126239 - user profiles are a mess!

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Core Graveyard :: Profile: BackEnd, defect)

Description

[Marko Macek]

I am posting this with netscape 4.x... why? because mozilla just foobared my
user profile again.

what's wrong with user profiles in mozilla:

1. they are fragile. it's very easy to lose bookmarks/preferences in 
a disk full condition or another exceptional condition.

2. there is no clear separation between valuable user data that needs to be 
backed up and cached data which can be easily discarded (I believe mail-news
doesn't store everything on imap but stores some stuff locally).

3. way way too many different file formats. There's html, xml, js, rdf, mork,
random text-file format of the day, random binary file format of the day. 


What can we do about this?

Ideally there would be only 3 file formats:

1. mbox for mail
2. xml for all configuration, bookmarks, address books, cookies, certificates,
etc..
3. a binary format for caching mail/news messages/indexes.

Comment 1

[Marko Macek]

adding a few relevant keywords

the 3 file formats above doesn't include the chrome stuff which should be
separate from the "data" and "cache" directories.

Comment 2

[R.K.Aa.]

The tracking bug for this is bug 123929. You may find that many if not all of
your concerns are already raised there.
Perhaps related are also bug 103993, bug 16866.

Comment 3

[Scott Tran (Wildcard)]

*** Bug 125794 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

*** Bug 130660 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 5

[mozilla-bugzilla]

Ugh.. mbox/berkely is the worst possible format for mail.  I dont use mozilla
for mail anyway, but perhaps might want to investigate MBX...

Comment 6

[Wesha]

*** Bug 158845 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 7

[Matthew Kruer]

I totally agree. The user whole user profile needs to be radically updated,
before it hurts Mozilla anymore. One of the issues that I have had is the whole
salting of the directory. This one “feature” has led to nothing but headaches. 
One option that I would like to see, especially if we clean up the profile, is
the encryption of the mailbox and other sensitive folders/files. This should
eliminate the need for salting.

The way I see it streamline the files and zip them up into a single file that is
encrypted.

Cache Directory; does not need to be encrypted
Chrome Directory; should not even stored in the user profile but above it so all
users have access to the themes and not have to download same theme for each
user. This will save space.
Mail Directory; the files under it should be encrypted
News directory; should also be encrypted

The rest of the files in root of the profile (21608477.s, 21609753.w, abook.mab,
bookmarks.html, cert7.db, cookies.txt, cookperm.txt, downloads.rdf, history.dat,
history.mab, key3.db, localstore.rdf, mimeTypes.rdf, panacea.dat, panels.rdf,
parent.lock, prefs.bak, prefs.js, search.rdf, secmod.db, XUL.mfl) should be
stored in a single file that is encrypted.

Now there is only one file that needs to be made a key file for stored the
password for the encrypted files. This would be saved in a randomly generated
file and saved in the root for that profile.

When you restore a profile you need point to the random file that has the keys.
This is no big leap, its being done right now for saved passwords, that’s what
the ########.s and ########.w are doing right now.

As an added benefit for those that want password protected profiles, that
password can be used as the encryption password.  If you need to restore a
profile it will ask you for the passwords or the key location and if you specify
the password it will generate a new key file and delete the other one.

This is all a simple concept which is many ways will be more user friendly and
remove the salting headaches.

Comment 8

[C. Gowing]

I am an end user, the only code I know is piglatin, however...
I have Windows 98 4.10.1998, set up to have 4 profiles, one for each family member.
I also have Netscape communicator 4.79 set up for 4 users.
I installed mozilla 1.0 and 1.1, (consecutively, not concurrently, full system
purge between), (both exhibited the same strangeness).
Following this procedure;
Download the full installer
Run the installer from the default windows profile, C:\windows\profiles\000,
(pressed "CANCEL" at Windows login screen).
Ask installer to install to D:\Mozilla
Mozilla found my current netscape users, "A", "B", "C", and "D".
Converted profiles by asking profile manager to rename them,
New profiles  "A", "B", "C", and "D" were created at C:\windows\mozilla\profiles.
Quit Mozilla
Copied the new profiles to a temp location.
Restarted Mozilla Profile Manager and deleted profiles "A", "B", "C", and "D".
Logged off default Windows profile and logged on to Windows profile "A"
Started Mozilla Profile Manager, no profiles listed, created new Mozilla profile
"A" at D:\mozilla\profiles
Moved Mozilla profile files "A" from temp location to D:\mozilla\profiles\A
Logged off windows profile "A"
Logged on windows profile "B"
Started Mozilla Profile Manager, no profiles listed, and created new mozilla
profile "B" at D:\mozilla\profiles
Moved Mozilla profile files "B" from temp location to D:\mozilla\profiles\B
Repeat for "C"
Repeat for "D", except now profile "C" exists when manager opened.
I now have;
C:\windows\mozilla\profiles\A\1x1d9735.slt\(all profile dirs and files)
C:\windows\mozilla\profiles\B\kjk4w2si.slt(all profile dirs and files)
C:\windows\profiles\A\Application Data\mozilla\profiles\(empty)
C:\windows\profiles\B\Application Data\mozilla\profiles\(empty)
D:\mozilla\profiles\A, B, C, and D.
Mozilla Profile Manager lists no Mozilla profiles from the default windows
profile, C:\windows\profiles\000,
(pressed "CANCEL" at Windows login screen).
Mozilla Profile Manager lists Mozilla profile "A" when in Windows profile "A"
Mozilla Profile Manager lists Mozilla profile "B" when in Windows profile "B"
Mozilla Profile Manager lists Mozilla profiles "C" and "D" when in either
Windows profile "C" or "D"
Mozilla runs fine from all Windows profiles the only difference being that
Windows users "C" and "D"
must pick their Mozilla profile from Mozilla Profile Manager lists

Comment 9

[Eerik]

Big problems ahead with Windows (Me) family logon if you want to use Netscape 7
with user profiles and using computer when another family member is logged in:
Netscape don't finf your own profile in your own win\profile\etc... directory
but instead insist to create a new profile. The at the end you end up with N
family members with N*N profiles and none of our own mail & bookmark etc are up
to date !
So the question is how to redirect profile manager to find the existing profiles
in other directories ?

Comment 10

[Wim Borsboom]

Summary:
Losing Recent Profile. 
My latest User Profile became unavailable ("in use by other program") after intalling "Yahoo Voice Messenger-Beta".
It happened also some months ago after I installed a Yahoo Picture Program extension (Paxio or so ?) or something similar to that.

Details:
Just recently, after I had just subscribed to "Yahoo Voice Messaging-Beta", I was prompted, when I restarted "Mozilla Firefox" which profile I wanted to use. 
Apparently I had two to choose from:
   "default"
   "wim" (the most recent)
When I selected "wim" a message came back stating that it was "already in use", and it wouldn't open Mozilla/Firefox. 
I'm sure that the "profile" was not in use as Mozilla Firefox as well as "Yahoo Voice Messaging-Beta" were closed. In fact no programs were open at all. (I tried various permutations.)
However, when I selected the "default" profile, miraculously an OLD SETUP from some months ago re-emerged (different tabs altogether than the ones I had set up recently), a setup that I thought I had lost after I subscribed to another Yahoo program (something like Paxio or so).

Obviously I would like to open Mozila Firefox with the most recent "wim" profile as I had some special tabs set-up.
Of course I can recreate the tabs, but I'm afraid that next time I install another program extension from Yahoo that I will have to go through the same frustrations again.

By the way, I looked for my profiles in the Documents and Settings/Wim Borsboom/Application Data/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/Default folder (and other folders) but could not find any relevant info as to my "wim" profile.

I hope this complaint is related to the bug originally reported here, if not it is surely related to the statement that the profiles are "FRAGILE" and need to be "reworked"

"Happy New Year"

Comment 11

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

by current standards this bug is too broad to be properly addressed - specific dataloss issues should be filed as separate bugs

=> invalid