New buggy update wiped my huge Custom list

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1234567890
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2023 5:03 am

New buggy update wiped my huge Custom list

Post by 1234567890 »

I am officially pissed. It took me countless hours to compile it and had thousands of entries, as I added to it over time, but my Custom list got wiped by the new update.

And here was me thinking updating all my addons today after updating to Firefox 110 a week ago would be a good thing.

Instead I got this buggy hunk of crap that insists of "refreshing" the page after blocking a single element that doesn't even WORK. I have to refresh the page myself several more times before the element is finally blocked. And if THAT doesn't work I have to restart Firefox and get back to it.

To make matters worse, I can't even roll it back. My last system restore point is, for some reason, from 3 weeks ago.

A ton of system updates across the board would be wiped, as well as different versions of my browsers. And we all know how Chrome handles rollbacks. Firefox, especially, will wipe my entire profile because the old version it would rollback to is ancient (v68).

Now my options are: perform an extremely messy system restore OR stick with this godawful buggy ABP version and recompile my humongous custom list from scratch.

---1 hour later---

I decided to pull the trigger and do a system restore...45 minutes later, it was all for nothing. Didn't rollback ABP, just restored the old v68 Firefox which updated to v111 anyway. And to top it off, it also corrupted ABP on Chrome, which I had set up just nice with its own Custom list, had to reinstall which wiped everything.

---1 hour later---

Since it was still screwed up on Firefox anyway, I decided to undo the system restore hoping it would at least restore my Chrome custom list...it didn't.

Piece of shit.
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greiner
ABP Developer
Posts: 899
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 5:29 pm
Location: Cologne, Germany

Re: New buggy update wiped my huge Custom list

Post by greiner »

I hate when those kinds of problems happen to me too, so I can understand your frustration.

While there's nothing we can do in cases when there has been data corruption or browser bugs, there is a chance that the data you're looking for is still there, but just isn't being used anymore by the extension and therefore doesn't show up.

Which Firefox version and Adblock Plus have you upgraded from? Over the years, the Firefox extension system has changed quite a bit, so directly upgrading from a very old Firefox version to the latest one could come with all sorts of problems, because you may skip versions that include that takes care of data migration.

Depending on the previous Firefox version, the data could be stored in either of those places:
- File system (i.e. patterns.ini file)
- Extension storage (i.e. browser.storage.local)
- Web storage (i.e. IndexedDB)

By telling me the versions, I can then check how the data used to be stored back then, and subsequently provide you with instructions on how to get to the data, if it's still there.
1234567890
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2023 5:03 am

Re: New buggy update wiped my huge Custom list

Post by 1234567890 »

Thanks for looking past my frustration, I promise I'm cute underneath lol.

Firefox, I updated from v68.01 to 109. I stuck with v68 for so long because newer versions are terrible for video streaming and wreaked havoc with my extensions. But they made changes to Gmail Google Chat recently which made v68 seriously outdated and I was no longer able to use it. So I had to update to use it...

ABP...I'm not sure what version I was using a couple days ago but all the default settings were on, so I'd assume it was kept up to date in the background. The update that erased my custom list is the one I manually updated to yesterday. v3.16.1.

I thought the same thing you did, the info must be stored somewhere on the PC because I don't imagine all the app data being stored server-side. So I dove into AppData, and the only thing I could find of ABP is "elemhide" (cascading style sheet document) which did not have the data I need.

Then I found remnants of AdBlocker Ultimate which I used for the same purpose before I switched to ABP because it's better. And what I found inside was exactly what you said, in a file called "storage.js.migrated". Unfortunately it was outdated but it still has "some" of the data I need.

I'm on W10.

I also thought since ABP still keeps count of "total items blocked" (1,814,072 so far), that it must have a list of those items somewhere. But I haven't found it on my PC at this stage. That's something you can probably tell me about.

patterns.ini - had a bunch of blocked items info but did not have what I'm looking for, ie the specific urls of the items that my Custom List was full of.

browser.storage.local + IndexedDB had nothing.
borisf98
Posts: 24
Joined: Sat Dec 24, 2022 6:11 am

Re: New buggy update wiped my huge Custom list

Post by borisf98 »

I suspect you can not do anything about it right now. I had this problem quite a few years ago. Since then, I have being backup up my browsers' files every few days and filters every day.
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greiner
ABP Developer
Posts: 899
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 5:29 pm
Location: Cologne, Germany

Re: New buggy update wiped my huge Custom list

Post by greiner »

Thanks for the additional information and no worries. It's important that we're aware of any such problems, because they may affect other users as well who aren't reporting them to us.
1234567890 wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 3:59 ambrowser.storage.local + IndexedDB had nothing.
If there's indeed nothing in browser.storage or IndexedDB, then it indeed sounds like the data is no longer there. Really sorry to hear that, and unfortunately it's not clear what caused that.

Nevertheless, maybe it helps if I link you towards the instructions that I posted in the past about how to get to that data, if it's still there:
  • browser.storage: viewtopic.php?p=206076#p206076 (you can use `await browser.storage.local.get(null)` instead, if you want to retrieve everything the extension stores there)
Alternatively, you could look through Firefox' database files on the disk, in case it keeps some backups in there. However, I'd suggest approaching the Firefox team for help with that, if you want to look through those files.
1234567890 wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 3:59 amI thought the same thing you did, the info must be stored somewhere on the PC because I don't imagine all the app data being stored server-side. So I dove into AppData, and the only thing I could find of ABP is "elemhide" (cascading style sheet document) which did not have the data I need.

Then I found remnants of AdBlocker Ultimate which I used for the same purpose before I switched to ABP because it's better. And what I found inside was exactly what you said, in a file called "storage.js.migrated". Unfortunately it was outdated but it still has "some" of the data I need.
The elemhide.css and patterns.ini files are leftovers from before Firefox switched to Web Extensions around version 57. Back then, extensions were able to read files from and write files to the disk directly. Nowadays, it's all done via the browser's own storage.
1234567890 wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 3:59 amI also thought since ABP still keeps count of "total items blocked" (1,814,072 so far), that it must have a list of those items somewhere. But I haven't found it on my PC at this stage. That's something you can probably tell me about.
We only store that one number and not the items themselves.
1234567890
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2023 5:03 am

Re: New buggy update wiped my huge Custom list

Post by 1234567890 »

Well I have to do it all over again the old fashioned way. Now I gotta copy/paste everything into a txt backup before pasting into ABP, takes twice as long and it pisses me the fart off, but at least I'll never have to do it again TWICE.

And btw, WHY don't people ever understand the "if it ain't broke; don't fix it" thing? Why did you have to change the blocking function and force a page refresh after each and every damn manual block?

Nevermind the fact it doesn't even WORK as intended, refreshing the page does NOT hide the blocked element and you literally have to close Firefox and restart it to see the intended effect. Why couldn't you just leave it as it was?

When I upgraded to FF v109, the only issue I had with whichever version ABP I had at that time was occasionally the Block button would disappear. A simple and quick fix was to disable/enable ABP via FF's Addons menu and that was it. Other than that it was working just fine. Elements were being blocked instantly before my eyes when I performed a manual block and I had no complaints.

But no, people just have to tinker.

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BlockproductsIOwn
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2023 11:44 pm

Re: New buggy update wiped my huge Custom list

Post by BlockproductsIOwn »

I also had that problem when abp updated losing my entire list of custom filters of things to block. I had probably 400-500 gog games I didn't want now all of them are back in vengeance. Still no solution as to what the program is not keeping items I asked to be blocked - well blocked.

If I refresh a page or come back in a day or two many items I blocked element return. Yet they are siiting in the area where you can manually add custom elements to block, so why does the program see the request for a certain item to be blocked but when I go to that webpage and look for that exact item in the products catalog of GOG it isn't being covered.

Only 2 solutions
1st. never change to page 2, so keep opening tabs till system memory or google/firefox crash
or
2nd. Never turn your computer off.
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