"Over-modded?" Pale Moon

Giraffe · Unread post by **Giraffe** » 2019-04-15, 07:44

Having various little issues such as some sites not loading fully (The Register; Beta News etc.), some continuously hitting e.g. Twitter but nominally fully loaded.
When this happens I open the page in PM Portable or Firefox 60 ESR and it's OK - Portable has few tweaks, mostly just for ease of use.

Now, the problems persist in Safe Mode. I'm unwilling to disable extensions, as I've spent a couple of years tweaking them, unless they hold their settings when re-enabled(?).
REM-ing out Prefs does get rid of the problems, so I suspect something in Config.

Unread post by **Night Wing** » 2019-04-15, 10:51

Giraffe wrote:Having various little issues such as some sites not loading fully (The Register; Beta News etc.), some continuously hitting e.g. Twitter but nominally fully loaded.

Lets view the other side of the coin.

I visit the Register and Beta News sites "everyday" and I've been doing so for many years now. Both sites always fully load and they do so in about 1-2 seconds of time. I have never had any problems with these two sites whether I'm using 64 bit linux Pale Moon running in 64 bit linux Mint or if I'm using 32 bit windows Pale Moon running in 64 bit Windows 7.

Even though I have 4 HP computers (2 desktop towers, 2 laptops), I visit the the above sites daily with my 2 desktop towers. They both are old computers age wise. One is now almost 9 years old and the other is 7 years old.

The almost 9 year old desktop computer has an i7 processor in it and it runs at 2.80 speed wise and it is the one I use everyday. It has 16 GB of memory with an AMD Radeon HD 6450 graphics card (which I put into this machine three weeks ago). This graphics card was in an old desktop tower computer that someone brought in to the computer repair shop so the desktop tower computer could be recycled where I volunteer at. So I took the Radeon graphics card out of it and put into my old beast and it works flawlessly with an updated 2015 graphics driver.

The second 7 year old desktop tower also has an Intel i7 processor in it and it runs at 3.40 speed wise. It has 24 GB of memory. At the moment, I can't remember what graphics card is in it, but it is an AMD graphics card.

My ISP is Comcast (Xfinity) and even though I live in a very small town in southeast Texas (out in the "boondocks" as they say), I have hi-speed broadband cable and my download speed is 295.80 mbps and my upload speed is 11.92 mbps.

I can't speak for Twitter since I don't have a Twitter account and have no interest in getting a Twitter account. Social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc) do not interest me. So if you're having problems with the Register and Beta News sites when using Pale Moon, I'm going to suspect the problem is not with Pale Moon, but it is on your end someplace. Be it hardware, your ISP speed, extensions or even with your own "tweaking".................or a combination of things.

Unread post by **Moonchild** » 2019-04-15, 11:05

You've got more than a few potentially problematic preferences.
I recommend you reset all preferences to Pale Moon defaults, and only change those preferences you need for your use. i.e. don't mess with memory cache or touch known-risky prefs in network.*. And please don't expect all websites to respond favorably to spoofed referrers either. it's a trade-off setting that WILL break the web in various ways. I can go on.

Goodydino · Unread post by **Goodydino** » 2019-04-15, 16:57

I found that spoofing third-party referrers is not a problem, but do not spoof the first-party ones. There is little point in spoofing the first-party referrers anyway, since a server can keep a log of all its pages that have been visited by any visitor.

Unread post by **Moonchild** » 2019-04-15, 17:21

Goodydino wrote:I found that spoofing third-party referrers is not a problem, but do not spoof the first-party ones. There is little point in spoofing the first-party referrers anyway, since a server can keep a log of all its pages that have been visited by any visitor.

I think you might be confusing some terms here ... spoofing referrers MEANS you are replacing the actual (3rd party) referrer with a 1st party one. You can't spoof 1st party referrers because that would just end up being the same domain anyway.

Giraffe · Unread post by **Giraffe** » 2019-04-16, 08:18

Well, definitely 'at my end'!
Resetting the Preferences will I assume, remove the visual parts and settings for extensions as well(?).
I've just tried exporting an extension in which there are several changes from default (Session Manager) then installing it in PM Portable - the changes didn't hold

Some extensions allow the saving of their prefs but not all.

Oh well, I'll take screen shots for the toolbar etc. and bite the bullet - I might be some time.

BTW, this morning, without having done anything, The Register, BetaNews and AV Forums all load perfectly. When they didn't load, disabling Ublock and-or Hosts mad no difference at all.

Thank you all for the advice.

Giraffe · Unread post by **Giraffe** » 2019-04-17, 08:24

Will simply replacing Prefs.js do the reset?

I'm taking screenshots, and as many backups of non-browser-specific extensions as I can, to try to reduce the work needed.

New Tobin Paradigm · Unread post by **New Tobin Paradigm** » 2019-04-17, 08:50

Be smart.. Don't screw with the profile directly...

Unread post by **Isengrim** » 2019-04-17, 10:14

Personally I would create a brand new profile using the profile manager and test with that first. Identify specific things that work with the new profile that do not work with the old, then slowly copy extensions and settings over while keeping an eye on the items you have identified.

John connor · Unread post by **John connor** » 2019-04-17, 11:19

Here's what I'd do providing the website/s have consistent erratic behavior to provide a constant in this experiment. If not, then it will be hard to diagnose.

First backup PM with this tool. Encrypt it in a SFX archive using 7-Zip. Back it up all over the place as you describe. I use cloud storage, local FTP, DVD/RW, and Blu-ray.

Now download and install Diffmerge. https://sourcegear.com/diffmerge/

Take a clean, default prefs file and place it in a folder on your desktop called default.

Take a copy of your current prefs file and place it in a folder on your desktop called current.

Now right click the default folder and using the context menu open with Diffmerge. Then in Diffmerge window that appears chose the other folder for comparison called current.

Now you can go though the whole lot and see what has been changed versus what hasn't. Then either by using educated guesses based on a certain setting you see that has changed or by process of elimination, set the current pref change in your browser to that changed pref and reload the problematic webpage. Of course you should have a clean default prefs file in your browser to test with as you make pref changes from the prefs that have changed. I use Notepad ++ to easily edit the file. Do this for each pref change until you find the pref that is the culprit. I know this will be a long and tedious process, but it's really the only way you can really narrow down the exact pref that is the source of the issue. Like I said, you could use some educated guesses as to what pref may be the issue to help lessen the time it takes to find the problematic pref.

I did exactly this trying to figure out why the I don't care about cookies add-on was making the page load icon and URL at the bottom left constantly load. Through some educated guessing I narrowed down the exact pref that was the culprit and reported it to the author who in fact confirmed the issue. Looks like this add-on has been updated so that issue should be fixed now. https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/

If you don't want to go though all this, or that the websites are now behaving. Then perhaps swamping your prefs file with a default one would be prudent.

As far as your customization of add-ons. I don't understand why those didn't stick in PM portable. If you made the changes in the XPI file its self, then that would be permanent and should carry over in PM portable. But if you made some kind of changes in the browser its self, that would be a lot different. Seen as how one browser would be different from the next.

In regards to forging the ref. I do this myself with the add-on RefControl. In its settings I just chose to spoof the ref so it looks like my third-party ref is just the source page. Or how ever the hell you wanna say it. Basically when click on a link say on a website that goes to eBay, eBay just sees eBay.com slash all this crap/****. Though as suggested it can pose issues with certain sites. Though my issues have been far and few between. So if you are having issues, that'd be what I'd check first. If I can remember right, Github didn't like my forged Ref and wanted to see the exact Ref. It posed an issue logging in. Then of course I have a list in RefControl for sites that should use their normal referrer so I don't end up with any problems. Like PayPal or my bank, etc.

Unread post by **Moonchild** » 2019-04-17, 11:25

Giraffe wrote:Will simply replacing Prefs.js do the reset?

I'm taking screenshots, and as many backups of non-browser-specific extensions as I can, to try to reduce the work needed.

Please use the tools provided by the browser.
1. Help -> restart in safe mode
2. Check "Reset all preferences to Pale Moon defaults" in the recovery dialog
3. Make changes and restart

Giraffe · Unread post by **Giraffe** » 2019-04-18, 06:59

@ F22 Simpilot: thank you for all that - it'd be interesting to have a go, if I have the time!

@ Moonchild: I'll do that first, backing up of course. Thank you.

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