Advanced user mode disabled automatically and all dynamic filtering rules lost

[baptx]

Prerequisites

• I verified that this is not a filter list issue. Report any issues with filter lists or broken website functionality in the uAssets issue tracker.
• This is NOT a YouTube, Facebook or Twitch report. These sites MUST be reported by clicking their respective links.
• This is not a support issue or a question. For support, questions, or help, visit /r/uBlockOrigin.
• I performed a cursory search of the issue tracker to avoid opening a duplicate issue.
• The issue is not present after disabling uBO in the browser.
• I checked the documentation to understand that the issue I am reporting is not normal behavior.

I tried to reproduce the issue when...

• uBO is the only extension.
• uBO uses default lists and settings.
• using a new, unmodified browser profile.

Description

Today I noticed the advanced user mode was disabled automatically and all dynamics filtering rules were lost.
It would be good to know where this issue comes from and avoid it in the future.
I am using uBlock Origin 1.69.0, the last update is from 30 January 2026 so it does not seem to be an issue due to an upgrade. I am using Firefox 147.0.4 (64-bit) deb package from Mozilla server on Debian Linux since several days so it does not seem to be an issue due to a Firefox upgrade.

I can also see previous rules are not present in any sqlite file from the storage/default/moz-extension* folders.
Rules from other addons like NoScript are not lost so we can see it is an issue with uBlock.
If the issue is not random, maybe it happened after a large number of rules were added or after a specific rule was added.

A specific URL where the issue occurs.

The dynamic filtering rules are lost on all websites.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Enable advanced mode after it has been disabled automatically.
2. Visit any website and notice that dynamic filtering rules are lost.

Expected behavior

Advanced user mode should not be disabled automatically and dynamic filtering rules should not be lost.

Troubleshooting information

uBlock Origin: 1.69.0
Firefox: 147
filterset (summary):
 network: 1
 cosmetic: 0
 scriptlet: 0
 html: 0
listset (total-discarded, last-updated):
 removed:
  user-filters: null
  ublock-filters: null
  ublock-badware: null
  ublock-privacy: null
  ublock-unbreak: null
  ublock-quick-fixes: null
  easylist: null
  easyprivacy: null
  urlhaus-1: null
  plowe-0: null
filterset (user): [array of 3 redacted]
trustedset:
 removed:
  chrome-extension-scheme
  moz-extension-scheme
switchRuleset:
 removed:
  no-large-media: behind-the-scene false
  no-csp-reports: * true
hostRuleset:
 added: [array of 24 redacted]
 removed:
  behind-the-scene * * noop
  behind-the-scene * image noop
  behind-the-scene * 3p noop
  behind-the-scene * inline-script noop
  behind-the-scene * 1p-script noop
  behind-the-scene * 3p-script noop
  behind-the-scene * 3p-frame noop
userSettings:
 advancedUserEnabled: true
hiddenSettings: [none]
supportStats:
 allReadyAfter: 86 ms (selfie)
 maxAssetCacheWait: 32 ms
 cacheBackend: indexedDB

[baptx]

An interesting but weird behavior is that now all rules (or at least many) came back as you can see below, 1571 instead of 24 rules I had to add again previously:

uBlock Origin: 1.69.0
Firefox: 147
filterset (summary):
 network: 1
 cosmetic: 0
 scriptlet: 0
 html: 0
listset (total-discarded, last-updated):
 removed:
  ublock-filters: null
  ublock-badware: null
  ublock-privacy: null
  ublock-unbreak: null
  ublock-quick-fixes: null
  easylist: null
  easyprivacy: null
  urlhaus-1: null
  plowe-0: null
 default:
  user-filters: 1-0, never
filterset (user): [array of 3 redacted]
trustedset:
 added: [array of 7 redacted]
switchRuleset:
 removed:
  no-large-media: behind-the-scene false
  no-csp-reports: * true
hostRuleset:
 added: [array of 1571 redacted]
userSettings:
 advancedUserEnabled: true
hiddenSettings: [none]
supportStats:
 allReadyAfter: 105 ms (selfie)
 maxAssetCacheWait: 20 ms
 cacheBackend: indexedDB

[freezer2022]

Similar to (maybe even a duplicate of):

• Settings erased on Firefox #176
• Settings ignored as added lists reloaded after Firefox launch in private mode #2725
• [Firefox] Filters gone gorhill/uBlock#368

[u-RraaLL]

Likely some storage corruption. It's important to make regular backups so you can easily restore your settings if you encounter an issue like that.

The issue can still be on Firefox's side, if reinstalling uBO doesn't fix the issue. In such cases, a new browser profile is usually the way to go.

Before trying a reinstall, make sure to backup your now returned rules.

I'm assuming all the removed default settings are also part of the issue and not a decision on your part, correct?

[baptx]

@u-RraaLL For the moment, I don't need to do a reinstall since the rules appeared again automatically. It would be good to know in which file they are stored because when they were missing, I did not find the missing rules in any file by using the grep -ri command followed by the missing domain name in the Firefox profile directory on Linux.
I think the only default settings I removed are the default filters because I only need my dynamic filtering rules (I deny all third-party domain names by default).

[freezer2022]

baptx: I can also see previous rules are not present in any sqlite file from the storage/default/moz-extension* folders. It would be good to know in which file they are stored because when they were missing, I did not find the missing rules in any file by using the grep -ri command followed by the missing domain name in the Firefox profile directory on Linux.

Normal text search won't find them, because they are not stored as normal text, they are encoded as BLOB by SCA inside sqlite database, therefore most likely you will need some other tools to extract it. Anyway, that is the browser dealing with file stuff, uBO just uses the API, therefore discussion about how to mess with browser files to recover data is out of uBO's scope.