[IMPORTANT] Vivaldi / Installation, Update, Renaming and Cleaning Issues

[LinguaOccultus]

Hello,

please keep the additional rules for Vivaldi in the existing »Vivaldi« section in the list of cleaning rules instead in a separate »Vivaldi Web Browser« section to prevent making things even more complicated as they are already. Additional rules are marked with an asterisk which already separates them from the CCleaner internal rules.

Also, in a first test with the additional rules in the new section, there are some serious issues since they seem to delete some user settings. For example, my side panel was moved from the right to the left side. Have not tested any further but went back to a backup and disabled this rules for now. The ones I had enabled in internal and additional rules and they obviously need more testing as I need to be sure, especially with my browser, that nothing strange happens! None of those settings hint a delete user preferences which is a serious problem.

Best regards,

Tim

[MoscaDotTo]

It's not the intention of any of these rules to delete browser preferences like that, so if you can provide steps for recreating the issue here that would be helpful. As you might imagine, the task of creating and testing the browser cleaning rules is quite large for a single person and although I do install and use these browsers as part of that process, the large number of potential configurations and the nuances of how those configurations are treated between even very similar browsers can be hard to track. Thank you for raising this issue

The re-categorization of the browser entries was a logistical necessity due to the new system I've put in place for creating and maintaining them and also as a part of the pivot of winapp2.ini to non-ccleaner as default. At this time I'm prioritizing the pivot itself and not the creation or maintenance of a ccleaner friendly version of winapp2.ini but there are plans to resume creating a ccleaner friendly version once the pivot is fully complete. For now, you might find it most helpful to use winapp2ool's Transmute tool to remove the Section keys and replace them with the relevant LangSecRef keys. The Transmute readme is not yet available but I described the process of how one might do this here. Sorry this isn't more of a provided solution yet but it's on my to-do list and much of the recent work done on winapp2ool has been specifically with this goal in mind

Thank you for your patience while I continue the major infrastructural changes to this project to bring it back to a more actively maintainable state

[LinguaOccultus]

I'm aware of that which is why I'm taking time to support the projects I like. So, no harm ment. However, things like that tend to get lesser technical experienced persons panic around ... ;-)

However, I'm not sure what information I can bring in. I just used CCEnhancer before using CCleaner as every time. I then recognized that many Vivaldi rules are missing and found them under a different name at the end of the list. I enabled the ones I was been using before in the additional rules (the integrated rules were not affected but all additional rules are disabled except for two or three) and started cleaning. Out of bad experiences and since all this looked strange, I fortunately backep up my Vivaldi user profile folder before. After starting Vivaldi again when the cleaning was done, I found at least this option reset to default (web panels to the left side while mine were at the right side). That's the whole story ...

I would skip CCleander after the Avast takeover myself, but the few still existing and still updated alternatives do have so much less functionality ... =(

If this all is part of a bigger effort as you describe it, I can just wait until it is done; no problem. However, this took me by surprise and using cleaner tools is always a struggle to not mess up things. I was just not aware what is going on so I thought the best thing is to report this in at least ...

I just do need to be VERY careful meanwhile with using the additional rules or even disable them at all for the time being. Yet, aside this single option, nothing went wrong. But it is the same as with a virus infection: you better completely start from scratch since you never know for sure if something is still left. So, when it kills one user setting, there might be others affected ... and Vivaldi has a LOT of them, even for a browser! :-D

Tell me if you need some information or whatever I can be of assistance with.

[LinguaOccultus]

There is another POSSIBLE but serious issue which MIGHT be caused by the new additional Vivaldi rules. I suddenly ran into the problem after running CCleaner first time with the new rules enabled. As I described above, I thankfully had a backup of my user profile folder I could restore. I then became aware, that I cannot install any Vivaldi updates anymore, wether in-app nor using the installer manually. After several days I found out, that parts of the installation folder of Vivaldi were missing; especially a sub-directory called »Installer« which made it so I could not even UNINSTALL the browser for traoubleshooting. I then copied the missing files form a standalone installation of the same version and that worked to solve both.

This MIGHT be related to the cleaning rules as I could reproduce this on both of my system while my work notebook (where I do not use CCleaner) was still well with the last 7.5 minor update of Vivaldi and the current 7.6 major update while I had to restore things on my systems manually. Let alone, that a normal user would be unable to fix this. This looks like there is no issue on Vivaldis side and there are no reports in the forums either. I also only threw the generic »unknown error«.

Never happened before with Vivaldi and my systems are all fine aside that. Just writing this down here with all details I found so you can look into it. With your better insight you might be able to tell if there is a relation or not.

I am thinking about completely disabling the Winapp2.ini for the moment as they seem to be much too dangerous to use while you are on that major works you are doing on them currently as you wrote above.

[MoscaDotTo]

if this is caused by a cleaning rule, it would be [Vivaldi Updates *], which includes a REMOVESELF call on the Installer directory.

[Vivaldi Updates *]
Section=Vivaldi Web Browser
DetectFile=%LocalAppData%\Vivaldi\User Data
FileKey1=%LocalAppData%\Vivaldi\Application\*\Installer|*|REMOVESELF
FileKey2=%LocalAppData%\Vivaldi\Application\*\Temp|*|REMOVESELF
FileKey3=%LocalAppData%\Vivaldi\Temp|*|REMOVESELF
FileKey4=%ProgramFiles%\Vivaldi\Application\*\Installer|*|REMOVESELF
FileKey5=%ProgramFiles%\Vivaldi\Application\*\Temp|*|REMOVESELF
FileKey6=%ProgramFiles%\Vivaldi\Temp|*|REMOVESELF

I'll look into this further and deliver an update soon, thank you for this helpful feedback!

[MoscaDotTo]

I'm unable to recreate the issue with the side panel or tab bar moving back to the left side when configured to appear on the right. Are you able to take a backup of your local configuration and test the newest winapp2.ini options to see if this is still happening?

[LinguaOccultus]

As I said, they only MIGHT be related to cleaning; the important one was the installation/update issue.

I'll wait then until you finished your consolidation of the rules and optimized it for CCleaner again and leave the Vivaldi rules disabled for now as those seem too risky at the moment.

I guess, I'll see you finished when the additional rules are combined with the integrated rules for CCleaner again.

I always use CCEnhacer before CCleaner to get the newest Winapp2.ini version. I also talked to Shane about your comment regarding the limitations of his trimming functionality and he confirmed it. He has it already on his list to improve that.

So, hopefully, everything will come together in the end! ;-)

[APMichael]

I guess, I'll see you finished when the additional rules are combined with the integrated rules for CCleaner again.

There is already a new version of Winapp2.ini available, which should fix all reported issues.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MoscaDotTo/Winapp2/master/Winapp2.ini
(The latest version is currently dated September 24, 2025.)

[LinguaOccultus]

@APMichael @MoscaDotTo Okay, I tried again ... this time, it deleted ALL OF MY CUSTOM SEARCH ENGINES! What are you doing?

I was using this for many, many years without any issues and now it is a mess. I can only warn every Vivaldi user to not use this for the moment.

[APMichael]

... this time, it deleted ALL OF MY CUSTOM SEARCH ENGINES! ...

That's not good, of course.

If the information on the internet is still correct, search engines are stored in the "Web Data" file. The entry responsible for this is [Vivaldi Autofill Data *]. However, this file has been deleted via Winapp2.ini for years. Therefore, it is not really certain whether this is the cause. Maybe @MoscaDotTo has an idea what could be causing this?

[MoscaDotTo]

The old entry for this was

[Vivaldi Auto Fill Data *]
LangSecRef=3033
Detect=HKCU\Software\Vivaldi
FileKey1=%LocalAppData%\Vivaldi\User Data\*|Web Data

and the new one is

[Vivaldi Autofill Data *]
LangSecRef=3033
DetectFile=%LocalAppData%\Vivaldi\User Data
FileKey1=%LocalAppData%\Vivaldi\User Data\*|*Web Data
FileKey2=%LocalAppData%\Vivaldi\User Data\*\AutoFill*|*|REMOVESELF
FileKey3=%LocalAppData%\Vivaldi\User Data\AutoFill*|*|REMOVESELF

Is it possible that in the past, you didn't have this entry selected?

The Web Data file is a sqlite database and does indeed include some search engine settings including custom keywords. It's likely that if CCleaner successfully completes this task with its [[Vivaldi - Saved Form Information] it is because CCleaner is vacuuming the SQLite, which is not a feature that it extends to the winapp2.ini interface.

I will probably rename the scaffold for this entry to make it more clear that it also deletes search engine data. Perhaps a Warning key explaining this too

[LinguaOccultus]

@MoscaDotTo @APMichael As I stated above, this MIGHT be related to the Winapp2.ini rules; I'm not absolutely sure about this. However, I haven't changed anything else and to my knowledge, this could be the only cause I'm aware of (which still does not mean anything). It's just a bit annoying since especially for »cleaner« tools, one wants to be absolutely sure to not lose any data. But, as you said, it can be caused by CCleaners own rules or a mistake on my side. I just haven't enough insight in all of this (aside my own actions, of course) to decide which one was it. I'll investigate this further.

Aside from that, CCleaner version 7 was released, at least as beta, and is a total mess (as can be seen on their forums). I'm staying with the prior version 6 for the moment, but maybe they do not maintain it longer; we'll see. If they keep version 7 as it is, I'll have to find another solution anyway as most of the other users there currently also looking for. That opens everything up for even more issues, maybe. At least, the new version seems to have many other issues aside from one of the worst UI/UX I've ever seen. Maybe it really is time to jump ship there ...

Sorry, for sounding a bit rude above; it was already a bad day and that just made it »perfect«! ;-)