What just happened to my Firefox preferences, customizations, & sync in FF beta 67?
As the new add-ons disaster fix was rolling out today, I restarted FF 67 on my Mac (I'm on the Beta update channel), and now I was confronted with FF minus all of my customizations--the cursed back & forth ball on the loading tabs, my favorites bar gone, text font back to defaults, etc, and there was some message about profiles that was not at all helpful. I had to sign in to Firefox--not with the signin box that opens my FF password keychain, but Firefox itself--and after that, I still didn't get my usual FF back. I had to go back to FF 66 to restore MY FF environment.
I deliberately do not sync everything across all of my devices with FF installs. I want my laptop FF to only share less secure things with some older devices that cannot be updated anymore. I do allow FF on my computer to retain some less vital and PITA to remember passwords but I do not sync this to my devices, and the sync does not include all of my customizations like my toolbar and the vile back & forth ball on the loading tabs. So I can't sync everything, but I need my FF to not break and require hours of customization again with every update.
So.....WTF happened, and how to fix it?
Chosen solution
Hi Foxfree99, I don't think there is a connection between the add-ons problem -- certificate expired so most extension signatures could not be verified -- and losing your customizations.
Was the unhelpful message about profiles something about your profile being missing, locked, or in use? In that case, Firefox Beta might have create a new "vanilla" profile. Please try checking for your original profile as follows: type or paste about:profiles in the address bar and press Return. This should load a page listing all the different profiles Firefox is currently aware of. This may allow you to return to the earlier profile, or at least mine its folder for useful customization files.
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Chosen Solution
Hi Foxfree99, I don't think there is a connection between the add-ons problem -- certificate expired so most extension signatures could not be verified -- and losing your customizations.
Was the unhelpful message about profiles something about your profile being missing, locked, or in use? In that case, Firefox Beta might have create a new "vanilla" profile. Please try checking for your original profile as follows: type or paste about:profiles in the address bar and press Return. This should load a page listing all the different profiles Firefox is currently aware of. This may allow you to return to the earlier profile, or at least mine its folder for useful customization files.
It was something about new security features requiring me to login after updates, and my profile being hidden until this was done....or something like that. It suggested this nasty bug might be a new 'feature' but I was too quick on the quit button to think to cache a screenshot.
Now going to quit (I am in FF66 and need to go back to FF67) to see if this is helpful.
I found a new 'default beta' profile, deleted it, and all is good again. I've even got my add-ons back. So this did solve my problem, at least for now, and the lack of other people piling on with more complaints probably means a local glitch and not Mozilla deliberately screwing things up with every update....which did seem very out of character.
Thanks!
Sounds good. I think the default-beta and default-dev-edition profiles are going to be really helpful to users who install in the future, but it would be confusing if you already had a beta profile set up.
Wait....are you saying that the default-beta profile is not a glitch? Is it going to F-up my profile again and require this tweak to restore my normal profile every update?
I hope I'm interpreting your answer wrong.
The default-beta profile is what Beta creates when you first install Beta. I guess it does the same if your default profile is missing or inaccessible for some reason. As long as Firefox exits cleanly and releases file locks on the profile you regularly use, I wouldn't expect Beta to need to create a new profile again.
Hm. I'll keep an eye on the next updates.