After recently performing a Windows Update on my WinXP box, my Firefox no longer worked. It would start up and some of the button bars would render, but most of the screen would be blank. It was odd.

After much wailing and grinding of teeth, I found a way to solve it, although I'm not exactly sure what “it” really was, or even if it was related to Windows Update.

After shutting down Firefox, I renamed my extensions directory, which for most people is within

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\random.default\

I renamed it to extensions-X, the started Firefox successfully. I then shut Firefox down, and moved the contents of the extensions-X directory to the new extensions directory which Firefox had just created. Then, when I restarted Firefox again and looked at my list of extensions (Tools > Extensions), I found that two, Tabbrowser Preferences and Allow Right-Click, don't work with Firefox 1.0.6, to which I upgraded several days ago.

It's almost certainly Tabbrowser Preferences that caused the troubles, but I have no explanation for why it stopped working days after I made the upgrade. The most likely reason is that I didn't actually restart Firefox after installing the upgrade, and only after the Windows Update and computer reboot did I try the new Firefox 1.0.6. Anyway, I thought I'd write about this in the hopes that it helps others who run into the same thing.