µBlock, a lean and fast blocker

What I seem to notice is that the error occurs after the ublock version is updated to the next version .... now I'm using 0.7.0.2

I use the word "seem" because I don't have a forewarning of when there will be a version update .... But when I have this problem with losing the filters, and then check the ublock version, it is always just released.

If there was a method to turn-off the version auto-update, I could test out the theory by then turning it back on after knowing an update was available.

 

@beethoven
If you go into options then the statistics tab. it will show you what was blocked, but its not clear on where in the page the blocked item are from. You will first need to enable this feature by enabling "enable the logging of network requests''.

 

I updated Chrome today to the latest version. uBlock is at V7.0.0 Chrome has not auto updated uBlock to 7.0.2 Is this rel on hold or is it manual update only?

 

Go to 'Manage' in Chrome and tick the developer mode on. It should update after that. I am having also the latest Chrome version I updated yesterday and after that I updated uBlock that way.

After updating I unticked the developer mode checkbox. I am a Sandboxie user, so I don't want my 2 extensions to update at their will. To not have the updates done in those sandbox instances if possible to prevent, but only in my real Windows system.

 

Do you use HTTPSB? Is HTTPSB's behind-the-scene matrix blocking the net requests used by the Chrome store?

 

I thought about doing this, but once you know the purpose of the few cells, the tooltips will quickly become annoying. I did put in there a question mark linked to a web page documenting dynamic filtering, but I think I need to first work on that web page to make it clearer, to provide succinctly the most useful information right at the start[/user]

 

That would be the Statistics tab which will show you all net requests made by the page. Logging needs to be enabled first.

 

Yes, I use HTTPSB. I've never used the "Behind the Scenes" option.... and double checked the matrix .... it is all enabled (green)

 

Has something changed recently? Or only my system? It seems today many video sites that used to work with HTTPSB settings, now demand to put some allowance to 'other' column. I need to untick some things on the other column, or else I can't get some videos to work. This is really quite upsetting.

If the possible attack target was uBlock I don't know exactly. I noticed these changes after I yesterday updated Chrome and then uBlock. I never needed to allow if I remember anything on the other HTTSB column to make my internet programs work. Now I do.

 

this is due to change in the functionality of chrome v38. It wrongly reports video related types as other instead of plugin. to partially circumvent the issue, i whitelisted other type for googlevideo.com, which should atleast solve the issue for youtube playing from 3rd party sites...
Gorhill can throw more light on this issue...

 

Yes, this is Chromium issue 412786. The Chromium devs don't seem to make a big deal out of this, but it is definitely a big deal, they broke a stable API.

 

This is worrisome. There is no reason you settings should be wiped out. This must be specific to your environment as this problem was not reported by anybody else, no doubt it would have already if it was widespread, losing all settings is a really annoying problem. Currently I am out of idea of where to look to figure what is happening.

When this happens next time, could you backup all the settings into a file (from the _About_ tab) before you make any changes, and send me the content of the backup file? (email is here)

 

Hi gorhill... right now I'm using httpsb alongside ublock...
with the new dynamic filtering in ublock, so it's better to use ublock alone or still better to use both?

 

At this point it comes down to personal choice. HTTPSB point-and-click granularity is higher and you can see what happens behind the scene. uBlock's point-and-click granularity is 1st/3rd-party and only for script/frame. It all come down to what level of control you want, it's your call.

uBlock ís definitely easier to use, and blocking 3rd-party script/frame by default is a definitely huge improvement security- and bloat-blocking wise.

 

Wow, uBlock is great. Thanks to OP for the tip.

 

OP is the creator of this great extension

 

Even better, kudos to the developer!

 

OK, Will send you the backup.

I run both Windows and Ubuntu. I use the same settings for ublock in both. The issue has never occurred in Windows. Only Ubuntu.

I think the problem points to not being able to import the "your" filters file after the update. So they are not really wiped out .... just not reloaded after an update. This would explain why I also am unable to import the file manually (until I do some manual editing to the now blank "Your" filters after the update). Is it possible there are some "bad" characters in filter file that creates problem? Or possibly the difference between Windows and Linux text files?

 

I just tried exporting from Windows and importing into Linux Mint and all was fine: the filters I had create in Windows were properly imported in Linux Mint. I would like to see your filters, there must be something uBlock doesn't expect in there, which may cause a javascript exception, which abort the loading/parsing of filters. I don't know, I really have to look into the data itself. I don't see how this would empty the "Your filters" field, there they are loaded from storage, independently of whether or not they were parsed into memory.

 

But if ublock is updated, does not it start out with no filters and then try to import my personal filters? And then if it is unable to load the filters for some reason, I would be left with this "blank" state.

I can email you a copy of my filters that have been exported. But this is may not the same as the file that Chrome/ublock is trying to import. I assume the ublock extension is saving my filters somewhere in the file system, but I'm not sure where. I took a look at the directories where the extension is stored ... but could not recognize which files contained my personal settings.

Let me know if you would like a copy of my exported filters.

 

I have found a method that reproduces the problem. I first went to ublock/options/about and "backup to file" to save the current configuration. Next, I click on "Start from Scratch". Now if I go to 3rd party filters, I notice that none of the hosts files in the "multipurpose" section are checked. Also the "your filters" is blank. So this is like the situation I find myself in when the problem occurs.

Now I go back to options/about and click "Restore from File" and then choose the backup file made a few minutes earlier ... Nothing happens. It does not restore. I try again .. again failure. On the third try it worked.

So I did the "Start from Scratch" again ..... It does not restore sometimes ... It may refuse 3 times in a row .. or it may restore correctly 3 times in a row. (Always using the same backup file). If it refuses ... and I keep trying again (by clicking Restore from File) .. eventually it works. There does not seem to be a pattern in when it chooses not to work.

I will send you a copy of my backup file.

 

Thanks for the explanation gorhill... I will stick with both ATM...

 

No, when uBlock updates, it just restarts, all your settings are in the extension's local storage, there is nothing to import. I tried over 20 times to import and re-import your backup files, using the store version of uBlock, and it never failed.

The only common point between a store update and an import from file is that the extension is reloaded into memory.

I went back to re-read your posts, and one thing I don't know yet is which exact version of Chromium are you using? Also, do you have custom command line flags when you launch Chromium?

Another thing I saw is that you were sometimes unable to import your custom filters in the "Your filters" field using the "Import and append" button. I am really at a lost here of what the problem can be -- it's pretty much just HTML5 stuff happening here, nothiing overly complicated. It seems that the chrome.storage.local API is problematic in your environment. Do you have some kind of special configuration, like your Chromium ~/.config/chromium being in a special place (through sym link or something)?

Can you confirm that the extension restarts after you confirm "Start from scratch" or "Restore from backup"? When the extension restarts, the extension setting page is automatically closed. Is this happening?

 

I'm using google chrome. Version 37.0.2062.120. The only special start instruction I have is to run cache in RAM. This is a recent change however .. The problem with the losing the filter values predates this change.

The start command I use is: google-chrome-stable --disk-cache-dir="/tmp" %U
where tmp is defined by: tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0 in fstab

When I installed Chrome, I did not install in a special location. So it is installed in the .config/google-chrome directory.

When I click "Restore from backup" the uBlock/About page reloads if it was successful. If it failed, nothing happens. It stays on that page. When it fails, I also do not get the dialog popup warning that my settings will be overwritten (I did however, get the dialog to choose the backup file). When it fails to restore, I just click on "restore from backup" again .. and it may restore successfully this time.

 

Ok, I did find a glitch. It looks it may happen the file picker won't trigger an event, and as a consequence no file import nor alert will occur after the file is picked. So I reworked the code to be sure that the event will be triggered every times a file is selected. Now that said, I still can't understand why your settings would be reset to factory -- it's completely unrelated to the restore from file feature. The missing file picker event glitch just prevent the restore from occurring at all, so no data is changed when it occurs.

This doesn't explain how your data is reset to factory when uBlock update. I had assumed you were using Chromium on Ubuntu, I dont see though why there would be problem with Google Chrome.