161256 - By init script mail&Newsgroup can't be opened

Status: VERIFIED WORKSFORME

(Core :: Preferences: Backend, defect)

Description

[Julien Tane]

Hello,


I have the follwing Problem...

I  reinstalled Java sdk. 

I started  Mozilla again... 

The profile manager asked me which profile I should give it.

Clicked OK.

And THERE instead of the  News and Mailgroup  I should have gotten.
a configuration mistakes pops up and says:

An error occured while reading the startup configuration file.
Please contact your administrator.

line 246: SyntaxError: unterminated string literal.  aveat", true);

and at the same time a navigator window pops up. Where I got the version.

I then tried to get access to my mail... But it wasn't possible.
The Mail&News opens ( which it at start did not do ). But asks me the typical
start configurations.





The mozilla version I use is : Mozilla 1.0
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv: 1.0.0) Gecko/20020530

Comment 1

[Kai Lahmann (is there, where MNG is)]

sounds like a broken profile for me

Comment 2

[Julien Tane]

To your remark:  "sounds like a broken profiel to me"

It sounds like that to me too... 
But is there a profile checker? or some programm of the sort ?

If yes ... Tell me where I should get it...

Secondly, I sometimes have to use netscape and mozilla at the same time...
Maybe the bug could be created because of that.

The problem by this is that it seems that it is the same configuration for
mozilla and netscape 6.2 so I also get the messenger open when I start the
browser...
And actually I don't care about the messenger.

Hope you understand what I mean.

I'll have to find a solution to my problem.... But it might solve some bug...

Thanks,
Julien

Comment 3

[Kai Lahmann (is there, where MNG is)]

well, this 'aveat", true);' is somewhere in the profile I guess... Anybody has
an idea what is was..?

Comment 4

[Julien Tane]

>well, this 'aveat", true);' is somewhere in the profile I guess... Anybody has
an idea what is was..?

well where is the profile saved in prefs.js or is there some other file?

Comment 5

[timeless]

preferences backend, we really need to provide the users an
edit/delete/rename/ignore error option for the file

Comment 6

[Brian Nesse (gone)]

prefs.js is a part of the profile, not the other way around.

> aveat", true);

Looks like it could be part of the prefs file... most likely it is damaged. You
could try looking at prefs.bak and see if it is undamaged.

Comment 7

[Julien Tane]

well thanks... but I tried to look for "aveat" in the file and it is not
there...

The other thing is: I made a diff with my bak file and only the last visited
page changed... but since I tried a few times to reload, it might have erased
the file in between... ( I ight also have tried to open the prefrence in
mozilla. So on this point I can't tell.

And my problem is to know how to check that the file is correct? ( but I don't
think it is there... :-(

Comment 8

[Brian Nesse (gone)]

Well, assuming that you have a text editor of some sort with a "goto line"
feature, you should be able to find the problem area at line 246 in prefs.js,
otherwise there is no easy way to locate it.

Comment 9

[Julien Tane]

Sorry whether I haven't been clear the first time... 
I had used emacs to check the line 246 aswell as the presence of aveat. 
I even made a grep on my directory profile.

My question are: 
- whether there is a simple tool to check whether certain files are correct.
some kind of unit tests?

- There is also the registry.dat. it is a binary file... Is there a way to
unpack the content?

- I might also have messed the thing up trying to recover. I try to start from
scratch hoping there was a way to load my old repository:
 now under Profile I have: 7cdckdkcj.slt and on the old one I have reason to
believe it was: ub24fclkfdl.slt ( or something of the sort).
So looking for the bug might be harder now. 

- Is it possible that because of the problem... mozilla created a totallynew
pref.js ( weel some of the old infos are still there... but teh actual location
of my mail ( which I had a few month ago changed) was not right anymore...


One thing I did was look for the string 'aveat",' in the repository and I found
one or two aveat", PR_TRUE in the code... But I haven't time to look into that.

Comment 10

[Brian Nesse (gone)]

Your statements seem to imply that the prefs.js file is not at fault, but it
also seems like the most likely candidate... would you be willing to email me
the file so I can look at it?

I don't believe you can or will find any useful information in the registry.dat
file. There is no user preference data in that file.

Looking at LXR briefly it does seem to point at the "wallet.caveat" as the
preference being stomped on... not sure that there is any help to be found there
however...

If you have multiple profile directories now (but only one profile), you will
probably have to use the modified dates of the files to try and determine which
.slt directory is currently active.

If an error occurs reading the prefs.js file it will not write it back out, so
it seems unlikely that you would have a totally new prefs.js file with some old
information residing in it.

Comment 11

[Michael Lefevre]

reporter (Julien): can you reproduce this bug with a recent build of mozilla
(for example, 1.2beta)? if so, please comment again with details. if not, please
resolve this bug as WORKSFORME. thanks.

Comment 12

[Julien Tane]

Well I don't really know whether the bug is fixed. Since I had to continue using
the mail I could not wait anylonger... To go around the problem, I had to create
a new account ( perhaps in an higher version?) and to copy my mail content to
the new Profile directory...
So I will resolve the bug as WORKSFORME...

Comment 13

[Michael Lefevre]

thanks for that.

marking verified.