1656399 - two profiles created on first startup

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1770174

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Kai Engert (:KaiE:)]

I'm starting Thunderbird 68.x on a system that has never seen any thunderbird process previously.

I start thunderbird without options. After following the wizard to setup an email account I quit.

Then I start thunderbird again with -P
It shows me two profiles were created, default and default-release.
Why ?

Expected behavior:
Only one profile should have been created.

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Our testers probably have experience with this. (Not the why, but to what extent it happens, including whether it happens with 78)

Comment 2

[WaltS48 [:walts48]]

Attachment: installs.ini

I ran a LiveUSB version of Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon.

Downloaded and installed 78.1.0 to a Test folder.

Launched it from a terminal using ~/Test/thunderbird/thunderbird

It opened and I created an email account.

Quit and checked my ~/.thunderbird folder and I do see a default-release and default profile created.

The default-release is the only one that appears in the attached installs.ini file.

Both appear in the profiles.ini file and the Profile Manager when I launch TB using ~/Test/thunderbird/thunderbird -p.

The default-release profile is the one with the email account information.

I think the default-release is the dedicated profile per installation.

No idea why the other profile is created when the hidden ~/.thunderbird folder is created.

Comment 3

[Eckard Berberich]

You'd have to ask the Mozilla developers why they made those changes. I didn't follow them for Firefox but I'm almost sure that the two profiles default (a stub profile containing only the file "times.json") and default-release have been introduced for Thunderbird with version 68.
Since TB 68 a new Thunderbird installation creates automatically two profiles, default-release being the one used by TB
I don't have the slightest idea about the reason of introducing these changes.

Comment 4

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Seen in Firefox as well?

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Magnus Melin [:mkmelin] from comment #4)

Seen in Firefox as well?

Comment 6

[WaltS48 [:walts48]]

Attachment: profiles.ini

Created new user accounts on Windows 10 and Fedora 34.
Opened Firefox 90.0.2 on each user account for the first time.
Checked the profiles and had two created for each system.

The installs.ini file only showed the default-release profile as the default.

[11457493C5A56847]
Default=f8kh3frd.default-release
Locked=1

Comment 7

[Spampot]

Both Firefox 93.0 and Thunderbird 91.2.0 automatically create TWO initial user profiles on first startup.

As already mentioned, the one named "<something>.default-release" is the only one mentioned in installs.ini, and is the one that is actually used by Firefox/Thunderbird. The second profile named "<something>.default" is obviously not used (although marked as Default=1 in profiles.ini), as it only contains a single "times.json" file.

This definitely looks like a bug that should be fixed by no longer creating the second profile.

As this bug affects both Firefox and Thunderbird, it should somehow be linked to Firefox as well. However, the "Product" field seems to only support a single entry, so I have no idea how to indicate that it's about Firefox too. Can somebody please jump in?

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

The reason is stated in bug 1770174