Rated 5 out of 5 stars

by private_lock on July 4, 2015 ·

I have some dozen of add-ons installed. Whenever one of them shows an error or some unwanted behavior, I have a hard time figuring out, which of them is the culprit. So I'd like to conduct a binary search, everytime bisecting the possibilities. I suggest integrating tightly into the addon-manager.

First step would be to go to the addon-manager, when I notice an error and trigger your addon. It will take note of the current status of each addon: activated/deactivated & compatible/incompatible with current Firefox. You could open a dialog with some explanations and allow me to type a text comment of which error I'm currently tracing and how to reproduce it (I plan for this search to eventually last over a few days up to several weeks until I nail the bug).

On pressing OK, half of the currently unknown active and compatible addons is activated and Firefox restarts. I continue normal surfing until either I notice the bug again or e.g. one hour after startup your addon reminds me of the ongoing bisection. I open the addon-manager again and invoke your addon again, that shows a somewhat modified dialog: The global explanations, my comment and below some buttons:
- "abort" - reset addons to initially saved activated state of all addons and discard any infos
- "suspend" - reset addons to initially saved activated state of all addons but keep the accumulated infos to resume (I just have some work to get done and need a working browser irrespective of this special error)
- "bug observed" - all currently deactivated addons have their suspect status cleared
- "more time" - nag me again in an hour
- "bug likely absent" - any one of the last deactivated seems to take part in the bug, this does not clear any suspect state, as more than one addon might be involved.

In a later version you might also add tracking for the exact version because any automatic update to an addon might magically solve the issue. Addons, that have already been cleared or were installed newly after the start of the last bisection. For a first shot it might be sufficient to assume no external changes.

would be really great to read your ideas on this. Thanks.

by Marco Wekking (Developer) on Aug. 8, 2015 ·

Thanks for the review and for sharing your idea. Apologies for the late reply.

If I understand correctly, you'd like to see Plugin Disabler equipped with a set of features that allows users to find out which add-on(s) cause problems in their Firefox installation?

A cool idea that deserves attention. Unfortunately, I don't see myself working on it as I expect to need a lot of time just to get one feature you request to work.

Mail me if you want to ask me something or share more thoughts. I've added my email address to my profile.