Closed Bug 163818 Opened 23 years ago Closed 16 years ago

Installer wiped my profile

Categories

(SeaMonkey :: Installer, defect)

Product:
SeaMonkey
Component:
Installer
Platform:
x86
Windows 2000
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
critical

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
VERIFIED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: keith.hankin, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Keywords: dataloss)

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.1b) Gecko/20020819 Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.1b) Gecko/20020819 The installer wiped out my bookmarks. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1.Install a new browser, and bookmarks get wiped out. 2. 3.
I'm kind of **** that I lost all my bookmarks. Is there some way to save them somewhere so that in the future I can restore them when they get trashed by Mozilla install? The same question goes for my preferences.
Severity: major → critical
Keywords: dataloss
installer stops just before you see the mozilla logo
Assignee: dveditz → asa
Component: Installer → Browser-General
QA Contact: bugzilla → asa
Did you uninstall your old Mozilla first?
Same here. However after I clicked on the menu item Bookmark and double checked that the bookmarks were still there they came back on the button bar and they work as before. Unsettling just the same
As per comment 4, this might be a dupe of bug 162593.
rename/delete the compreg.dat file - fixes this in build 2002082008
Did you scan your hard drive? Sometimes Mozilla loses track of it, but its still there. Its always a good idea to back it up before installing an update.
I agree. In case the reporter or others don't know, to save your bookmarks, copy the file "bookmarks.html" from your profile to backup medium. To restore from backup, import the bookmarks. That's the official way, though you could probably just close Mozilla and copy the file in. --> Installer. Reassign.
Assignee: asa → dveditz
Blocks: profile-corrupt
Component: Browser-General → Installer
QA Contact: asa → bugzilla
this is not installer.... reporter: what do you mean by wiped? Did the entire profile get lost? Did the file become 0 in size please describe problem in more detail...
Assignee: dveditz → asa
Component: Installer → Browser-General
QA Contact: bugzilla → asa
dupe of bug 163700?
*** Bug 165731 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
no response from reporter for >60 days. resolving WFM. reporter: if you can reproduce this bug with a recent version of mozilla (for example, 1.2), please reopen and give details of how to reproduce.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 22 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
As it's an infrequent, intermittent bug, one person saying "Works For Me" can't really be classed as a verified resolution... :-/ It's happened to me twice in a couple of dozen reinstalls - if a developer had reported finding the cause, that would be a different matter. I think it should be reopened until then.
Peet: happy to reopen if you have reproduced this bug with a recent build of mozilla - what builds/versions have you seen it with? realistically, I'm afraid there's not much chance of anything happening unless the cause can be tracked, and there's not much chance of that unless someone can work out how to reproduce it...
Status: RESOLVED → UNCONFIRMED
Resolution: WORKSFORME → ---
From what I've seen, I think it's an interaction between Mozilla and NS6.x/7.x. I had to reinstall Mozilla and Netscape several times over the last couple of months because of what I believed to be an ongoing registry problem (later tracked down to a system DLL having migrated over the magic 7.8GB threshold when defragging) and in a couple of dozen reinstalls my bookmarks were wiped twice. Basically I was reinstalling Windows 2000, then reinstalling browsers and applications over the previous copy (same version) to keep my settings wherever possible while replacing system DLLs. From memory, the sequence of events went something like: Installed Mozilla 1.1 over a previous copy of 1.1 started Mozilla - bookmarks were OK. Installed NS6 over a previous copy of NS6 Started NS6 - ran OK, didn't check bookmarks. Went back to Mozilla - Bookmarks were OK for rest of the night Restarted machine Started Mozilla - all bookmarks were gone. The second time was when I upgraded from 1.1 to 1.2b; again, the bookmarks didn't vanish immediately, but rather were missing when I started the machine up the next day. Sometime in between (days earlier) I had replaced NS6 with NS7. Frankly, I don't have the time to play with it until I can successfully reproduce the behaviour. That doesn't mean the bug should be closed, though - it was still around in 1.2b. It's possible, of course, that the bug is actually in Netscape 6/7, which both read the Mozilla bookmark file, or only manifests itself in an interaction between the two browsers...? Anyhow, when it happened it was a total pain. That's my 2 cents worth... Peet
Peet - you mention that netscape and mozilla were sharing bookmarks. do you mean that you used the same profile for netscape and mozilla? if so, then that isn't a valid configuration - the two browsers fight with each other and screw up the profile data - it's mentioned in the release notes. unless Keith did the same thing, that's not relevant to this bug report (there is another bug about netscape and mozilla using the same profile data by default, which they shouldn't)
I must admit, I wasn't aware of the default profiles bug, but it's not the case here. My Mozilla installations use a profile called "Administrator" (customised), while my Netscape ones use a profile called "NoSpam" (all default values). One point I neglected to mention in my report earlier was that during the time I was experiencing problems with my machine it wasn't switched off every night... This means that there's a good chance, although I can't be certain, that the second incident of disappearing bookmarks followed the first restart after upgrading NS6 to NS7, despite the fact that the actual upgrade took place a couple of days earlier. If that's true, then we might narrow down the circumstances of the bug to the first restart after installing a new version of a Gecko-based Netscape on a machine with a pre-existing Mozilla installation. If anyone's got the time, at least that's a testable scenario...?
I just updated to 1.2.1 and it happened again. I was prompted that the profile I was importing was from an older version and was being "converted"; when the browser eventually launched only the default bookmarks were there. This time I had taken the precaution of making a copy of the bookmark file elsewhere, and was able to import it... Suggestion to team: As a kludge, how about patching the updater to copy the active bookmarks, if any, to %temp% when it starts, and re-import them when it's finished? :-/
Oh, and I just found out it erased my Password Manager entries too. :(
updating summary to better reflect behaviour
Summary: Installer wiped my bookmarks → Installer wiped my profile
Peet, can you try to reproduce this on a 1.3 build? (Obviously, use a bookmarks.html file that is backed up.) It would be great to fix this as soon as possible. Also, make sure to indicate that you are using the profile only with Mozilla, and not Netscape.
*** Bug 179829 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 184071 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 188174 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 193341 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Confirming due to all the duplicates.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
*** Bug 199100 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 199474 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
There hasn't been any responses in this bug for a while- I believe other fixes for lost prefs/ bookmarks etc have gone in during that time. Reporter and others, Can you update the bug with current experiences?
*** Bug 200705 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 202322 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I just had this problem installing 1.4a over 1.3 (Bug 202322), and I don't have Netscape installed.
I installed release "Mozilla 1.4 - Released June 30, 2003", then promptly ran last nights build over the top (uninstalling 1.4). Didn't have the problem... Mozilla 1.5b Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5b) Gecko/20030716
Product: Browser → Seamonkey
Assignee: asa → general
QA Contact: asa → general
Is this still reproducable with a recent nightly build? Given the age and inactivity of this bug report, resolving as WORKSFORME seems appropriate.
Hi, No it is fixd. It can be resolved now.
=> WFM per comment 35
Assignee: general → installer
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 22 years ago → 16 years ago
Component: General → Installer
QA Contact: general → xpi-packages
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
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