Toolbar and menu customizations are stored in a file that sometimes becomes corrupted. It's curious that Firefox 21 has no problem with the file, but Firefox 22 couldn't handle it correctly. Or perhaps something else (one of your extensions perhaps?) was interfering with the menus and toolbars.

In case this is a fixed compatibility bug, you can check for extension updates using:

orange Firefox button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons > "gear" icon > "Check for Updates"

Regarding removing plugins, most are installed through their own installers, often as part of external software and in a shared location. Typically, Firefox discovers them through a registry entry. While in theory Firefox could just remove any DLL on the system regardless of how it got there, that isn't implemented.

I should complete this thought:

Sometimes the file that stores toolbar and menu customizations becomes corrupted. You can rename the file and customize from scratch.

Open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using

Help > Troubleshooting Information > "Show Folder" button

Switch back to Firefox and Exit

Pause while Firefox finishes its cleanup, then rename localstore.rdf to something like localstore.old

Restart Firefox.

Thank you for your answers. So far, no joy.

I renamed the localstore file as you suggested in FF21 and rebooted. When that successfully relaunched, albeit without the extensions, I shutdown and ran the upgrade to FF22. I started to reinstall the extensions, starting with Ghostery. That was successful so I did a few more. Of the five only 4to6 pinned its icon to the toolbar, yet all were shown as enabled in Extensions. The other four, betterprivacy, click&clean, copylinktext, downloadhelper, failed to be shown in the tool and context menus or as icons, after relaunch. Stopping at that point, I rolled back to FF21, and there they were in all their glory, in menus and toolbars alike.

As of now, I'll stick with FF21. Every one of these upgrades lately has been, shall we say, a unique journey. So I'll just wait for the next two or three, and see what happens then.

Thanks again for your answers and leads to follow.

Regards,

I'm puzzled why you need to reinstall extensions after updating Firefox. Normally it's completely seamless. Are the extensions getting deleted? Is anything else missing or changed with respect to your settings?

By the way, when extension icons are missing from the main toolbar, two good places to look for them are:

• The Add-on Bar (see The Add-on Bar gives you quick access to add-on features)
• The Customize dialog (see Customize Firefox controls, buttons and toolbars)

The extensions remained in the Profile, but the Extension menu was blank. Reinstalling was painless since I had all of the xpi in files. This has happened before so was not unexpected. The icons though were not present in either the Add-on bar or under Toolbar|Customize. I was hopeful when Ghostery loaded correctly, but that was put aside when the others failed to load in FF22. Going back to FF21 was quick and easy and the result is what I needed so we will stay here until the flurry of updates and their error corrections catch up with each other.

Regards,

This happens often when you upgrade?? There might be some corruption or permissions issue with your profile folder. Hopefully another volunteer recognizes the symptoms and can propose a solution.

In the meantime, please keep backups of your more valuable files. Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles

No, not often, but it has happened, and having had it happen, how to recover is already known. Backups are a regular feature, and have been since the 1960's (when, believe it or not, we backed up our punch cards or mag tape!). Most software is buggy enough for me to be prepared for the inevitable. And my data is always stored on drives separate from the OS and apps! I know, I'm paranoiac. And I have no real desire to be an unpaid beta tester. I'll wait for the those on the bleeding edge to work through these upgrades.

Regards,