153742 - Error at startup & Preferences won't save

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 193638

(Core :: Preferences: Backend, defect)

Description

[George Schnurle]

From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.78 (Macintosh; U; PPC)
BuildID:    2002052917

First, Mozilla gives me a error at startup: "Configuration warning   An error 
occurred reading the startup configuration file. Please contact your 
administrator. line 962: SyntaxError: illegal character. # Mozilla user 
preferences  ". There's only one option: "OK". After pressing "OK", Mozilla 
starts, and runs just fine. However, after quitting and restarting Mozilla, I 
find that no preferences have been saved.

It seems like these are similar bugs concerning preferences on the Mac:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=128056
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=152251

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
Error message:
1. Start Mozilla.
2. See the error message dialogue.

Saving preferences:
1. Select Edit>Preferences
2. Change anything in the window (Homepage, Composer settings, Cookie settings, 
etc.)
3. Quit Mozilla.
4. Restart Mozilla
5. Notice that none of the changes remain (either in the Prefs dialogue, or in 
effect)

Actual Results:  Same as in description

Expected Results:  1. Preferences should have been saved.
2. No error dialogue at startup

Comment 1

[Brian Nesse (gone)]

The only reason you will ever see this error is if either your prefs.js or
user.js file is corrupt. It would seem that your prefs.js file is damaged at
line 962.

Comment 2

[George Schnurle]

It would seem a bit odd that this would happen when I first installed Mozilla. Is 
this perhaps a result of Mozilla coexisting with Netscape 4.7x?

Comment 3

[Brian Nesse (gone)]

It's possible that there is something in your 4.x prefs file (assuming you
converted an existing profile) that Mozilla doesn't like. One thing that pops to
mind is that we don't really support javascript execution anymore. Depending on
your level of comfort with an editor such as CodeWarrior or BBEdit, you could
look at the contents of the file yourself, email it to me (stuffed please) or
attach it to this bug. And we can try and get you up an running. Otherwise, you
can just create a new profile (really, not a bad idea anyway... a lot of the old
4.x preferences are obsolete in Mozilla) which should also get you up and running.

Comment 4

[George Schnurle]

I don't know why, but it works now.

I removed prefs.js from it's folder, and restarted Mozilla. It created it's own 
prefs.js, and went perfectly happily along. It's good to see a happy lizard!

I compared the two prefs.js files, and there was a dramatic difference. The old 
one had 965 lines (mostly confirming MIME types), and the new one only had 12 
lines.

Here's Lines 161-165 if anyone wants them:
161	user_pref("security.warn_leaving_secure", false);
162	user_pref("security.warn_submit_insecure", false);
163	user_pref("taskbar.mac.is_open", false);
164	# Mozilla User Preferences    
165	
(Line numbers added)

I'm still not sure why Mozilla didn't like poor little Line 962, but I guess that 
it is something unique to my system.

Thanks for your help, Mr. Nesse, and anyone else who might have helped. I'm 
amazed that this user-specific bug was resolved so quickly. This is the first 
time I’ve used Bugzilla, and I was expecting my bug report to go into the bowels 
of a digital bureaucracy, never to be seen again. Fortunately, I was proven very 
wrong.
Thanks

Comment 5

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

.

Comment 6

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 193638 ***