Jul 21, 2019
Flash stopped working in Firefox on linux mint 19.1 cinnamon, now gmail standard won't load SOLVED
As noted above, I'm on Firefox 66.0.2, on linux mint 19.1 cinnamon.
Also: I can get gmail standard to load just fine in Chrome, that's what I'm using right now to type this, but Chrome is also a PITA for me to use and I'd really rather not get stuck using it full time, either. My Chrome is also clean, no extensions, I only have it installed for the very few websites that won't play well with firefox.
For gmail in Firefox, I've already tried the following basic troubleshooting steps:
1)Ctrl-shift-R to force a refresh
2)power cycled my laptop
3)restarted Firefox in safe mode with all add-ons/extensions disabled
4)cleared my browser's cache then restarted Firefox
None of that fixed it.
Thank you for any help you can give me here, I really appreciate it.
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Last edited Jul 22, 2019
Jul 22, 2019
Okay, so. Just as I feared, you can't really delete Firefox from Linux Mint. You can remove it via the package manager, but all the base files are still there, and the system doesn't give an option on the right-click menu to delete them. BUT.
After digging around for a bit, I found an alternate solution. Firefox, at least in Linux Mint, offers an option (well buried on the troubleshooting information page, triple bar menu->Help->Troubleshooting Information) called "Refresh Firefox." Much like uninstalling and clearing out base files in Windows does, this restores Firefox to default, pristine, just-like-it-just-installed state. And then after I did that, I power-cycled my laptop, then reloaded all my add-ons, bookmarks and open tabs. And that seems to have fixed it. Gmail, tumblr and youtube all seem to be working properly again, and I'm typing this out in firefox.
Caution for anyone else doing this: BACKUP YOUR DATA. Write down your extensions and settings, if you're using stylus (like I am) export your styles, if you're using New XKit (like I am), use XCloud to export your extensions and settings, and backup your bookmarks and open tabs. (To export your open tabs, right click on a tab, click "select all tabs" then right-click again and click "Bookmark tabs." I create a folder with the current date so I know what's what. Then backup your bookmarks. Then when you have Firefox refreshed and restarted, import your bookmarks, then open the bookmarks menu, find that folder, right-click on it and choose "open all in tabs."
Yes, if you use sync you can do this much easier, but I don't trust cloud storage/cloud computing, and I'd rather have everything under my physical control. Plus if you're using sync and the problem persists even after a refresh, then try this method. It works in Windows, too - my old laptop was running Windows 7, I switched to LInux after I got my first look at Windows 10 on my new laptop, and this is how I migrated everything.
I'm gonna go ahead and mark this as SOLVED.
Diamond Product Expert bkennelly recommended this
All Replies (3)
Are you able to test your account using Firefox on a different machine?
Jul 22, 2019
Good to know gmail doesn't use flash. Whatever's going on, it broke Tumblr's functionality, too. And it's definitely not an add-on-issue because both gmail and tumblr are still broken in safe mode.
I have read elsewhere that Adobe stopped providing support for Firefox in linux installations, but everything was working just fine on my laptop up until yesterday. And this laptop is only a few months old, it's a Dell, so....I highly doubt it's a hardware issue.
Uninstalling and re-installing Firefox is a little bit trickier - it comes default installed in linux mint so I don't know if it's even possible to uninstall it, and there's prep-work involved, backing up bookmarks, add-ons, open tabs and the like, but I'll give it a go and report back.
Okay, so. Just as I feared, you can't really delete Firefox from Linux Mint. You can remove it via the package manager, but all the base files are still there, and the system doesn't give an option on the right-click menu to delete them. BUT.
After digging around for a bit, I found an alternate solution. Firefox, at least in Linux Mint, offers an option (well buried on the troubleshooting information page, triple bar menu->Help->Troubleshooting Information) called "Refresh Firefox." Much like uninstalling and clearing out base files in Windows does, this restores Firefox to default, pristine, just-like-it-just-installed state. And then after I did that, I power-cycled my laptop, then reloaded all my add-ons, bookmarks and open tabs. And that seems to have fixed it. Gmail, tumblr and youtube all seem to be working properly again, and I'm typing this out in firefox.
Caution for anyone else doing this: BACKUP YOUR DATA. Write down your extensions and settings, if you're using stylus (like I am) export your styles, if you're using New XKit (like I am), use XCloud to export your extensions and settings, and backup your bookmarks and open tabs. (To export your open tabs, right click on a tab, click "select all tabs" then right-click again and click "Bookmark tabs." I create a folder with the current date so I know what's what. Then backup your bookmarks. Then when you have Firefox refreshed and restarted, import your bookmarks, then open the bookmarks menu, find that folder, right-click on it and choose "open all in tabs."
Yes, if you use sync you can do this much easier, but I don't trust cloud storage/cloud computing, and I'd rather have everything under my physical control. Plus if you're using sync and the problem persists even after a refresh, then try this method. It works in Windows, too - my old laptop was running Windows 7, I switched to LInux after I got my first look at Windows 10 on my new laptop, and this is how I migrated everything.
I'm gonna go ahead and mark this as SOLVED.
Diamond Product Expert bkennelly recommended this