Video DownloadHelper icon missing in Firefox

[Jim Watson]

Does anyone have a solution for this problem?

I have read everything I can find that refers to this problem but nowhere can I find a solution.

Does the fault lie with FF or VDH?

[mig]

Does the fault lie with FF or VDH?

That's a good question. I tend to think it's basically a FF problem since the browser provides the API to create the toolbar button and does not give much freedom to the add-on to handle it. Plus, the problem has often been reported after a browser update.

I assume you tried the basics:

• check the Firefox customize operation
• open URL about:config and reset parameter browser.uiCustomization.state

[Jim Watson]

Hi mig,

Yes I tried all the basics but to no avail.

HOWEVER I decided to reboot and LO AND BEHOLD the icon had returned in the customisation area.


The Wonder of Windows

[mig]

I'd love to understand what's going on with that recurrent issue :/

[Hairy Scot]

Somedays I just get the feeling that Linux is becoming more and more attractive.

If only I were not so lazy.   ;)

[tjphoto]

I'm having what I think is the same problem.  I just noticed in the last 24 hours that the VDH icon had disappeared from the Firefox menu area.  I tried reinstalling, it says the software is installed but the icon still didn't show up.  I was able to get it to go to the menu bar with settings, but it still isn't functional--meaning it doesn't register as seeing any videos for download and won't download them.  I went to my Chrome browser, and VDH seems to be working there, but is very slow. I normally use Firefox for Mac, and the VDH has been working great in that browser.  But now it seems to be dead in the water.  Is anyone else clear on how to resolve this?  A note from Hair Scot further down suggests he "rebooted" and all was well. Not sure if you mean rebooted your Mac or what.  Something is amiss.

[Hairy Scot]

@tjphoto

I rebooted my Windows 10 PC and the VDH icon then showed up in the customisation area in Firefox. From there I moved it to the menu bar.

[Manuel Daddi]

Hello,
I tried rebooting my system, but still no icon appears. I also tried to reset the browser.uiCustomization.State, and removing every add-on but DownloadHelper, and even in this case no icon. I also tried reinstalling it. How can i make it work??

[scan]

Hi folks. Today I had the same problem (icon missing) in Firefox 45. Was using 5.5.0a17. Had upgraded Firefox from 44 to 45 today but after the upgrade, VDH still worked and I had used it successfully to get some large streaming files. I then discovered that I had an extremely large number of f4f chunks in my Firefox history after which I cleared this history and the Firefox cache and then some time later I discovered that the icon had gone. No idea whether these events are of significance, but I report it all just in case.

Here is how I got the icon back:

- Installed the current stable release (5.4.2). I did not first remove the 5.5.0a17 version. This brought the icon back and the tool worked again

- Then re-installed the 5.5.a17 beta. Icon remained there, beta version of VDH works as it should.

I did not change anything in about:config and never rebooted the computer.

Hope this gets everyone going again, but it is not the solution to the problem

[HS]

Same problem.

I have installed VDH 5.4.2 on Firefox 45 on two PCs
1. Windows 8.1
2. Linux Mint 17.3

On Linux the VDH icon appears and downloading works, On Windows no icon, but list of add-ons shows VDH as installed.
Tried re-booting, customizing. Have been using VDH for years without any problems.The no icon issue on Windows appeared about two weeks ago.
What else can I do?

[mig]

Do you have the same add-ons installed on both Linux and Windows machines ?

[niftyjig]

I tried re-installing with the browser open, did the about:settings bit, uninstalled, closed browser, opened browser, re-installed, nothing. Been like this a few days, now. A few months ago, VDH on both my machines decided they didn't really need to download image galleries, but had been ripping streams okay. Not the icon really is completely gone, I can't even find the "secret" one in the "tools" drop down, which is there when it disappears from the toolbar. I am going to check the status of VDH on my XP box I still have running. It stopped DLing galleries too, but was doing streams, last I was aware.

[Debra Krawczykiewicz]

I have added on the VDH several times, the icon is not showing up even after the restart. How do I use this if I can't find it?

[cassi...@gmail.com]

The disappearing icon issue has been driving me nuts for the last couple of weeks. It seems to come and go at random. I have tried all of the solutions posted here, with no luck.

I'm using Waterfox v46.0.1. I had VDH set to update automatically. I re-installed the latest version of VDH several times, because that seemed to fix the problem at one point. With the latest "disappearance" that solution did nothing.

What did work for me was installing an older version of VDH, specifically 5.5.0. Icon has returned, at least for now. I have also turned off automatic updating in VDH for the time being. The next time Waterfox updates, I'll see if the VDH icon is still there. If it is, then I'll try the latest version of VDH and see what happens. If the problem returns, I'll drop back to VDH 5.5.0 and hope for the best.

I hope this "solution" helps someone. It's at least worth a try if you've exhausted other possibilities.

[mig]

Another thing that might help: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1257847

It seems that the problem has been resolved in Firefox 48.0a2, but since we never experienced that issue, we couldn't verify it.

Can someone with that issue on Firefox 46.0.1 report if that works with Firefox 48.0a2 or latest Firefox 49 ?

[BobR]

I'm on Firefox 52.0.1 and VDH 6.2.0.  VDH shows up on the Extensions page as enabled, but no icon shows up on the Firefox screen.  Any ideas?

[mig]

Check https://groups.google.com/d/msg/video-downloadhelper-q-and-a/58FTyU8IAXE/i1z4XMjTFgAJ