1788052 - Mismatching Profiles location between actual location and indicated in "about:support."

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1731753

(Firefox :: Installer, defect)

Description

[Hiroshige Shizuta]

Attachment: The error message and showing wrong location

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:104.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/104.0

Steps to reproduce:

1. Put " about:support " in the URL field and enter.
2. I see the location as " C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\forv3n79.default-release. "
3. Press " Open folder " next to Profile Folder
4. Get the error " The location is not available. "

I also tried Win key + R and %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
Then got the same result.

So, reproducing is very easy.

Actual results:

I could not get profiles by pressing Open folder."

However, the profiles are in a different location as follows.
C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Packages\Mozilla.Firefox_n80bbvh6b1yt2\LocalCache\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox
I found them by searching with Windows Explorer.

Expected results:

The open button should open the profiles location in Windows Explorer.

Comment 1

[Hiroshige Shizuta]

Hi,
May I ask you to fix a bug with Firefox 104.0 MSIX that my PC installed via MS Store?
The problem is mismatching the Profiles location that is between the actual location and indicated in "about:support."
I press the Open button in Troubleshooting Information. Then I get an error "The location is not available."

I have been using the MSIX version of Firefox for a long time, and this problem has not happened.

I went to the location of the Profiles suppose to be there by Windows Explorer. It was nothing.
Then I searched the profile in Windows Explorer and found them in a different directory.

I have posted this on the Firefox community forum and the title is "Where is Firefox profile for 104.0."
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1387574

My system
Firefox Windows MSIX package Mozilla-MSIX - 1.0 104.0(64-bit)
Windows 11 pro v21H2 (OS Build 220000,918)
Intel Core i7-8565
Memory : 32 GB
SSD 1TB and 500GB. Free space 484GB and 325GB respectively.

Comment 2

[:Gijs (he/him)]

This doesn't seem like a security issue that needs to be kept hidden?

Comment 3

[Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him] (PTO Feb 24-March 3)]

Reporter: this is a weirdness with MSIX packages and Microsoft's virtualization of paths. That path is correct, I expect, from within Firefox. If you paste that path into the URL bar, I expect you'll see the correct thing. The issue is that outside Firefox, the path isn't correct. Distinguishing this is tricky.

gijs: correct -- this is not a security issue.

bhearsum: can you attach this to the profile virtualization issues?

Comment 4

[Hiroshige Shizuta]

(In reply to :Gijs (he/him) from comment #2)

This doesn't seem like a security issue that needs to be kept hidden?

No, it is not. I made mistake. Do you know How to change the classification to "bug public" ?

Comment 5

[Hiroshige Shizuta]

(In reply to Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him] from comment #3)

Reporter: this is a weirdness with MSIX packages and Microsoft's virtualization of paths. That path is correct, I expect, from within Firefox. If you paste that path into the URL bar, I expect you'll see the correct thing. The issue is that outside Firefox, the path isn't correct. Distinguishing this is tricky.

gijs: correct -- this is not a security issue.

bhearsum: can you attach this to the profile virtualization issues?
Explorer
Which is the correct pass that should get the profiles,
C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\forv3n79.default-release that is in about:support.
OR
C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Packages\Mozilla.Firefox_n80bbvh6b1yt2\LocalCache\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox that is found by Windows Explorer search and took 20min.

Comment 6

[Hiroshige Shizuta]

Sorry, it messed up the thread.

Hi, Nick
Which is the correct pass that should get the profiles,
C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\forv3n79.default-release (that is in about:support.)
OR
C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Packages\Mozilla.Firefox_n80bbvh6b1yt2\LocalCache\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox (that is found by Windows Explorer search and took 20min.)

I put the first one in the URL, but I could not get them. Instead, I get "Firefox.exe."

Comment 7

[Hiroshige Shizuta]

HI,
Could you help me?
I want to show this bug track to another support forum community member. When I opened this report, I checked for "Only users in all of the", selected groups can view this bug:
then I checked a box that "Confidential Mozilla Employee Bug (non-security)." I was wrong because I'm not familiar with an opening case on Bugzilla.

I also tried to uncheck it by myself, but nothing happens and stays checked.

A community member experienced this bug before and she can help to solve this problem.

If she could not see this case by this Friday., I'll close this BUG# and reopen this case as new.

Thanks in advance,

H

Comment 8

[Hiroshige Shizuta]

Hi Kirk,
Thanks for the correction. We can access this bug#.

Comment 9

[Hiroshige Shizuta]

Attachment: I have tested some.

Comment 10

[[e-mail] (:bhearsum)]

(In reply to Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him] from comment #3)

Reporter: this is a weirdness with MSIX packages and Microsoft's virtualization of paths. That path is correct, I expect, from within Firefox. If you paste that path into the URL bar, I expect you'll see the correct thing. The issue is that outside Firefox, the path isn't correct. Distinguishing this is tricky.

It's probably not too difficult to rewrite the path for about:support (it's entirely predictable - the Mozilla.Firefox_n80bbvh6b1yt2 part is simply the Package Family Name that we already use in a few places).

bhearsum: can you attach this to the profile virtualization issues?

Will do.

Comment 11

[[e-mail] (:bhearsum)]

Oh -- this is actually a dupe of https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1731753.