Brief in Firefox 57+

[Freudentaumel]

I have two questions: 1) From when will Brief be compatible with Firefox57+? 2) Can I still use Brief even if I have "cleaned up" Firefox 57+? Because in this case, all add-ons have to be reinstalled.

[tanriol]

1. I'm working on it right now and hope to get an alpha version tomorrow. With some regressions, but at least working.

2. I don't know the scale of that cleanup. You can lose your feed list (unlikely, but possible) and stored entries.

[Freudentaumel]

1) Thank you for your quick answer and I wish you every success in the implementation.

2) I would export the feed list before from my current reader to the desktop and then import it into Brief.

[Freudentaumel]

I don't know the scale of that cleanup.

The "new" Firefox is like before, but only without the "actual" add-ons.

[primaeval]

Thanks. I downgraded Firefox to 56 just for brief. Keep up the good work. We need you. :)

[Freudentaumel]

I prefer to keep Firefox 57 and wait for the compatible (alpha) version.

tanriol is working on it and I want to give him the time he needs for a working version.

[primaeval]

It's the Firefoxalypse according to Slashdot. There are a unhappy puppies with all their broken addons. https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/11/13/204232/firefox-57-brings-better-sandboxing-on-linux I think someone said the nightlies and dev version still works but I haven't tried it.

[tanriol]

The pre-alpha is in master now. Just a few more required but missing features...

[claytonrcarter]

@tanriol do you have any tips for how to test out the alpha? I've tried running it via the web-ext command, as well as loading it temporarily via Add-ons Manager > Debug Add-ons > Load Temporary Add-on and both ways seem to go nowhere. I get access to the Brief UI, but there are no feeds and seemingly no options for adding feeds. I'm running FF 57.0 and would love to help out with testing.

[tanriol]

@claytonrcarter, First, if you've upgraded to Brief 2.4 previously, it should have saved a copy of your feed list. Haven't it? Subscribing is done by visiting a feed (or page that links to feeds) and clicking on the Brief button inside the address bar.

[Freudentaumel]

How can I install version 2.4 or a corresponding version in Firefox 57?

[Freudentaumel]

Meanwhile I´ve found the answer: version 2.5.0a1.

[claytonrcarter]

OK, I was missing the icon in the address bar. Normally, when I visit a feed, I was using the FF feed UI where it says "Subscribe to this feed using ..." then offers a drop down to pick how to subscribe. That doesn't appear to be working for me; it takes me to a file not found page with message "Firefox can’t find the file at chrome://brief/content/brief.xhtml?subscribe=http://blog.atom.io/feed.xml."

When I click the brief icon in the address bar, it looks like it's supposed to be showing some sort of modal confirmation, but all I get is a little triangular "tab" and the rest of the modal is collapsed, so I can't see it. It does appear to work to subscribe, though, and switching back to the Brief tab and reloading shows the new feed.

v2.5 has lost my feed list, though. I had been running an up-to-date Brief until the FF 57 update. I was able to find my old brief.sqlite file, so I can recreate my old list if needed. Could it not be finding my old feeds b/c it's only installed via debug/temporary install?

[tanriol]

When I click the brief icon in the address bar, it looks like it's supposed to be showing some sort of modal confirmation, but all I get is a little triangular "tab" and the rest of the modal is collapsed, so I can't see it. It does appear to work to subscribe, though, and switching back to the Brief tab and reloading shows the new feed.

It should not show any confirmation if there's only one possible feed here, but subscribe right away, so the tab should not appear.

Could it not be finding my old feeds b/c it's only installed via debug/temporary install?

Hmm... not sure. Probably if the debug/temporary install uses a different addon ID. Does it keep the feeds you add across a Firefox restart?

...the FF feed UI where it says "Subscribe to this feed using ..." then offers a drop down to pick how to subscribe.

I haven't yet hooked into that part of the subscribe page, although I do want to.

[claytonrcarter]

It should not show any confirmation if there's only one possible feed here, but subscribe right away, so the tab should not appear.

OK, here's what I'm seeing when I click the Brief icon in the address bar:

Probably if the debug/temporary install uses a different addon ID. Does it keep the feeds you add across a Firefox restart?

It does keep the feeds if I restart, but I have to reinstall the addon each time. I think you're right that it's not using the normal addon ID.

[Freudentaumel]

Meanwhile I´ve found the answer: version 2.5.0a1.

I am sorry, this version does not work at all in Firefox 57.

[tanriol]

@claytonrcarter Oh, thank you, a bug indeed. Will be fixed in 2.5.0a2.

@Freudentaumel Works for me in my tests. Would be very nice if you could specify what exactly does not work for you.

[tanriol]

Well, to be more exact, I'm testing it in 56 and using in Nightly 58. Testing only the upgrade scenario, sorry.

[Freudentaumel]

I can't import feeds or add a single feed.

Clicking on "Organize" does not open a window. And a click on "That's the way to do it" will also not open a window.

[tanriol]

Clicking on "Organize" does not open a window. And a click on "That's the way to do it" will also not open a window.

Yeah, I know about Organize, it's not yet there. Have you seen the Brief icon in the title bar as in the comment above?

[Freudentaumel]

Have you seen the Brief icon in the title bar as in the comment above?

No. It also no longer appears in the Firefox 57 settings.

[tanriol]

Well, if Brief is not installed in the Firefox addons list, then it's not installed for some reason and sure it can't work in that case.

[Freudentaumel]

But Brief is installed in the Firefox addons list.

[tanriol]

Ok, if Brief shows nothing for you, could you please do the following:

• open the browser console with Ctrl+Shift+J and clear it with the "trash" icon button,
• go to the addon list, disable Brief and enable it again,
• copy any errors or warnings from that operation to a place like pastebin and post a link here (or maybe just paste them here if only a few lines)

[h4p4t3]

WFM except for the known restrictions - Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:57.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/57.0

Thank you!

[Guite]

From where can I install the 2.5.0a1 version?

[h4p4t3]

https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/brief/versions/beta

[Guite]

Thanks!

Seems to work fine for me, thank you!

[DuncanL]

Working fine for me - feed list all present and correct having installed the 2.4 beta a while back.

Thank you @tanriol!

[SzegaX]

I installed 2.5.0a1 and observed the following: Refresh did not stop properly: the completion bar is still there, the button above is "stop" and unresponsive. "Organize" is also unresponsive. "Refresh now" from the dropdown menu is also unresponsive.

[tanriol]

@SzegaX Was it a one-time problem or does it occur regularly? Can you reproduce it reliably?

"Organize" is also unresponsive.

Not reimplemented yet.

[tanriol]

Published 2.5.0a2 with feed properties dialog and notifications.

[SzegaX]

@tanriol I cannot start the refresh manually, but the issue did not resolve with the auto-refresh either. The bar is stuck at ~90%, "stop" showing. I also cannot see the "loading" animation over feed icons in the list. Thus it might be that "refresh now" works, but I have no way of telling besides chancing upon a feed that updated in the last hour. I will install the newest version.

[SzegaX]

@tanriol Ran a manual refresh after the install of a2, no change. I should note that I have a feed that had a tendency to load ad infinitum sometimes, but the "stop" button took care of it until now.

[tanriol]

I also cannot see the "loading" animation over feed icons in the list.

Not implemented yet, sorry.

I should note that I have a feed that had a tendency to load ad infinitum sometimes, but the "stop" button took care of it until now.

There should be a time limit of 25 seconds on the load, so it should terminate rather quickly. Can you share the link for easier testing?

[SzegaX]

@tanriol Sure, it is http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots.rss I may have run out of patience in the past (so the 25s might have been not over yet), but now it has been sitting like that for minutes. I cannot confirm this is the feed causing the issue due to the lack of loading animations.

[claytonrcarter]

@tanriol Thank you, thank you! I have installed 2.5a2 (via the link https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/brief/versions/beta) and it seems to be working now.

It did not import my old feeds from 2.4, but I was able to find them in the old sqlite db on disk and resubscribe to each.

The only feed that didn't work was https://adamwathan.me/rss/ with the following output in console. (That feed has acted weird in previous versions, with dates of entries being off by significant margins.)

Need a new feed 77ae803682a843fa8fcb14e993186b50a5b833b2 from Object { title: "Adam Wathan's Blog", url: "https://adamwathan.me/rss/" }  database.js:230:13
[Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0xc1f30001 (NS_ERROR_NOT_INITIALIZED) [nsIMessageSender.sendAsyncMessage]"  nsresult: "0xc1f30001 (NS_ERROR_NOT_INITIALIZED)"  location: "JS frame :: resource://gre/modules/ExtensionUtils.jsm :: sendAsyncMessage :: line 505"  data: no]  (unknown)
ReferenceError: text is not defined
Stack trace:
url@moz-extension://1a9d09fc-7ab3-b544-a255-5b43bd91196b/scripts/updater.js:497:17
_parseNode@moz-extension://1a9d09fc-7ab3-b544-a255-5b43bd91196b/scripts/updater.js:352:33
entry@moz-extension://1a9d09fc-7ab3-b544-a255-5b43bd91196b/scripts/updater.js:446:25
_parseNode@moz-extension://1a9d09fc-7ab3-b544-a255-5b43bd91196b/scripts/updater.js:352:33
fetchFeed@moz-extension://1a9d09fc-7ab3-b544-a255-5b43bd91196b/scripts/updater.js:308:22
  (unknown)

[Keith94]

@tanriol Will importing feeds be implemented soon?

[tanriol]

@Keith94 Working on it right now! @claytonrcarter Thanks for the link, bug found and fixed! @SzegaX Works for me, but I'll try to restore the loading indicators soon.

[fichtennadel]

First: thumbs up for the beta, works fine for >90%

Two things I've realized:

• some feeds do not load and refresh stops on them
• "Stop" button is defunct

How to find out which feed causes the problem?

[claytonrcarter]

@fichtennadel There may be a better way, but I was able to do quite a bit of debugging and tinkering this way:

1. Open Add-ons (shift-command-a on Mac)
2. Next to "Search all add-ons" box there is a ⚙️ icon. Click the gear and select "Debug add-ons"
3. Up top, click "Enable add-on debugging"
4. Find "Brief" and click the "Debug" link underneath it.
5. You'll get a popup from the debugger asking if you will allow the incoming debugging connection. Select "OK".
6. A new dev tools window will appear and Brief will print output and debugging statements to the "Console" panel. (If you're unfamiliar, "Console" is listed up top, inbetween "Inspector" and "Debugger".)

Brief doesn't seem to be logging which feeds it's updating, but exceptions it encounters will be printed and those might be helpful.

[neltnerb]

Thanks so much for the great add-on! In addition to the import feed button not working (reported already), unsubscribing from a feed does not remove it and the "See how to do it!" link when you first open it is dead. Other than that, 2.5.0a2 seems to do what is expected.

[tanriol]

New alpha - 2.5.0a3. Features feed import, reliability fixes and working subscribe button in the feed preview UI.

The problems with stop button not working should be gone now.

[Keith94]

I tested importing from Feedly but more than half of my feeds seem to be missing in Brief.

[tanriol]

The import may take some time, unfortunately... that bothers me too, but no good idea on what to do instead.

[fichtennadel]

Subscribe button does not show anymore in 2.5.0a3, for example on http://derstandard.at/

Switched back to 2.5.0a2, ok there.

[tanriol]

@fichtennadel Thank you for reporting, fixed in alpha 4.

[fichtennadel]

Subscribe button is back in a4, but list is empty:

[tanriol]

Reproduced and fixed, thank you.

[tanriol]

Version 2.5.0a5: drag'n'drop for Organize and the fix mentioned above.

[eberhardweber]

I too tried importing my feed backup now that it is possible on a5, but not all of them ultimately got imported. I waited until no more feeds were added, and the importing process stopped at 999 unread feeds. Perhaps that's where it also stopped adding more subscriptions?