How to migrate profiles when upgrading from one ESR minor version to another, e.g. from ESR 68.x to ESR 68.y?
We currently would like to upgrade our centrally installed Firefox ESR version and would like users to keep their settings and be disrupted minimally. Specifically we would like to upgrade from 68.4.2 to the current 68.8.
I am aware that as of Firefox 67 a dedicated profile version is used for each Firefox version (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/dedicated-profiles-firefox-installation).
I had assumed that as it is only a minor upgrade of the same ESR version a new profile would not be necessary, however it creates a new empty profile by default.
The suggested solution to use Firefox Sync is not an option as creating Firefox Sync accounts for all our users would even be more overhead.
Is it indended behaviour that new profiles are created for the same ESR (major) version? Is there a simple way to migrate existing profiles?
Thanks.
Chosen solution
Okay, I found the problem:
from your link https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/understanding-depth-profile-installation:
> Additionally profiles.ini now includes a list of known Firefox installs. Each new section is named based on a hash of the Firefox installation directory. Each install section includes the location on disk of the dedicated profile for that install as well as a marker for whether the profile is “locked” to that install.
I had installed both versions in separate directories. The problem here is that an installation is identified by the hash, which in turn is built from the actual installation path. An installation path <some path>/firefox-68.4.2esr therefore yields a different hash than <some path>/firefox-68.8.0esr and therefore it is interpreted as a different version.
When overwriting the old directory or make the switch by changing a symbolic links the profile "default-esr" is properly reused.
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Dedicated profiles only apply to major versions, so updating a Firefox 68.x.0 esr version to a newer Firefox 68.y.0 esr version shouldn't be a problem with the profile. There is normally no problem with updating a profile to a newer version unless you update from a very old Firefox version that requires to run migration code to update some file to a newer scheme. Only when you downgrade a profile then you can expect issues.
See also:
Thanks for your reply.
> Dedicated profiles only apply to major versions, so updating a Firefox 68.x.0 esr version to a newer Firefox 68.y.0 esr version shouldn't be a problem with the profile.
This is unfortunately not what I am observing. The installed version is 68.4.2esr which has two profiles:
- default
- default-esr (standard profile)
Once I start Firefox 68.8.0esr it creates and uses a completely new profile "default-esr-1".
I would like to avoid creating this new profile and ideally migrate the previous "default-esr" when starting 68.8.0esr.
Am I triggering something weird here or is this the expected behaviour when switching from 68.4.2esr to 68.8.0esr?
Chosen Solution
Okay, I found the problem:
from your link https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/understanding-depth-profile-installation:
> Additionally profiles.ini now includes a list of known Firefox installs. Each new section is named based on a hash of the Firefox installation directory. Each install section includes the location on disk of the dedicated profile for that install as well as a marker for whether the profile is “locked” to that install.
I had installed both versions in separate directories. The problem here is that an installation is identified by the hash, which in turn is built from the actual installation path. An installation path <some path>/firefox-68.4.2esr therefore yields a different hash than <some path>/firefox-68.8.0esr and therefore it is interpreted as a different version.
When overwriting the old directory or make the switch by changing a symbolic links the profile "default-esr" is properly reused.