Hello

Does your addon require Firefox Sync to be enabled to see information of past sync's (e.g. view history of past sync)?

Thankyou

We currently show an error like Failed to load collection: [Exception... "NS_ERROR_UNKNOWN_HOST" nsresult: "0x804b001e (NS_ERROR_UNKNOWN_HOST)" location: "JS frame :: resource://services-sync/resource.js :: Channel_onStopRequest :: line 422" data: no] underneath "Collections" if the Sync server is unreachable.

I wonder if we could at least show local records, and the SQL query UI for bookmarks. That would be handy for hacking on the train. 🏠🚆🏢

We've worked around this for now in a pretty safe way; so resolving this is not urgent, but I want to have a bug on file to reference.

As described in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1727803; about:sync triggers a Debug Assertion because it lacks a sufficiently tight CSP.

It also loads Javascript via a data: url; and it would be ideal if it could somehow load it via a chrome:// or resource:// URI.

Blocks https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1728122

Installs from the Add-ons Catalog, but the Enable button is disabled in the Add-on manager. (Never seen that before.)

TL;DR: Please force about:sync to always use a white background.

The problem

In Firefox 96 and higher, when your OS is set to dark mode, Firefox uses a dark gray background on various UI pages, including about:sync. (Based on this source.)

Unfortunately, about:sync is very hard to read when it has a dark gray background.

For example:

• Black text is very difficult to read.
• White text on a light gray background (e.g. "Please describe how you intend using about:sync") is very difficult to read.
• Blue text (e.g. tab lastUsed timestamps) are difficult to read.

Recommended contrast ratios

For most text, the WCAG recommends a minimum contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 or better. Ideally, they recommend a contrast ratio of 7:1 or better. (Source.)

To check the contrast ratios of any webpage, right-click on it and cloose "Inspect". Now click "Accessibility" or press Shift+F12. Finally, next to "Check for Issues", change "None" to "Contrast".

A contrast fixer tool

Text with insufficient contrast can be difficult to read for everyone, but especially for people with low vision. If you do a Web search for contrast fixer tools, you'll find lots of web apps; Contrast Finder is a good one. It will modify any chosen pair of colors, in order to increase the contrast ratio.

Steps to reproduce

One way to reproduce the issue is to simply set your OS to dark mode.

The other way to reproduce the issue is to tell Firefox to pretend that your OS is set to dark mode. Here's how:

• Visit about:config.
• If layout.css.prefers-color-scheme.content-override is set, note down its value for future reference.
• Set layout.css.prefers-color-scheme.content-override to 0.
• Visit about:sync.
• Click the Reload button. The issue should immediately become apparent.

Once you're finished looking at the problem, go back to about:config, and click the Reset button to restore layout.css.prefers-color-scheme.content-override to its default value (probably 3).

Recommended solution

The simplest solution is probably to modify about:sync to ignore dark mode, and to always use a white background everywhere. The current about:sync color palette provides mostly-acceptable contrast ratios over top of a white background. If you decide to allow dark backgrounds, you might need to revamp the palette.

I've got this error after Firefox Nightly Browser update:

JavaScript error: chrome://aboutsync/content/AboutSyncRedirector.js, line 43: NS_ERROR_FACTORY_EXISTS: Component returned failure code: 0xc1f30100 (NS_ERROR_FACTORY_EXISTS) [nsIComponentRegistrar.registerFactory]

and
JavaScript error: resource://gre/modules/WebNavigationContent.js, line 215: NS_NOINTERFACE: Component returned failure code: 0x80004002 (NS_NOINTERFACE) [nsIWebProgress.DOMWindow]

Repeated many times.

Thanks!

I just saw a screenshot of an export where the mobile root shows up under "records appear on the server but should not have been uploaded". IIUC, Thom fixed that in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1309774, so now I'm wondering if that's from an older version of the validator, or if something else is going on.

Including the validator version in the export, like we do for the ping, would help figure this out.

Hi, I don't know if it's an extension bug or a nightly bug.
After install and restarting the browser the menu entry in the tools menu disappears.
To make it visible again I have to disable and enable again the extension.

… instead of About Sync extension for Firefox.

• the word extension is superfluous
• it also works with Waterfox (pictured).

Thanks :-)

Per https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1820099, XPCOMUtils's version of defineLazyGetter is going away, we'll need to make sure we replace it with ChromeUtils before it's officially removed from tree

About Sync on AMO:

Hello,
I installed the extension on fenix beta.
When I type about:sync it says "invalid address".

We just saw a "null" payload in the wild (cleartext, I think). Can we check for and report these in about:sync?

Interested to know the ID and date of the record so we can find out which device uploaded it and find the root cause.

Hi

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/about-sync/versions/0.0.51/updateinfo/ and https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/about-sync/versions/0.0.52/updateinfo/ are empty, can you publish release notes?

For notes to be available at about:addons for people who choose to read notes before updating i.e.:

Thanks

@mhammond mused on IRC:

one interesting side-effect of storing lastSync etc in places is that there's no obvious way to "reset" an engine without nuking the server data. This probably isn't a significant problem in practice, but I do recall having suggested to users to reset the lastSync pref in at least a couple of cases

It might be a good idea to add a "Reset" button that calls resetClient, which would reset the sync ID, last sync time, sync statuses, etc.

Since this change about:sync is no longer recognized.

Hello,

just installed a new linux with Firefox 71 and the sync addon is being deactivated due to incompatibility reasons.

About Sync v0.0.51 works
after update to 0.0.52, about:sync is no longer displayed under about:about
Calling about:sync directly fails, brings an error message
Firefox version 78.0.1 (Windows)
Downgrade to v0.0.51 and it works again.
I had the same thing with earlier versions of Firefox, but no longer know which 7x version.

The profile section just shows TypeError: this.props.fxAccounts.getSignedInUserProfile is not a function now. We'll want to use getSignedInUser in 72+.

STR:

1. In a fresh profile with Firefox Nightly, install the about:sync and Add-on Compatibility Reporter add-ons.
2. Click the puzzle-piece in your Firefox toolbar (the compatibility-reporter icon)

ACTUAL RESULTS:
It says:

About Sync extension for Firefox
Version 0.0.5
Not compatible with multiprocess.

EXPECTED RESULTS:
About Sync should be made compatible with multiprocess (e10s).

(Note: I don't know what is responsible for it being flagged as incompatible; I'm just noticing that it is, and reporting it.)

Observations:

• Firefox Android exposes a "share tab" feature, but afaict there's no feasible option that would allow me to import them as bookmarks.
• Firefox Android does not offer an easy way to bulk bookmark open tabs
• Firefox Android does not offer a way to bulk open "Synced Tabs" from other devices.
• Firefox for Desktop exposes "Synced Tabs" in a variety of ways, none of which can be used for bulk operations

so it seems that using AboutSync and manually munging data is ... the best? only? approach.

It would be fantastic if AboutSync could integrate the JS bits from this StackOverflow answer in a way that a user can simply export a firefox-bookmarks-compatible JSON of the Synced Tabs of a given device.

https://stackoverflow.com/a/68309779

@rbillings and I saw this during our Sync fest today. When opening the add-on for the first time, we fail to fetch logs with unixErrno: 2 at DiectoryIterator.prototype.next. I wonder if that's because the logs directory doesn't exist yet?

About sync, can't get it working.

I hope I'm at the right place for this here.

I installed AbouSync because it could be interesting. It is greyed out, as well en other add-ons
What is the cause it is greyed out?
I want to put this add-on in the toolbar. Unfortunately, it also won't work.

Do I do something wrong?

Win 11 23H2
Firefox 121.0.1 (64)
AMD Ryzen 7 7735U with Radeon Graphics

Log Files -> "download them as a zip file" silently does nothing. "view them locally" and "download a combined summary" links work fine.

STR:

1. Install the About Sync add-on from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/about-sync/
2. Visit about:debugging and scroll down to the entry for About Sync (under "Extensions")

ACTUAL RESULTS:
There's a warning box -- if you expand it, it shows the following:

Warning details

Reading manifest: Warning processing version: version must be a version string consisting of at most 4 integers of at most 9 digits without leading zeros, and separated with dots

Here's a screenshot:

EXPECTED RESULTS:
No such warning (i.e. we probably need a conforming version numbering scheme).

If you look at the Version field on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/about-sync/ , you can see that indeed our version number does not conform to this "at most 4 integers of at most 9 digits without leading zeros, and separated with dots" scheme -- we have right now:

Version
    0.21.0buildid20220714.054802

The vast majority of browser modules have been converted to ES modules. I think all the ones that aboutsync uses were converted before FF 114, which would therefore be compatible with the current minimum version for aboutsync.

Having aboutsync migrated, would mean that we can go ahead with bug 1774888 and remove older functions.

I think I checked all the info shown by the subject addon and still can't see "sent tabs" there.
I mean not the general list of tabs synchronized between devices but only tabs which are sent by "Send Tab to Device" and still are not retrieved by the destination device.

Why I need that: Firefox duplicated some of my devices for some reason and I noticed it too late - after sending some tabs to already inactive device entries. Now I want to get that URLs back but have no way for that. That sent tabs should be still stored on the sync server, so it should be possible to read them from there.

About Sync version 0.21.0buildid20220714.054802, updated 16 Jul 2022
Firefox 104.0, Linux

Hi,

please update the addon! s2

Thanks...

I noticed a use of Cu.import here:

In the startup function, that gets imported as an ES module:

So it looks wrong that it is being treated differently.

Additionally, since ES modules can't be unloaded, it may need to be handled slightly differently. I believe that one workaround has been to use something like ChromeUtils.importESModule("chrome://aboutsync/content/config.js?r=" + Math.rand());

Extension installed and enabled but site is not found

Disclaimer: I'm an experienced user at most, but no FF developer.

I'd like an option to export everything stored in the FF sync account.

Use case: When FF crashes, especially on mobile, it tends to lose data (e.g. open tabs). So I'd like to back up the synced data periodically. At present, I open about:sync, click the tab "Records (table)" for every category and copy the contents to a text file manually.

As there already is an export option which, unfortunately, only exports bookmark information, this has a chance to be a trivial change.

Waterfox: https://github.com/MrAlex94/Waterfox

• a few months ago Waterfox 56.0 was based on Firefox 56.0.2
• and so on.

about:sync is blank

Caused by mhammond@339bb7d maybe?

I guess that this issue also bugs:

• 0.0.22 with Firefox ESR 52.8 and (future) 52.9.

Workaround

1. https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/about-sync/versions/?page=1#version-0.0.21
2. install version 0.0.21
3. disallow automatic updates to the extension and then take care with any use of about:addons to manually check for updates.

Credit

mornaq at https://www.reddit.com/comments/8jfu1v/-/dz3kyb4/?context=1 for drawing attention to this issue.

nsILocalFile is gone, so this throws.

Hi,
I am seeing this a lot last 2 days:

Not sure if it is safe to post the log here, but anyway, I opened tab on another device and I can see it on my main device.

I'm on latest firefox on latest macOS, extesion 0.0.11

Error: [Exception... "Could not convert JavaScript argument arg 0 [nsISupports.QueryInterface]" nsresult: "0x80570009 (NS_ERROR_XPC_BAD_CONVERT_JS)" location: "JS frame :: chrome://aboutsync/content/build.js :: getSqlColumnNames :: line 27476" data: no]

using version 0.0.2.1

If sync never seems to complete for a user, they will struggle to extract a useful log unless they capture it from stdout. It would be great to have a button that flushes the logs as soon as it is called without waiting for a sync to complete.

As it is it just displays nothing for a while. Makes it hard to know if aboutsync hit an error and crashed, or if it's a real issue.

Given the name of the add-on it would be nice if about:sync was an alias for chrome://aboutsync/content/index.html

Or maybe even add a way to make authenticated HTTP requests to the token and storage servers?

I'm using Firefox for Android 68.1a1 (2019-08-04). I was able to find aboutsync in AMO and install it, but I get and error "the address isn't valid" when I visit about:sync in mobile. I tried restarting the application. I tried tapping into the addon via about:addons. (The only options there are 'Disable' and 'Uninstall'.)

Does that version of Firefox use the same Sync engine that desktop Firefox (version 68+) uses?

Hi, I'm have repeated messages related to:
Alerts: aboutsync: not installing aboutsync extension into window of....
At my console and terminal.

Is possible to configure the add-on to hide this if necessary.

I'm using the console to debug some applications parts and it's useful hide this alerts if check marked or something like this.

Thanks...

Via bug 1332698

STR:

1. Create a fresh profile and add some bookmarks to it
2. Sign in to Fx account
3. Notification pops up "Sync will start momentarily"

Expected: Sync should start after 10 seconds of FxA sign-in

Actual: Sync doesn't start automatically

Note: When I close and reopen the browser sync starts momentarily. I have observed this issue several times.

This only happens with about:sync installed.

This'll be a lot easier than saving the text file and attaching it to a support case!

@gijsk reports we aren't anonymizing reader view URLs correctly. These have the form about:reader?url=....

I have this error recently:
JavaScript error: chrome://aboutsync/content/AboutSyncRedirector.js, line 13: TypeError: XPCOMUtils.generateQI is not a function

And I cant open about:sync url because the browser says:
Hmm. That address doesn’t look right.

I have other error but I don't know if related:

JavaScript error: chrome://browser/content/parent/ext-browser.js, line 0: Error: Invalid tab ID: 58
[Parent 6141, Gecko_IOThread] WARNING: pipe error (371): Conexão fechada pela outra ponta: file /builds/worker/workspace/build/src/ipc/chromium/src/chrome/common/ipc_channel_posix.cc, line 356
console.log:  *** aboutsync:  not installing aboutsync extension into window of type alert:alert
JavaScript error: resource://gre/modules/WebRequestContent.js, line 124: TypeError: window is null
JavaScript error: resource://gre/modules/WebRequestContent.js, line 124: TypeError: window is null
JavaScript error: resource:///actors/NetErrorChild.jsm, line 611: TypeError: docShell.failedChannel is null
JavaScript error: chrome://aboutsync/content/AboutSyncRedirector.js, line 13: TypeError: XPCOMUtils.generateQI is not a function
JavaScript error: chrome://aboutsync/content/AboutSyncRedirector.js, line 13: TypeError: XPCOMUtils.generateQI is not a function
JavaScript error: resource://gre/modules/WebRequestContent.js, line 124: TypeError: window is undefined
JavaScript error: chrome://aboutsync/content/AboutSyncRedirector.js, line 13: TypeError: XPCOMUtils.generateQI is not a function
JavaScript error: , line 0: EvalError: call to eval() blocked by CSP
JavaScript error: , line 0: EvalError: call to eval() blocked by CSP
JavaScript error: resource://gre/modules/WebRequestContent.js, line 124: TypeError: window is null
JavaScript error: resource://gre/modules/WebRequestContent.js, line 124: TypeError: window is null
JavaScript error: resource:///actors/NetErrorChild.jsm, line 611: TypeError: docShell.failedChannel is null

Using:

Name 	Firefox
Version 	63.0a1
Build ID 	20180821100053

Thanks!

At least I think this is the case, haven't dug in too deeply but Chris' bookmarks seem to have some recognizable words in the tags field. Had been meaning to let you know about this.