VueJS Devtools Reload Bug

Workaround for Vue Devtools constant reloading issue in Firefox by using an older version

For the past month, Vue Devtools has been reloading at seemingly random intervals. This became quite frustrating during development work.

Initial Attempts

At first, I switched to Google Chrome for development, but I value my laptop’s battery life and didn’t want to deal with the constant fan noise.

Attempted Fix (Didn’t Work)

There was a pull request by dmke that claimed to fix the issue, but it hadn’t been merged. I tried downloading the current version and modifying the manifest file:

wget 'https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/downloads/file/4017333/vue_js_devtools-6.4.5.xpi'

Then modified manifest.json:

{
  "persistent": false
}

Changed to:

{
  "persistent": true
}

Then attempted to repackage and install:

zip -r -FS ../vue_js_devtools_custom-6.4.5.xpi * --exclude '*.git*'

However, I wasn’t able to successfully install this modified version.

Working Solution

Since the project I work on most is still using Vue 2, I was able to download an older version of Vue Devtools and disable auto-updates for Firefox extensions.

This has been a reliable workaround while I keep an eye on the GitHub issue for a permanent fix.

Current Status

I’ll continue monitoring the GitHub issue for a proper resolution, but this older version approach has restored my development workflow for now.