1774257 - changing from 'beta' to 'release' removes profile and everything with it

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Toolkit :: Startup and Profile System, defect)

Description

[Rob N]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:101.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/101.0

Steps to reproduce:

.have FF Release 99 (for example) as normal use everyday browser.
.decide to try Beta.. (MISTAKE!! it's SLOW. Very SLOW. INCREDIBLY slow to launch )

.Let me just reiterate how very SLOW beta is at launching. What kind of information is being sent back? Seems like entire SSD is being slowly uploaded, 2 GB at a time before even a sign that the browser is connectting to website. Browser opens but nothing else, at least visibly, happens)
.Also far too many 'updates'
.after couple of months, decide that Beta is not for me.
.try to use release

.change "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\pref\channel-prefs.js" from "beta" to "release"
.restart browser.
.confirm in "about:config" that the "app.update.channel" is now "release"
.close -> reopen browser ->Help > About.
.this prompts an update check.. no updates found.
.reports Is still on BETA version 102 b6 i think.

.download FF current release installer msi (53mb)
.close current FF.
.msi installs ok.

.Open FF shortcut. Presented with message:
You're opening an older version. this can corrupt profiles. to save the data, create a new profile..
buttons: <Exit> <Creat New Profile>
.create new profle.
.go to About:Profiles
.Try to set the previous profile as default.

.. tried this two times. Same.

.Open FF shortcut. Presented with message:
You're opening an older version. this can corrupt profiles. to save the data, create a new profile..
buttons: <Exit> <Creat New Profile>
.create new profle.
.go to About:Profiles
.Try to set the previous profile as default.

and again.

.Open FF shortcut. Presented with message:
You're opening an older version. this can corrupt profiles. to save the data, create a new profile..
buttons: <Exit> <Creat New Profile>
.create new profle.
.go to About:Profiles
.Try to set the previous profile as default.

.same.

My entire previous profile that was updated to beta and has two months of data (history, passwords, bookmarks etc.. associated with it, is no longer usable. I may as well have deleted the whole thing. To even try to sort the mess out is going to be complicated and time consuming.

Actual results:

can't update profile which was altered during regular use in beta, to release version which is a few builds behind.
in fact the message says the profile is old.. but actually, it's NEWER.

Expected results:

.Losing data should NEVER happen.

.User should have been able to set beta profile to default profile in release version.

.the entire Exit from Beta Program process should be a whole lot easier (less complicated.)

.Orders of magnitude less messy to try to fix.

.the beta program itself is WAYYY to slow.

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Toolkit::Startup and Profile System' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 2

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

This is intentional as often newer versions of Firefox modify the settings in ways that cause older versions of Firefox to crash or behave in unexpected ways. You can try to bypass this by running firefox.exe -allow-downgrade