Closed Bug 123929 (profile-corrupt) Opened 22 years ago Closed 2 years ago

[meta] Prevent and repair profile corruption (tracking bug)

Categories

(Toolkit :: Startup and Profile System, defect, P3)

defect

Tracking

()

RESOLVED INVALID
Future

People

(Reporter: contact2009, Unassigned)

References

(Depends on 6 open bugs)

Details

(Keywords: meta)

This is a tracking bug for profile corruption. There are various responses to
profile corruption, from the proactive (fixing bugs that allow profile
corruption to occur) to the reactive (fixing existing profile corruption before
it has deleterious effect on the operations of Mozilla).

Please make any changes to this bug that are necessary, including adding to or
subtracting from the dependency list.
Need to add bookmark and history corruption bugs.
Depends on: 105636
Adding bug 118404. Of course, that one's fixed, but it was nonetheless due to
profile weirdness.
Depends on: 118404
Summary: defeat profile corruption → safeguard against profile corruption
Summary: safeguard against profile corruption → safeguard against profile corruption (tracking bug)
Search terms to find bugs include:   prefs.js    profile corruption   corrupt  
 profile data   user.js   localstore.rdf.

Bug 98476 has a milestone of 0.9.9 and could help solve many of these problems.
Bug 98476 is in. The basic necessary functionality is found in the files
nsSaveSaveFile.cpp and .h. I placed these files in the prefs library as I really
had no better suggestion. They can easily be moved to a more common location if
others wish to make use of this functionality.
Depends on: 85316
Depends on: 126614
No longer depends on: 126614
Depends on: 117064
Depends on: 102519, 125360
Depends on: 126239
Depends on: 120410
Depends on: 121725
bug 105636 is not profile related (will be dup-ed!)
No longer depends on: 105636
Depends on: 86501
Depends on: 90337
Depends on: 131014
Depends on: 127856
Depends on: 108358
Depends on: 76431
Depends on: 107694
taking
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Depends on: 142590
Depends on: 142588
No longer depends on: 142588
Depends on: 137164
No longer depends on: 118495
Summary: safeguard against profile corruption (tracking bug) → prevent and repair profile corruption (tracking bug)
Depends on: 132517
No longer depends on: 94010, 120759, 125360, 125794
Depends on: 14807
Depends on: 145558
Depends on: 145557
Depends on: 134517
Depends on: 58327
Keywords: meta
Summary: prevent and repair profile corruption (tracking bug) → Prevent and repair profile corruption (tracking bug)
Depends on: 76783
Depends on: 130776
Depends on: 63918
Depends on: 95151
Depends on: 134778
Depends on: 147108
Depends on: 151000
Depends on: 152436
Depends on: 17457
Adding bug 154054, a bug dealing with profile corruptions after crashes on
Solaris.  May be a dupe, but I didn't see it.
Depends on: 154054
Depends on: 109739
Depends on: 156088, 158845
No longer depends on: 76783
Target Milestone: --- → Future
Depends on: 153562, QLProfileLoss
No longer depends on: 154054, 158845
Depends on: 163899
Depends on: 163818
Depends on: 162597
Depends on: 161256, 162609
No longer depends on: 122114
Depends on: 132371
After reading comment 3,
You may want to add bug 166455 comment 6 (and 5),
and may be bug 134576 !?
Depends on: 144027
Depends on: FastLoadHang
Depends on: 162290
Depends on: 191101
Depends on: 191473
No longer depends on: 135137
Depends on: 190136
Depends on: 164244
Blocks: Beonex
Depends on: 158326
Depends on: 182260
Depends on: 186755
No longer depends on: 162609
No longer depends on: 101307
Depends on: 166455
Depends on: 131105
No longer depends on: 134517
Depends on: 51683
No longer depends on: 18927
No longer depends on: 47649
No longer depends on: 58327
No longer depends on: 98318
No longer depends on: 95151
No longer depends on: 147823
No longer depends on: 119805
Depends on: 192124
Depends on: 193454
Depends on: 178625
Depends on: 159642
Depends on: 109377
Depends on: 193567
Depends on: 192011
No longer depends on: 182579
No longer depends on: 162597
Depends on: startup
Depends on: 155813
No longer depends on: 162290
Depends on: 171313
Depends on: 193963
Depends on: 178659
No longer depends on: 178659
Depends on: 191512
Depends on: 192425
Depends on: 122698
Depends on: 185171
Depends on: 170610
Depends on: 140530
Depends on: 161013
Depends on: ns6cache
Depends on: 195230
Depends on: 176131
Depends on: 197677
No longer depends on: 178625
No longer depends on: 85316
Depends on: 22689
No longer depends on: 140530
Depends on: 195746
No longer depends on: 158326
Users who encounter bookmarks loss (way too common) can't find this bug and this
in turn leads to many duplicates. I would like to open a tracking bug
specifically for this issue - somthing like "Meta bug for tracking Boomarks
dataloss bugs (Bookmarks gone, lost, corrupted, wiped)"

Are there any objections?

Prog.
No longer depends on: 186948
No longer depends on: 178475
No longer depends on: 147423
No longer depends on: 147108
No longer depends on: 156088
No longer depends on: 119941
No longer depends on: 123845
No longer depends on: 161256
No longer depends on: 117064
No longer depends on: 88478
No longer depends on: 95331
No longer depends on: 132517
Depends on: 132517
Ok, I just opened Bug 203343 for specifically tracking Bookmarks dataloss bugs.

I would be happy to move all related bugs from the "depends"-list here, to the
new bug, but unfortunately I don't have "editbug" permissions. 

Prog.
Depends on: bookmark-loss
Depends on: bookmark-loss
I found Prog's meta, completely missed this one. I've commented it, but I just
had two incidents of losing all bookmarks, and I've got to say he's absolutely
on track with the amount of end user fury when everything goes away, with no
warning, and no recovery method.

You might also consider restore points instead of rolling backups with only two
stages back (when I at least open my browser, I might not NOTICE the bookmarks
are gone on a given session if I'm using history autocompletion/going to a
specific site, which means I could easily overwrite a 'two revisions old'
bookmark file unless it only writes with discrete changes.

Comment repeated from 203343:
I am being hit by this bug, or one very similar. In the last day, I had one
abnormal shutdown. I believe the browser was open. I'm not sure of the exact
chain of events, unfortunately, only that when I now open my browser it goes to
the correct homepage, but ALL bookmarks are gone.

I did some websearching, added a few links into a new folder, and again tonight,
I open the browser and all bookmarks are gone. Hopefully I have a usable backup
on my laptop (barring changes in the last few weeks) but this is an absolutely
miserable bug if it's as triggerable as having windows crash while you have any
mozilla files open.

I'm using:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.3) Gecko/20030312

And I'm very, very cranky.
Join the club. Do not post off-topic material on this bug. Do not cross-post,
either.
No longer depends on: 197677
Bug 190136 was duped to bug 192425, which is already listed.  Removing redundant
depend.
No longer depends on: 190136
No longer depends on: 176131
No longer depends on: 192011
Depends on: 173550
No longer depends on: 113203
I don't have time to keep this up to date anymore. If someone wants to maintain
it, please take it over. Thanks.
Assignee: xah → nobody
Status: ASSIGNED → NEW
Depends on: 226720
No longer depends on: 121725
Depends on: 231606
Depends on: 236467
Depends on: failsafe
Depends on: 161711
No longer depends on: 195230
Depends on: 226970
Depends on: 240646
Depends on: 228978
Alias: profile-corrupt
Depends on: 267502
No longer depends on: 136965
No longer depends on: 124136
I'm not sure what's the curren purpose of this bug. Anyway, I can confirm that
this still happens in mozilla 1.7.8, when the disk is full, at least the
bookmarks get lost, and the bookmarks.html is 0 size.
This bug should block bug 315312
*** Bug 332340 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I would wonder WHY a RECOVER button hasnt been installed...SOMEPLACE..
reinstall bookmarks, history, settings, and the rest...
Or, arnt they ALL backedup someplace?
bug 230494 deals with corrupt IMAP and/or news messagebases when downloading messages for offline use.
Depends on: 182222
Depends on: 364112
Adding dependencies from dup tracker bug 193638.
Depends on: 476369
This bug report is over seven years old. Today much of the profile data is managed by the new Storage API, which I believe is also known as mozStorage. The backend is a SQLite database. https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Storage We have a track record of years of much greater profile stability, based on anecdotal experience. 

The new SQLite system was tracked in the following bug reports. 

Bug 314553 - Bookmarks
Bug 374945 - Places (history, bookmarks)
Bug 288040 - signons3.txt (Password Manager) (recent addition)
Bug 230933 - Cookies
Bug 380250 - Download Manager's RDF backend

The following profile data files have not moved to the new system. Extension manager backend storage (bug 449585), cache, prefs.js, some CSS files, some XML files, some rdf files, compreg.dat, secmod.db, key3.db, xpc.mfl, xul.mfl, some BAK files (for backup), and some JSON files. Other than extension manager backend storage and cache, the rest should probably be left as they are. 

With SQLite, we still have bugs, even profile data corruption bugs, like bug 360729. Overall, however, we have a system that is much more protective of data. There is even built-in protection against data corruption. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Storage:DetectingCorruption and bug 431558. 

When I originally filed this bug, the situation was not altogether pleasant for profile data. That situation has significantly changed for the better thanks to the good work of the developers, particularly in the implementations of SQLite. 

I'm not certain what should be done with this bug report. It has become cluttered. I am leaning toward the following course. First, I may resolve this bug report, and then I will create a new bug report that is more relevant to today to address current profile data concerns. If you have any comments on this plan of action, please post them here or just e-mail them to me. Thanks.
No longer depends on: 109377
No longer depends on: 226720
Depends on: 63292
Depends on: 257288
Depends on: 319196
Depends on: 97141
In light of bug 319196, (current status: open) (customized toolbar resets to default due to localstore.rdf corruption), I've decided to keep this bug open for now. I don't know if the contents of localstore.rdf should be migrated to "localstore.sqlite" but in any case, that bug is open, so this bug stays open as well.
Depends on: 406378
No longer depends on: 406378
No longer depends on: 145558
Depends on: 375102
No longer depends on: 109706
Depends on: 496825
Depends on: 561142
Depends on: 420106
Depends on: 478189
Depends on: 465166
Depends on: 503374
possible profile corruption going on as part of bug 519356.  maybe the reactive fixes can help to mitigate that crash and the people hitting that crash can help to isolate and area of profile coruption that affects about 1000 people per day.
Blocks: 519356
Depends on: 570150
Depends on: 498181
Component: Tracking → Startup and Profile System
Priority: -- → P3
Product: Core → Toolkit
QA Contact: chofmann
See Also: → 1362878
Summary: Prevent and repair profile corruption (tracking bug) → [meta] Prevent and repair profile corruption (tracking bug)

bug 302087 - "Inadequate warning before Profile Manager deletes non-Mozilla files" - this can also accidentally delete profiles

I don't think this meta bug serves a useful purpose at this point.

Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 2 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID
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