[Bug] "Failed to read mod preferences" after current update.

[BigEnding-8347]

First of thanks for the work. I am on Windows 11 23H2, using latest Zen Browser v1.18.8b and am getting "Failed to read mod preferences" from Zen Browser after the Sine update to 2.3.0 or later. Interestingly I am not getting the trojan error, others were reporting earlier today.

To make all mods work again, reinstalling a random mod helped for most mods, but I am still getting the "Failed to read mod preferences" alert for all mods that I specifically haven't reinstalled, which is a bit of an annoyance, but not a critical issue. Lots of mods may still have to be manually reinstalled.

I hope this helps anyone and isn't against any contribution guidelines! Please close this issue as you see fit, but I thought a report would still be helpful.

[CosmoCreeper]

When did you happen to update to v2.3? We fixed most issues regarding transitioning mods between versions, but perhaps there are a few more issues we need to fix. I do also want to thank you for making this issue as most seem to just apply the temporary fix and move on, bringing us nowhere with coming up with a hotfix.

[BigEnding-8347]

When did you happen to update to v2.3? We fixed most issues regarding transitioning mods between versions, but perhaps there are a few more issues we need to fix. I do also want to thank you for making this issue as most seem to just apply the temporary fix and move on, bringing us nowhere with coming up with a hotfix.

About 1 hour ago. It seems that most if not all mods actually need to be reinstalled to work correctly, but I didn't have too much time for doing that with all mods. I am not sure what's exactly happening on the technical side. Thanks for your effort!

*Update: I wanted to add, that I did not need to reinstall all mods after all, just a couple. I had some conflicting mods enabled, due to testing after getting the initial issue. Also Sine seems to be much much faster now for me.

[CosmoCreeper]

So is this still an issue or were there just some conflicting mods on your end?
Also about Sine being faster, yeah I worked to remove dependencies on fx-autoconfig and make Sine have full control over how it loads, allowing it to work much faster.

[BigEnding-8347]

Sorry for late reply. Sorry for the confusing wording. The initial issue was real and fixed by reinstalling a couple of mods. I then had config / theming issues afterwards, which were caused by mod conflicts, that happened because I tried to fix the initial issue.

Basically: Right now, I am not facing further issues, but the initial issue "Failed to read mod preferences" was real and not caused by a conflict between mods. I basically just booted my computer, updated to Sine 2.3.0 and then I had the notifications inside Zen. Hope this clears it up. Here is an image of it as well, but it popped up multiple times:

If no one else had the issue, maybe it was something with the overall Zen settings / config, if that's possible. Anyhow, if it's ok with you we can also close the issue, since no one else commented or create an issue for this.

[whatmocha]

Hi, I have also encountered the same issue where it says "Failed to read mod preferences" and had asked me to reinstall all of my mods. I have reinstalled Sine while keeping the mods, and somehow it deleted all of my mods, as mentioned by one user in another thread. Sine updater also doesn't work as it appears having a permission related errors for unpacking those .zip files. I'm on Windows 10 22H2 and it also happened on my home PC as well, running Windows 11 24H2. I have tried every suggestions that I have read from all of the ongoing threads and nothing seems to fix. Hoping to get it fixed soon as I really like your creation, Sine.

[CosmoCreeper]

@BigEnding-8347 Okay. I would be curious to figure out why those issues are appearing in the first place. The initial reason for that issue was due to an improper attempt at updating mods and improper transition to the new format for mod metadata, but it should not happen anymore.

@whatmocha Would you mind sharing the permissions issue that it has?

[whatmocha]

First of all, the sine is present in the settings page and showed all of my mods in the list. One issue is that settings for some mods are empty and I'm assuming that somehow it borked the installation of the mods? Either that or it hasn't properly migrated to the new format, just as you stated in v2.3.

I ran the updater.bat followed by the arguments provided in #403 and it downloaded 4 .zips but couldn't extract them even after I clicked allow when being asked for the elevated permission.

...and when I ran cmd as admins before running the .bat file, it spits out this error.

I'm still trying to figure out how to contribute properly, as this thread would be some of my first comments using Github and English isn't my primary language. Looking forward to hear any news, thank you.

[CosmoCreeper]

Okay, so the good news is it looks like your mods and Sine installation are all perfectly fine. It updated successfully, yet it did not migrate properly. For help in our diagnosis of this overall issue, would you mind sharing the mods.json file from your profile's chrome/sine-mods folder?

[whatmocha]

Here's the mods.json file down below.

mods.json

[CosmoCreeper]

Okay. It looks like some mods are converted to the new format, while others fail to.
There is a possibility that there is a specific oversight in parsing the data that ill have to look over.

EDIT:
Okay so after more digging the system appears to be fine. Might I ask, how did you update to v2.3? Was it via installing v2.3 or did it just auto-update?

[whatmocha]

Hi, I'm sorry for the late reply but yes it was auto-update. After that happened, I looked further into the repo and ran the updater with the args suggested. I tried downgrading to v2.2.3 but to no avail.

[CosmoCreeper]

Did anything ever appear upon downgrading?

[whatmocha]

Same problem happened, which is unpacking zip permissions related, whether with elevated or without.

[CosmoCreeper]

What was the exact permissions error?

[whatmocha]

Here you go.