Suddenly running into "Privacy Badger failed to initialize" in Firefox

[Ablesius]

I don't know much else, the add-on just suddenly showed the "Privacy Badger failed to initialize" error and a link to this page.

Firefox version 133.0, uname -a: Linux T460 6.12.1-arch1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri, 22 Nov 2024 16:04:27 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[ghostwords]

Hello and thanks for opening an issue!

Next time this happens, could you open Privacy Badger's background page console, and see if there are any errors that will help us figure out what's going on?

To open the background page console:

1. Visit about:debugging
2. Select "This Firefox"
3. Click the Inspect button in the listing for Privacy Badger
4. Select the Console tab

Let me know if you have any questions.

Previously: #2966

[ghostwords]

Also, which version of Privacy Badger do you have?

[Ablesius]

Hi there!

PB version: 2024.7.17

I returned to the page where it happened, but now it seems to just work. Maybe it was just a glitch. I'll keep my eyes open for the problem, but now it's kind of unclear when/if I can recreate the issue!

[MadeinDave]

Same here with Firefox 134.0.2 (64 bit) and PB 2024.7.17, it fails on browser startup.

[ghostwords]

Hi @MadeinDave, are there any messages or errors in Privacy Badger's console when this happens?

[MadeinDave]

Hi @MadeinDave, are there any messages or errors in Privacy Badger's console when this happens?

Sorry for the late response, the error occurs on the first run of Firefox and the PB icon went red for a couple of seconds, before the extension works back.
Going under about:debugging just show some error messages:

Privacy Badger is ready to rock! background.js:123:13
Dropping malformed content script message  
Object { type: "getBlockedFrameUrls" }
  from https://github.com/EFForg/privacybadger/issues/3036#issuecomment-2523279890 webrequest.js:1188:17
Dropping malformed content script message  
Object { type: "checkWidgetReplacementEnabled" }
  from https://github.com/EFForg/privacybadger/issues/3036#issuecomment-2523279890 webrequest.js:1188:17

[ghostwords]

Thanks for checking but the messages in your log are unrelated. If there are any relevant messages, we would only see them when Privacy Badger is in the "failed to initialize" state.

[MadeinDave]

Thanks for checking but the messages in your log are unrelated. If there are any relevant messages, we would only see them when Privacy Badger is in the "failed to initialize" state.

In the about:debugging tab, inside inspector console doesn't show nothing more.
I can only see the PB icon turning red with a tooltip saying it fail to start, but it last just some seconds...

[ghostwords]

Oh! So your "failed to initialize" problem resolves itself after a few seconds without you having to do anything. Interesting! How often does the "failed to initialize" problem occur?

Also, to clarify, when you saw "failed to initialize" and visited about:debugging, did you click the "Analizza" button for Privacy Badger, and then did you select the Console tab? But there were no messages in the console?

[MadeinDave]

How often does the "failed to initialize" problem occur?

Almost every first Firefox startups...

Also, to clarify, when you saw "failed to initialize" and visited about:debugging, did you click the "Analizza" button for Privacy Badger, and then did you select the Console tab? But there were no messages in the console?

Most of the time the console its pretty empty, or the messages are the same from the last attachment

[ghostwords]

I'll add more debugging output to the next Privacy Badger update so that we can at least see where the problem lies.

[ghostwords]

We may have a fix for this Firefox issue in the next update. My guess is that Privacy Badger hangs waiting for "session" storage to return. The thing is, we don't even need to read from session storage at this time in Firefox, so if that's the problem, we have a straightforward fix.

I don't know why reading from session storage would take a long time in Firefox. It's possibly something about the Firefox profile, in which case this could be worked around by creating a new profile and moving all your stuff there.