connect/disconnect was intentionally removed. Sync is meant to just be there and "connects" when needed.

In many ways (for me) that's disappointing... I still feel that there should be the ability to manually toggle the connection.

This issue is a little disappointing. I moved from Xmarks to Firefox Sync because of security issues, despite the problems I sometimes have with Sync. But I don't want my Firefox to syncronize when, for example, I am connected to a VPN. The control over the plugin is something some power-users should still have. It's a real pity, because the lack of this control is a kill criteria for using Firefox 4.0 in my working environment. That would be the first time I have to move from Mozilla products away, either back to Xmarks or another browser.

I understand the reason why you would have Sync connect "when needed" and perhaps I'm not using Sync as it is now intended. In other words, back before FF v4.0, I used Sync as another way to backup my master passwords and favorites. I could care less about cookies and history.

Much of this information doesn't change on a daily basis for me, maybe once a week at the most.

So for the most part I use to have Sync disconnected and connecting whenever a change occurred or whenever I felt it was time to do a backup.

My (painful) work around is to have the add-on disabled. Whenever I need to "Sync" I enable the add-on, restart FF, and then perform the Sync. When the Sync is complete I go back and disable the add-on.

The alternative is to go back to FF 3.x or go back to using a third-party add-on other than Sync.

Hopefully adding the ability to connect/disconnect like before will be considered for a future release/update.

I too liked the old "manually disconnect/connect" capability. I like to control what might change my settings, especially if/when experimenting.

I got around for the time being by un-checking all the sync boxes in the options/sync tab. Then I re-check when I want to "manually" sync.

How unbelievably stupid and outrageous this is!!? They have "intentionally removed" the connect/disconnect option? Why on Earth someone would NOT want to have the option to switch ON or OFF a program's behavior to keep permanently connecting to a server? Why on Earth an intelligent developer would ignore the many reasons why a huge number of people would need to have this possibility, like the very good example above? What is the need of having a program continuously doing connections in the background without any control whatsoever from the user if he does NOT want this to happen this way? If some user does not care for such behavior of the program, then they would not need to do anything anyway, but for those of us who need to turn ON and OFF the thing, it is necessary to have the option. Why ignoring us with such imbecile decision? Is it to push us away FF and for Sync ? Why?

I too now have this problem...I keep getting a pop up that says sync error...how do i get rid of this crap?

Go IE I suppose?

I started to get that same sync error just this past weekend and it seemed to have started when the FF 7.0.1 update was released; didn't seem to happen when I 7.0 was released.

It might have just been a coincidence too.

It doesn't happen all the time and I just hit the "X" to close it.