196834 - all bookmarks lost when using "browser.bookmarks.file" pref and switching profile

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Core Graveyard :: Profile: BackEnd, defect)

Description

[Eric Belhaire]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.3) Gecko/20030308
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.3) Gecko/20030308

I have two profiles :
profile A : 
includes the definition of a user_pref("browser.bookmarks.file",
"C:\\WINDOWS\\Application Data\\Mozilla\\Profiles\\bookmarks.html");
to use a bookmark file located outside the profile directory.

profile B : 
is a normal profile (with the default bookmark created during its creation.
When I switched from profile B to profile A, the bookmark file of A has been
replaced by the one of B.

All my bookmarks of A has been lost.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. create 2 profiles A and B
2. add the definition of user_pref("browser.bookmarks.file",
"C:\\WINDOWS\\Application Data\\Mozilla\\Profiles\\bookmarks.html"); to use a
bookmark file outside the profile directory in the profile A
3. quit Mozilla
4. launch Mozilla with profile B
5. switch to profile A with the command Tools>Switch Profile

Actual Results:  
The bookmark of profile A are overwritten with those of profile B

Expected Results:  
Load the bookmarks of A (instead of overwrite them)

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Bookmarks bug; the bookmarks should be saved on profile shutdown.

Comment 2

[Grace Bush]

this is really bad - used the steps above to reproduce- and ended up with no
bookmarks in either profile

This did not occur when I closed app and restarted with different profile- only
when using tools/switching profiles.

reassigning- please reassign if I have done so in error

Comment 3

[Conrad Carlen (not reading bugmail)]

> Bookmarks bug; the bookmarks should be saved on profile shutdown.

It does. See nsBookmarksService::Observe. The problem here is that the file is
located by means of the "browser.bookmarks.file" rather than the normal case of
being in the profile folder.

Grace, just because the bug happens with profile switching doesn't mean it's a
profile mgr bug. Lots of components have profile change observing code. If the
bug is in that code, it's not a profile mgr bug. But, I'll take it though.

Comment 4

[Grace Bush]

I also lost bookmarks in  the second profile, that were stored in default
location  ie in profile directory.   

Comment 5

[Conrad Carlen (not reading bugmail)]

That's because the switch between pref and not-pref specified file didn't
happen. If neither profile has its bookmarks specified by that pref, does this
happen?

Comment 6

[Grace Bush]

no, if profiles are using default bookmark file location- the switch works as
expected

Comment 7

[Conrad Carlen (not reading bugmail)]

Thanks for the clarification.

I see the problem. nsBookmarksService is observing "profile-do-change" to load
the new bookmarks. It should be observing "profile-after-change" because, on
that phase, the new prefs will already have been read.

BTW, is the only way to set this pref to add it to your prefs file by hand?

Comment 8

[Grace Bush]

that's the only way I know how to do it,  Eric?

Comment 9

[Eric Belhaire]

Yes, doing it by hand is the only way I know (and it's how 
I did it).

Comment 10

[timeless]

Attachment: per conrad

Comment 11

[Conrad Carlen (not reading bugmail)]

Comment on attachment 117080 [details] [diff] [review]
per conrad

Ah - thanks so much for doing this :-)

Comment 12

[Alec Flett]

Comment on attachment 117080 [details] [diff] [review]
per conrad

sr=alecf

Comment 13

[timeless]

checked in

Comment 14

[Grace Bush]

verified build 2003032104

Comment 15

[Conrad Carlen (not reading bugmail)]

Checked into 1.3 branch after email from Asa.