182579 - Mozilla appears to drop the user configuration information. The browser settings are lost and the mail module tries to create new user accounts.

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 193638

(SeaMonkey :: General, defect)

Description

[Amitabh Mathur]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.2) Gecko/20021126
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.2) Gecko/20021126

On startup, the following message is displayed
"An error occured reading the startup configuration file. Please contact your
administrator. Line 61: SyntaxError: missing ; before statement true);"
on clicking ok, the browser starts, but with no user settings. When the mail
application is started, it tries to create a new user account with new mailbox etc.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Shut down mozilla
2. Restart mozilla
3.

Actual Results:  
Most of the time, everything works fine. However, sometimes the error occurs.

Expected Results:  
Load user settings.

I am not sure, but my mail files may be the cause of the problem. I have almost
600 Megs of email and that could possibly be causing this problem. I have had
this problem with most of the previous versions and nobody else mentioned this.

Comment 1

[R.K.Aa.]

Likely it's because in your prefs.js, one of the lines ending with "true);" 
has a syntax error. Perhaps a missing comma, or the whole line before it is
somehow broken.

prefs.js is in your profile directory. Be very careful if editing it. Don't run
mozilla during manual modifications. (They will be overwritten)

Comment 2

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

-> worksforme

Please do this :
a) repair the prefs.js with a text-editor
b) create a new mozilla profile

Comment 3

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Amitabh, did you modify your prefs.js file manually before the problem appeared?
If not, I don't think such bugs should be closed WFM. Obviously, it does work
for you, but any normal user running into it will consider it massive dataloss
and be helpless about resolving it. Amitabh doesn't seems to be the only one
with this problem (just yesterday, somebody from Adobe posted on .prefs with the
same problem), so this problem needs to be fixed.

Sorry for disturbing you triagers, you have a better overview, maybe I am
missing something.

Comment 4

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

BenB : see also bug 172245, bug 132517 and also bug 191101

Comment 5

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Bug 191101 is a workaround.
Bug 132517 is unrelated, because "The truncated prefs.js seems properly formed"
and no error, while we have a syntax error here,
Bug 172245 is about brutal system shutdown (poweroff). Amitabh, was that the
case here? If not, then none of the bugs apply.

Comment 6

[R.K.Aa.]

If prefs.js contain a syntax error, everything after the error the isn't
interpreted: bug 107264.

Comment 7

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Mozilla shouldn't write faulty prefs.js files in the first place :-(.

Comment 8

[R.K.Aa.]

True enough. But more specific bugs deal with that. And after bug 98476 was
fixed, at least there is a backup of the file. 
(Several, if you prefer: See bug 98476 comment 71)

Comment 9

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

.

Comment 10

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 193638 ***