JK - thanks for the pointers here is what I have found: - I still could not consistency using the flag as well as --purgecaches - in addition to those items I think I have found the following works pretty well: 1 - you start with extension X installed from file 2 - Remove X within the add-on manager 3 - Close Thunderbird 4 - Diddle your extension 5 - Delete the XPi file from the profile directory 6 - Restart Thunderbird 7 - reinstall the extension from the file 8 - New extension should be active Disclaimer: I don't want to pretend that this is a panacea since it's too opaque in terms of what's happening in the background, but I made progress in this manner. I will be very curious if this works for others...

On 06/04/2019 06:00, Christopher Leidigh wrote: > I think I have found the following works pretty well: > > 1 - you start with extension X installed from file > 2 - Remove X within the add-on manager > 3 - Close Thunderbird > 4 - Diddle your extension > 5 - Delete the XPi file from the profile directory > 6 - Restart Thunderbird > 7 - reinstall the extension from the file > 8 - New extension should be active Well, this is the approved add-on uninstall and reinstall process that should work. But people don't want to do steps 2, 5 and 7. They want the workflow to be: Close TB (3), edit the somehow linked add-on files (4), restart (6). That was called side-loading, and it stopped working. As mentioned in the IRC post, someone claimed that touching the RDF file and the "reference"(??) made it work the old way. Jörg.

On 4/6/19 3:25 AM, Jörg Knobloch wrote: > Close TB (3), edit the somehow linked add-on files (4), restart (6). > That was called side-loading, and it stopped working. As mentioned in > the IRC post, someone claimed that touching the RDF file and the > "reference"(??) made it work the old way. I do exactly this with the userChromeJS method I posted, and it works fine.   jik