Firefox recently upgraded to version 6 and, as often happens, some of the add-ons went kaflooey. As I note here, I use two Firefox add-ons, 'Create Shortcut' to put a page icon on the Desktop, and 'Status-4-evar' which gets rid of that annoying box that pops up down at the lower-left every time you hover over a link. 'Create Shortcut' is the one that blew up with the recent update.
To update 'Create Shortcut', first go to the Tools menu, 'Add-ons', click on 'Extensions' and 'Remove' the 'Create Shortcut' add-on.
Go to the 'Create Shortcut' home page, click the button on the right, 'allow', then install it.
If this is the first time you've installed 'Create Shortcut', click on its 'Options' button. Select 'Use default' at the top, uncheck the 'Overwrite' box, delete 'Shortcut to'. Set the 'Show links in' menu to 'Toolbar', then go to Firefox's 'View' menu and activate the 'Add-on Bar'. This way you can still see the hovered-over link, but it'll be nested inside the status bar where it belongs.
You save a page with the right mouse button, 'Create shortcut'.
For other add-ons that have turned belly-up, you should first go to the 'Add-ons' area and click the 'more' link by the disabled add-on, which should bring you to the author's home site. There's usually a quick note on the home page noting the update. The version number of the add-on, itself, may not have changed since this isn't an actual update to the add-on, just an adaptation to the new version of Firefox.
If it hasn't been updated, you can try 'version-bumping' it yourself. Add-ons usually have the current Firefox version number in them, so raising that to the latest Firefox version will let the add-on work again. Occasionally, there might be an actual code change in Firefox that disabled it, in which case it would have to be rewritten by the author.
You'll need a compression/archive program like WinZip or WinRar installed. The XPI add-on files are actually mini-archives composed of a few separate files. You need to edit one of them.
You'll also need to download the actual add-on file to your computer to work on, so go to the add-on site using Internet Explorer and it should give you a download option, rather than the 'Install' option you get with Firefox.
After the XPI file is downloaded, open it in the compression program. You should see an 'install.rdf' file listed. Double-clicking on it should open it in WordPad. Look around for a "maxVersion" line, change the '5.0' to '6.0'. Close WordPad, save the file on the way out, then tell the compression program to update the XPI archive.
Go to Tools menu, 'Add-ons', click the little gear gadget at the top and 'Install Add-on From File'. Browse to the updated XPI file and install it. Restart the browser, test it out.
If it still doesn't work, re-open the XPI file in the compression program and double-check that the '5.0' got updated to '6.0'. If it did, then either ask on the home site if the author is planning on an update, or hunt around for a similar add-on.
Version-bumping also works with Thunderbird add-ons, assuming it's only the older version number in the code that's keeping it from working.
