1264766 - Profile manager command seems to be broken

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Toolkit :: Startup and Profile System, defect)

Description

[David Spector]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/45.0
Build ID: 20160407164938

Steps to reproduce:

I entered the command "firefox -ProfileManager" in the Run Dialog for Windows 8.1 (with latest updates).


Actual results:

A Firefox window with one blank tab opened.


Expected results:

The Firefox Profile Manager dialog box should have opened.

Also, the command "firefox.exe -p" failed similarly.

However, the command "firefox.exe -p --no-remote" worked as expected.

Comment 1

[David Spector]

Firefox 45.0.2, Windows 8.1, ASUS laptop model X501A .

Comment 2

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Was Firefox already running when you did this?

The profile manager only works if you don't have Firefox running or if you use -no-remote

Comment 3

[David Spector]

I have verified that firefox -ProfileManager works if Firefox is NOT running. I suggest that you can avoid further bug reports by documenting this limitation everywhere that the profile manager is documented, since this IS NOT obvious. Alternatively, create a small program that closes Firefox then opens the profile manager.

Please close this report.

Comment 4

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Thanks. I'd appreciate any doc updates you can write, but since -ProfileManager is not a supported flag we're not going to spend a lot of time making it "perfect".

Comment 5

[David Spector]

I understand that the profile manager is not considered an important or "supported" part of Firefox, since most users will never need it.

However, with all respect, those users needing multiple identities for a single computer (such as families) and those users having to work around Firefox's bugs (new and old) DO need the profile manager, and need it to be better documented than it currently is.

I don't think such a doc update is at all difficult. Near the top of each place where the profile manager is documented add something like the following:

"Important: Firefox must be completely closed before the profile manager may be run."

Now, since I have complied with your request to write the doc update, the ball is in your court to edit the various places where the profile manager is documented.