Persona Themes not working on v31

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Zero_G
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Persona Themes not working on v31

Unread post by Zero_G » 2022-05-11, 19:01

Operating system: Windows 7
Browser version: 31.0.0
32-bit or 64-bit browser?: 64

Persona Themes stopped working since I updated to v31, you can still apply them, but only get a solid color instead of an image.

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Re: Persona Themes not working on v31

Unread post by Moonchild » 2022-05-11, 20:20

Which persona are you trying to use?
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
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Zero_G
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Re: Persona Themes not working on v31

Unread post by Zero_G » 2022-05-12, 17:40

I have 3, all three don't show their image at the top part of the browser (where the bookmarks and tabs are), can't show a screenshot of that without downgrading and taking one, right now there is only a solid color (that changes depending on the theme used).

Here are the themes/personas I have:
Image

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Re: Persona Themes not working on v31

Unread post by Moonchild » 2022-05-12, 17:53

I verified personas work in Pale Moon 31.0.0 using the few available on https://addons.palemoon.org/personas/
If you are missing the images then that is most likely because they are no longer available on-line (personas rely on images used in them being available at the URLs contained within the persona). While they may be cached in the browser for a while they remain a type of "service" theme.
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
"Linux makes everything difficult." -- Lyceus Anubite

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back2themoon
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Re: Persona Themes not working on v31

Unread post by back2themoon » 2022-05-12, 19:30

I had the same problem after I upgraded to v30. Don't know if it's related to v30, perhaps it's a version compatibility issue after the upgrade - or not.

Some of the personas worked, so I suspected they might have been taken down. If your Personas are hosted by Mozilla and meant for Firefox, try looking for and installing the same ones for Thunderbird. This worked for me, and they are all usually available.

In any case, we should back up our favourite Personas (i.e. all their related images) to avoid losing them in a split second, if they are taken down.

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ron_1
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Re: Persona Themes not working on v31

Unread post by ron_1 » 2022-05-12, 21:14

Zero_G wrote:
2022-05-12, 17:40
Here are the themes/personas I have:
Image
Those aren't Pale Moon personas.

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Re: Persona Themes not working on v31

Unread post by Zero_G » 2022-05-13, 03:32

So the problem is that firefox web took down the personas, and the images where hosted not local. Hosting the image only is... a pretty bad programming choice.

Luckily I do make profile backups regularly so I probably have the image there somewhere, but where? I can't find where in the profile the personas are stored. Also once I manage to find it, how do I make it to look for the image locally and not the hosted one?

Edit: So I went to the official firefox personas page, and it's still up. And I could find the personas I have. Doesn't let me install them though, as it says it needs webextensions, so I guess they updated them to the newer firefox versions, at least I get the images by opening the xpi file.
Here is a screen of a search query with Pale Moon, notice how you can't see the images of the personas. Though this most probably is an incompatibility with the web render, as chrome and firefox do display it alright.
Image
Viewed in firefox or chrome:
Image

Another option if the current personas can't be salvaged would be to transform the webextension xpi to a palemoon persona format, sadly I don't know how to even begin about doing that, so I appreciate some assistance in how to do it.

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Re: Persona Themes not working on v31

Unread post by mseliger » 2022-05-13, 08:01

There is one problem with the office personas themes of firefox. These are incomplete because firefox has no status-bar and so the themes have no footer-image.
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Ich bin ein Westfale, und zwar ein Stockwestfale, nämlich ein Münsterländer – Gott sei Dank! füge ich hinzu ...
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Re: Persona Themes not working on v31

Unread post by back2themoon » 2022-05-13, 08:06

Zero_G wrote:
2022-05-13, 03:32
Luckily I do make profile backups regularly so I probably have the image there somewhere, but where? I can't find where in the profile the personas are stored.
They are not stored locally, they don't work like that. Search the forum for more details.
Zero_G wrote:
2022-05-13, 03:32
So I went to the official firefox personas page, and it's still up. And I could find the personas I have. Doesn't let me install them though...
I've already suggested to you to NOT look for Firefox Personas, but Thunderbird.

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Re: Persona Themes not working on v31

Unread post by hitokage » 2022-05-13, 10:00

They are cached locally, at least the last one used, but it appears that if the online copy disappears the cached copy isn't loaded. In your profile folder you will find two files lightweighttheme-header and lightweighttheme-footer - they are the image files just missing their extension. A program like IrfanView can detect which image format the file is, and offer to rename it.

There is also a folder called personas that contains another folder called cache, you might find copies there. My cache folder contained a folder with a number for a name, but that folder was empty. The cache folder itself had two JSON files - a favorites one that was pretty much empty, and one named personas that seemed to have a list of the personas I have used. The personas.json file may help in you in searching for them online. It's also possible you'll have none of this stuff, as it may be left overs in my profile from the old Firefox Personas extension or another extension I had called Personas Rotator.

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Re: Persona Themes not working on v31

Unread post by Zero_G » 2022-05-14, 18:05

back2themoon wrote:
2022-05-13, 08:06
I've already suggested to you to NOT look for Firefox Personas, but Thunderbird.
Thunderbird personas also use webextension format, and seem to not be compatible with Pale Moon.
hitokage wrote:
2022-05-13, 10:00
They are cached locally, at least the last one used, but it appears that if the online copy disappears the cached copy isn't loaded. In your profile folder you will find two files lightweighttheme-header and lightweighttheme-footer - they are the image files just missing their extension. A program like IrfanView can detect which image format the file is, and offer to rename it.
Yeah, this is true, looking in previous profile backups, those two files correspond with the image of the persona I used that time, this would be useful if I didn't find already the updated persona in webextension format with the image embedded. Nice info though.
hitokage wrote:
2022-05-13, 10:00
There is also a folder called personas that contains another folder called cache, you might find copies there. My cache folder contained a folder with a number for a name, but that folder was empty. The cache folder itself had two JSON files - a favorites one that was pretty much empty, and one named personas that seemed to have a list of the personas I have used. The personas.json file may help in you in searching for them online. It's also possible you'll have none of this stuff, as it may be left overs in my profile from the old Firefox Personas extension or another extension I had called Personas Rotator.
No, I didn't have any of those folder or files.

----------------------------
I found the solution to this. Personas and their info are stored in the prefs.js file under the "user_pref("lightweightThemes" lines. Using the info hitokage shared about the cache files you could close Pale Moon, and restore those files, then edit the following lines from false to true:

Code: Select all

user_pref("lightweightThemes.persisted.footerURL", true);
user_pref("lightweightThemes.persisted.headerURL", true);
A more permanent solution would be to host the images yourself and edit the values in

Code: Select all

user_pref("lightweightThemes.usedThemes", "[{\"id\":\"59531\",\"name\":\"mine vocaloid\",\"headerURL\":\"https://addons.cdn.mozilla.net/user-media/addons/59531/vocaloid.png?1263573498\............
Though I would like to know if it's possible for the urls in that line to look for a file locally, so you don't have to host those images.

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Re: Persona Themes not working on v31

Unread post by riiis » 2022-05-18, 22:16

Aviation wrote:
2022-05-17, 14:57
31.0.0 killed my theme ...
Snowflake of Light by MaDonna
Zero_G wrote:
2022-05-11, 19:01
Persona Themes stopped working since I updated to v31, you can still apply them, but only get a solid color instead of an image.
Persona images appear to have moved. That is, these images apparently have been removed from "addons.cdn.mozilla.net" and moved to "addons.thunderbird.net". Thus the appearance of this persona issue, at the same time as the update to Pale Moon 31, may have been completely coincidental.

Persona/lightweight themes are stored, as a json string value, in the "lightweightThemes.usedThemes" preference of "about:config". Thus, to restore your persona images, first make 2 copies of the value of "lightweightThemes.usedThemes" (one copy for backup (IMPORTANT) and a second copy for edit). Second, in the second copy for edit, in a text editor (such as notepad or notepad++), search for all instances of "addons.cdn.mozilla.net" and replace with "addons.thunderbird.net". Do not attempt to edit the json string directly in "about:config". Third, right-click the preference "lightweightThemes.usedThemes" in "about:config". Select "Modify" from the context menu. Then, paste the new value of "lightweightThemes.usedThemes", over the entire old value, in the open "Enter string value" window. Then click "OK". Your persona images should now have been restored. Note that once you click "OK", your changes to "lightweightThemes.usedThemes" cannot be cancelled or undone. Accordingly, if you have an error in the new value of "lightweightThemes.usedThemes", consider replacing the new value with the old backup value, then starting over.

The "ThemeTool" extension can be used to backup and replace (restore) the value of the "lightweightThemes.usedThemes" preference.

For example, to restore the image of the "Snowflake of Light by MaDonna" persona, change the relevant text in the "lightweightThemes.usedThemes" preference from:
{
"id": "557368",
"name": "Snowflake of Light by MaDonna",
"headerURL": "https://addons.cdn.mozilla.net/user-med ... 1427211984",
"footerURL": "https://addons.cdn.mozilla.net/user-med ... 1427211984",
"textcolor": "#000000",
"accentcolor": "#9dc3e8",
"iconURL": "https://addons.cdn.mozilla.net/user-med ... 1427211984",
"previewURL": "https://addons.cdn.mozilla.net/user-med ... 1427211984",
"author": "MaDonna",
"description": "Designed by MaDonna\n\nMy wallpaper to match is at: <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://outgoing.prod.mozaws.net/v1/548 ... 877822/</a>",
"updateURL": "https://versioncheck.addons.mozilla.org ... eck/557368",
"version": "1.0"
},
Change to:
{
"id": "557368",
"name": "Snowflake of Light by MaDonna",
"headerURL": "https://addons.thunderbird.net/user-med ... 1427211984",
"footerURL": "https://addons.thunderbird.net/user-med ... 1427211984",
"textcolor": "#000000",
"accentcolor": "#9dc3e8",
"iconURL": "https://addons.thunderbird.net/user-med ... 1427211984",
"previewURL": "https://addons.thunderbird.net/user-med ... 1427211984",
"author": "MaDonna",
"description": "Designed by MaDonna\n\nMy wallpaper to match is at: <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https://outgoing.prod.mozaws.net/v1/548 ... 877822/</a>",
"updateURL": "https://versioncheck.addons.mozilla.org ... eck/557368",
"version": "1.0"
},

Note that persona"s on both the Firefox and Thunderbird websites-- these lightweight themes are not compatible with Pale Moon. Nor can these persona's be made compatible with Pale Moon. Accordingly, to add a new persona/lightweight theme to Pale Moon, first install the persona from the "Wayback Machine" (https://web.archive.org/web/20130415084 ... ox/themes/). Then change the image URL's, as described above (i.e. replace all instances of "addons.cdn.mozilla.net" with "addons.thunderbird.net"). Also note that persona's listed on web.archive.org are old listings and may no longer be available.

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Re: Persona Themes not working on v31

Unread post by Aviation » 2022-05-19, 09:10

Thank you zero-G & special thanks to Riis, worked like a charm.

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Re: Persona Themes not working on v31

Unread post by spline » 2022-05-23, 05:47

Editing prefs and such didnt work for me. However, I did some hunting around. Personas Plus (it's in the Classic Add-on Archive which is here ) still mostly works and does allow you to change the header/footer images and colours. (n.b. the size restrictions of the images, may need to resize whatever you were using before. The extension will tell you.)

The last version of personas plus is 1.8.3, and you need to version bump it for compatibility. I'm including a copy here in case you dont feel like dealing with that.
Attachments
personas_plus-1.8.3-fx+sm+tb.xpi
(424.55 KiB) Downloaded 21 times

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Re: Persona Themes not working on v31

Unread post by Loppetz » 2022-05-27, 07:37

Thanks to riiis for the easy solution via about:config.
I'd like to add that after the changes you need to open a new Add-ons window and not switch to one that is already open, as that just resets the changes you made.

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