Opera portable stopped saving extensions between PCs

A Former User

Hello
I have the same issue. Exactly how jbaum wrote. I copy whole opera folder to another pc, launch it, go to the internal extensions page. There is one extension - internal opera adblock. In this moment content of extension folder in profile flushes empty (moment before there were folders like "gppongmhjkpfnbhagpmjfkannfbllamg")
Opera version: 60.0.3255.83 portable

A Former User

Oh, i testded one thing and think it work for me.
I make all folders (including all elements whithin) in extension folder read-only through win explorer.
They seem to be not deleted

leocg

leocg Moderator Volunteer @Guest

@mrduke If you are copying Opera folder to an pen drive or similar, then it will not work.
You need to install Opera Portable on that device and then add the extensions.

A Former User @leocg

@leocg thanks for your reply. I just taking opera to another computer from my home laptop. I expect that my history, bookmarks, extensions, preferences (like adblock rules) work the same on another pc. I think that the way portable app have to work. If not, i dont see reasons to call it portable. Only thing i accept that current logons dont save because of security reasons (to avoid bad people harmful actions). Now i rolled back to 58 version (i always save my current state before updating) and it works as expected.
If this is new opera`s way of "portability"... Its sad. May be this is just the way to persuade people to use synchronization feature. So my opinion is to let people choose options - to give or not to give their sensitive information to third party.

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer

Download the Opera installer, launch it, click "options", set "install path" to a folder named "Opera Portable 60" on your desktop, set "install for" to "standalone installation", uncheck "import data from default browser" and install. Once that Opera loads up, goto https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/ublock/ and install ublock origin for example. Once it's installed, goto the URL opera://extensions and confirm that it's there. Close Opera, open it back up and goto opera://extensions again and confirm that it's there. Close Opera.

Copy/cut the "Opera Portable 60" folder to your thumb drive. Then, run launcher.exe in the folder and check opera://extensions again. If the extension is still there, close Opera. If not, we have to figure out what went wrong here. For example, is the thumb drive formatted as NTFS or just FAT32ext? If the latter, remove everything off the drive, format it as NTFS and try the whole procedure again to see if it makes a difference.

Copy/cut the "Opera Portable 60" folder from your thumb drive to the other computer. Once the folder is on the other computer, run launcher.exe in it again and check opera://extensions. Is the extension still there? If so, there has to be something more needed to trigger the issue. If the extension is gone, then we at least have exact production steps.

(I've tried the first two steps and things work fine. I just have to try the last step when I get a chance later.)

A Former User @burnout426

@burnout426 so i did all actions your mentioned in your comment. Now what we have:

installed portable Opera_60.0.3255.109 on desktop
launched, installed ublock origin
relaunched, ubl still there
copied to pendrive, launched from it, ubl still there
take pendrive to another pc, launched from pen drive and voila - ubl is gone, folder of ubl (like "qiueroiuqweyroiqwyeoir") is flushed in that moment.

So the point is launching on pc where it was not installed by installer.

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer @Guest

@mrduke I was just able to test and can confirm. I can copy/move the portable installation back and forth from the computer it was installed on to the thumb drive and back without any issues at all. But, when I run the portable install on another computer (moved/copied from thumb drive), the extension is no longer available in opera://extensions.

In my case, it was using a thumb drive to copy/move a portable installation from Windows 10 to Windows 8.1.

I had one difference in behavior compared to you though. the extension's folder in data/extensions remains and does not get flushed on me, even after multiple restarts of Opera. The only time it got flushed on me was when I deleted "Secure Preferences" and "Preferences" and renamed "Preferences.backup" and "Secure Preferences.backup" to "Preferences" and "Secure Preferences". I was hoping that might bring the extension back in the UI since the extension folder was still present (for me at least). But, it just removed the extension from data/extensions. However, that was just probably because the backups of Preferences and Secure Preferences didn't have record of the extension, so probably nothing to take note of there.

I also backed up Local State, Secure Preferences and Preferences before-hand and then used those to replace the existing ones after the extension was gone, but no difference.

Whether my extension got flushed from data/extensions or not, the behavior of the extension disappearing from opera://extensions is not expected. I've never tried it before with Opera Chromium before though, so my expectation is how the standalone installation of Opera Presto worked.

I would guess that with Opera Chromium, there's something protecting the extensions with a signature (based on the OS it was installed on) that breaks when you move the installation to a new OS. However, if this all worked before (in 58 for example, I'll have to test), then it's just a regression bug in Opera or Chromium changed something that affected Opera.

leocg

leocg Moderator Volunteer @Guest

@mrduke You can try using sync.

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer

And, I tried in Opera 58 and everything works fine. The extensions are still available after moving the portable installation to a different OS.

So, it's definitely a regression. Just not sure yet if it's caused by some change in Chromium or if it's something Opera intentionally changed or if it's a bug in Opera.

@mrduke, can you test with Opera Beta and Opera Developer to see if it's something that's already fixed?