This problem is very common to Mozilla Firefox users. Many times when you try to install a new extension or theme in Firefox, you get following error message:
Unexpected Installation Error -203
Even existing add-ons also don’t work. Its a very annoying problem and after getting a few e-mails asking for solution of this problem, today I decided to write a small tutorial to fix it.
So here we start the tutorial:
METHOD A:
First make sure you are not using Zone Alarm or CA firewalls as both these firewalls are known to cause this problem.
If you are using any of them, disable it by using its system tray icon and then try to install the extension or theme. Now it should install without any problem. After the installation, you can again enable the firewall.
METHOD B:
Most of the times, this problem occurs when you update the Firefox version installed in your system. If you have recently updated Firefox version, then delete following 3 files from your Mozilla Firefox Profiles folder:
- extensions.ini
- extensions.cache
- extensions.rdf
These files will be re-created automatically when you start Firefox next time and your problem will be fixed.
NOTE: To find the location of Profiles folder, visit following link:
List of Files that can be Hacked to Configure Firefox
METHOD C:
If the above solution doesn’t work, then its a problem of corrupt profile folder. Sometimes your existing Firefox profile folder gets corrupted and causes this problem. You’ll need to create a new default profile to fix this problem:
1. Open Firefox Profiles folder as mentioned in the link given in METHOD B. Don’t go to the “xxxxxxxx.default” folder, go one folder back and you’ll see a file “profiles.ini” in the same folder where “Profiles” directory exists. Either rename or delete the “profiles.ini” file.
2. Now double-click on “Profiles” folder and delete “xxxxxxxx.default” folder. Make sure to take its backup if you want to save your bookmarks, cookies and passwords later.
3. Now run Firefox again and it’ll re-create the default profile folder and will work like you installed it for the first time. It’ll fix the problem.
PS: To restore your bookmarks, cookies and passwords copy “bookmarks.html“, “cookies.txt“, “history.dat“, “key3.db” and “signons2.txt” files from the backed-up profile folder to newly created profile folder.
Firefox 3 users will need to copy “cookies.sqlite“, “places.sqlite“, “key3.db” and “signons3.txt” files as Firefox 3 uses these new files instead of those old files.
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Tom said:
I sometimes find that I need to disable Threatfire when I get the “203 error”.
Tom
Ramanathan said:
I sometimes find that I need to disable Threatfire when I get the “203 error”.
R.Ramanathan
Riza said:
Thank you very much. I use sometimes FF and I have many useful extensions but I had problem in recent time will new installs and now is OK after using method B.
Thanks a million Vishal. ^^
Kelly said:
OMG! Thank god for this site! It was ThreatFire that was creating the issue. I tried all of the above methods and it did not work. I suspened ThreatFire and that did work. Yeah!
Ramanathan said:
Thanks god for this site! It was ThreatFire that was creating the issue.
Srinivasan said:
Hi VG,
Im facing a critical issue in most of the pc in my network, can you suggest some solution to resolve this issue like in few pc im getting a error message like this
“The system process C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\SERVICES.EXE terminated unexpectedly with status code 128. The system will shut down and restart.” and after that pc getting restarted and all the unsaved programes getting lost… plz help me awaiting for your replay.
Thanks,
Srinivasan B
VG said:
^^ Please check following article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318447