184834 - Working through preferences left preferences unusuable

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(SeaMonkey :: Preferences, defect)

Description

[Stephan Golux]

In my new version of Mozilla 1.2.1, (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1;
en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20021130) on Windows XP I have run into a problem setting
preferences.  I called up the preferences window (Edit->Preferences) and was
working through setting and learning about new ones, when suddenly the
preferences window and all of Mozilla became unresponsive.  This happened when I
tried to move from the Composer preferences to the Mail preferences.  Please
note that I hadn't changed anything, except to add German to the bottom of my
list of web pages to display languages in.

All I could to was get the OS to summarilly terminate Mozilla.  When I
restarted, the whole system worked fine, except when I tried to get preferences,
and then Mozilla froze up again.

I attempted to reboot the machine, and ended up with the same freeze, only when
I tried to get to Preferences.

I suppose I will now attempt first to rename my prefs files and then try to
rebuild them, and if that is unfruitful, to reinstall.

Comment 1

[Stephan Golux]

Well, by looking at the alteration dates of certain files, I deleted two files
which seemed as if they could be corrupted, and now Mozilla works fine again,
Preferences and all.  The files are:

    XUL.mfl

and

    panacea.dat

Please note that I once again been able duplicate the bug, by opening
preferences, starting at the top, looking at every single preference and all the
advanced... and more info... windows, and then, when I try to move from the
"COMPOSER" prefs to the "MAIL" prefs, it all freezes up.  I have to use the O/S
(Windows XP in my case) to close Mozilla, then blow away the two files shown
above, and then everything will work again.

Comment 2

[Joe]

I had the exact same problem with Mozilla 1.3a on Mac OS X v10.2.3. After
setting Mozilla to open to Mail & Newsgroups in Preferences, subsequent attempts
to open preferences caused Mozilla to freeze. Had to force-quit Mozilla. I
removed the XUL Fastload File and panacea.dat from my preferences and this fixed
the problem, but I am able to repeat the crash is repeatable if I make any
further changes.

Comment 3

[VoiZod]

  Mozilla 1.6 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040113

  I click on the  Edit/(preferences) in Mozilla's drop down menu 
  and nothing happens.  It worked before just fine a week ago.  
  wonder if there is a new vurnability to do with mozilla's preferences area,
  because I see alot of this type of bug being reported here?
  
  Q- How can I get the preferences to work again, short of reinstalling Mozilla?
   

Comment 4

[Erik Hensema]

Attachment: screenshot of preferences window, 10px fontsize

Comment 5

[Erik Hensema]

Attachment: screenshot of preferences window, standard settings

Screenshot with standard fontsize (no userCrome.css). Even on my 19" 1600x1200 screen the fonts are WAY too big. dpi setting in X is 112dpi, when I'm measuring the line firefox shows me when selecting custom dpi in the font settings, firefox gives me 114dpi, which is close enough.

Comment 6

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

(Filter "spam" on 'prefs-nobody-20080612'.)

Comment 7

[Philip Chee]

With the rewrite of all our preferences UI to use an extended toolkit
prefwindow binding this cannot be reproduced.