158919 - [unix] fail to migrate if the $HOME directory is not writable, need better error dialog?

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Core Graveyard :: Profile: Migration, defect)

Description

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

someone at HP got a "unable to migrate profile" error messages when migrating
from 4.79.  It was not because of a corrupted file or bad data, but because his
$HOME directory wasn't writable. 

He says, "Unfortunately, there's no real clear indication from Netscape that
that's what's wrong, we discovered it only after experimenting around a bit"

I don't think this is a common case, but it can't hurt log a bug on us to
improve our migration code to detect this error and alert the user.

we should see what 4.x does if $HOME is not writable when you first launch 4.x

Comment 1

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

if would also be interesting to see what mozilla does when there isn't a 4.x
profile, and we just start up mozilla with a $HOME that isn't writable.

if $HOME isn't writable, I'd think bad things would happen.

Comment 2

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

not clear who would work on this, but definitely not racham.  moving to my bug
list for now.

Comment 3

[Conrad Carlen (not reading bugmail)]

> if $HOME isn't writable, I'd think bad things would happen.

Yes - we wouldn't be able to create the profile registry so, even if the user
who knew s/he was running with a non-writable home dir and manually created a
profile elsewhere, that profile would never be remembered.

Is there some reason why somebody would have a non-writable home dir? If a
decent error message was given so they might be able to correct this, would that
be enough? It seems that so much of our code depends on $HOME being writable
that, if it's not, something on a lower level (like nsIDiectoryService) should
be able to return some location for this which *is* writable.

Comment 4

[Martin Lawyer]

The user's main complaint was that there was no specific error/warning about
what was wrong.  He had no reason to have a read-only homedir.  So, a more
descriptive error message for this case would be the proper resolution.

Comment 5

[Martin Lawyer]

Info only:  HP has opened the following bug report in their internal bug database: 

JAGae35072 - Netscape 6.2.3 profile migration may fail without adequate explanation 

Comment 6

[Stephen Tihor]

NOTE: There are in fact some situations such as Kiosk mode where the user's 
home directory from /etc/passwd is certainly not going to be writable and where 
$HOME itself should often not be.  Knowing exactly what subdirectories of $HOME 
must be writable and minimizing that set would be a useful feature.   (I ran 
itno this with GTK+ based tools becuase of a "patch" to glib that ignores $HOME 
entirely making life very unhappy in highly secured (and thus almost entirely 
unwritable) configurations for programs like gaim using g_get_homedir to place 
rc files and cache directories.

[e-mail]

Comment 7

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

sorry for the spam.  making bugzilla reflect reality as I'm not working on these bugs.  filter on FOOBARCHEESE to remove these in bulk.

Comment 8

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

Filter on "Nobody_NScomTLD_20080620"

Comment 9

[Benjamin Smedberg]

This bug is filed in a bugzilla component related to pre-Firefox code which no longer exists. I believe it is no longer relevant and I am therefore closing it INCOMPLETE.

If you believe that this bug is still valid and needs to be fixed, please reopen it and move it to the Toolkit:Startup and Profile System product/component.