Mac, you would click the File->New Window item. There will be two Firefox windows, both with Ghostery icon in the upper right corner.

    3) Save the sessions using the Session Manager. Tools->Session Manager->Session Manager->Save Session. Save the session by some name, like "xxx"

    4) Quit Firefox. On a Mac, it's the Firefox->Quit Firefox item. On Windows, it's File->Exit.

    5) After Firefox stops, restart Firefox. Do not restore Firefox to the previous session, if Firefox prompts you.

    6) After Firefox restarts, Load the session saved by the Session Manager. Tools->Session Manager->Session Manager->Load Session. Select the session that you saved in Step 3.

    Click the Replace Session radio item.

    7) When the sessions are restored in Firefox, Ghostery will only appear on one Firefox window but not on the others.
    Comment
    good answer! good answer! (undo)
  • (some HTML allowed)
    How does this make you feel?     Add Image
    I'm

    e.g. indifferent, undecided, unconcerned kidding, amused, unsure, silly sad, anxious, confused, frustrated happy, confident, thankful, excited

    Cancel