1014078 - setting up sync with a new profile caused dataloss in original profile

Status: VERIFIED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Sync, defect)

Description

[guigs [:guigs] PST (please needinfo me!)]

Reference story: [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1001188?utm_campaign=questions-reply&utm_medium=email&utm_source=notification]

Description: When a user sets up a profile with a new profile, the second computer or device profile is overwritten. A functionality in the previous sync did a check to what to do: merge the profile, overwrite etc. Incorporating this or a warning to a new user may prevent some of this misunderstanding. 

I will also add this to the new sync kb in support.

Comment 1

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

The default behavior should be to "merge" the data, not overwrite. The user in that support thread is must be experiencing a bug of some sort - perhaps we should morph this bug to cover that. Would they be able to comment here to provide more information and potentially provide Sync logs?

(Bug 966530 covers the fact that we no longer offer different options, but that shouldn't result in any data loss.)

Comment 2

[Mark Hammond [:markh] [:mhammond]]

I can't reproduce this (which isn't surprising really - if this was happening in all cases I believe we would have noticed it).

My test was simply:

1) On one profile, add a bookmark, then setup sync, and wait for sync to complete.
2) On second profile, add a different bookmark, setup sync and wait for sync to complete.  Verify new bookmark *and* original bookmark from (1) now exists.
3) Back to first profile, sync.  Ensure both bookmarks exist.

Richard, can you think of anything that might force sync to get into the state where one of the profiles is clobbered?

Comment 3

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

I commented in the support thread, but: no, it's pretty unlikely that Sync was involved here.

Comment 4

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

Going to close this since it doesn't seem actionable without more info.

Comment 5

[James Bonacci [:jbonacci]]

ok