Firefox Pocket recommendations gone?

byrnejb

byrnejb

I upgraded Firefox to the latest release (72.0.2,1) for FreeBSD (1200086) on January 29. I did not notice it at the time but the ability to allow Pocket recommendations seems to have disappeared. Or it has moved somewhere that I cannot find. This I wrote off to the Mozilla churn department using their remaining (and shrinking) user base as involuntary lab rats.

However, this morning I discovered that between shutting down last night and starting up this morning, Firefox somehow reset my home pages to the default. Now, it is always possible that I did something somewhere that had this effect. But, to my certain knowledge, there were no changes to my Firefox configuration/profiles files made yesterday. This minor annoyance I have fixed.

My questions are: Has anyone else experienced either, or both, of these situations with the lastest FF update? Does anyone know if the Pocket recommendation preference has actually been removed from Firefox? And, if so, was this done by Mozilla or by the FreeBSD package maintainers? if not, then where is it now found to enable?

This is what about:config has to say:
Code: 
browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.pocketCta    {"cta_button":"","cta_text":"","cta_url":"","use_cta":false}  
browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.section.highlights.includePocket    true  
extensions.pocket.api    api.getpocket.com  
extensions.pocket.enabled    true  
extensions.pocket.oAuthConsumerKey    40249-e88c401e1b1f2242d9e441c4  
extensions.pocket.settings.test.panelSignUp    control  
extensions.pocket.site    getpocket.com  
services.sync.prefs.sync.browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.section.highlights.includePocket    true
 
I am sorry if I did not make the situation I face clear.

The instructions given at the Mozilla site do match what I see on the Home preferences properties page. And, as is shown in the extract from about:config , the extension is already enabled. Pocket is visible, but Pocket Recommendations are gone. Nor are there any settings in preferences that I can see that relate to Pocket Recommendations.

Pocket itself shows my favorite and most recently visited sites on the Mozilla home page. These preferences can be set on the FF Home preferences interface. But my FF installation no longer provides pocket recommendations nor provides a setting for displaying Pocket Recomendations on the Home/Tabs preferences page. Also, the pocket icon for the status bar is gone and is no longer available in the customization interface.

I cannot tell if these changes are intentional by Mozilla; or the result of a defect with my FF installation. All I know is that pocket recommendations displayed on new tabs before the update and are no longer present following the update.

This is what I see on the Home preferences page:

Code: 
Firefox Home Content
Choose what content you want on your Firefox Home screen.

Web Search

Top Sites     The sites you visit most

Highlights   
A selection of sites that you’ve saved or visited

Visited Pages

Bookmarks

Most Recent Download

Pages Saved to Pocket

Snippets      Updates from Mozilla and Firefox.

There is no mention of recommendations.

This issue does not seem to affect our users on Windows systems using the same FF version. This is why I am asking about this here since it appears to be specific to the FreeBSD package.
 
Yep. I have this problem as well. I quite like the random pocket suggestions but can't get them back even though the about:config thing is enabled...
 
What version of FF have you installed? My problem disappeared with a later update without any action taken on my part. I surmised that the earlier package was defective or misconfigured in some way.
 
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