1958207 - Mozilla loses profile frequently on windows 10 and 11

Status: REOPENED

(Toolkit :: Startup and Profile System, defect)

Description

[Migou]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:136.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/136.0

Steps to reproduce:

On my enterprise computer, I installed (and even re-installed) Firefox. Current version 136.0 (64 bits). then I have used it for some hours with success and closed it

Actual results:

Sometimes, not always, firefox has an error message at start, saying it cannot find the profile, hence I have to create a new profile to launch firefox.

Expected results:

It's a huge problem as :

• firefox won't launch in a fluid way
• I lose my bookmarks and have to download the again...
  I kno at least one other person in my enterprise who has the same problem, and there are people searching a solution on the internet.

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]]

Can you give us the exact error message you see in this case?

Also if you could attach a copy of profiles.ini to this bug report that would be helpful. It should be at C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles.ini

Comment 3

[Migou]

Attachment: Firefox - old version message and version number screenshot.png

L'utilisation d'une ancienne version de Firefox peut corrompre les marque-pages et l'historique de navigation déjà enregistrés dans un profil Firefox existant. Pour protéger vos informations, créez un nouveau profil pour cette installation de Firefox.

(Using an older version of Firefox can corrupt bookmarks and browsing history already saved in an existing Firefox profile. To protect your information, create a new profile for this Firefox installation.)

Comment 4

[Migou]

Attachment: profiles.ini

Comment 5

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

What's happening here is that Firefox is detecting that your profile was last used by a newer version of Firefox than you're trying to use now. Do you have multiple installs of Firefox on your computer, or are you switching between computers that may have different versions of Firefox installed on them?

Comment 6

[Migou]

Attachment: Firefox - versions installed.png

Hi Dave, Thanks for invertigating my case. Note that there are other people descirbing the same problem on the internet.

I am the only user of my computer.
I have checked for another hidden version of firefox (screenshot), and there seems to be only one version of it.

Another argument : when the problem last happened, my version was 136.0.
I see a new version 137.0 was released on april the 1st, but I never installed it.

Suppose firefox tried to update the file but didn't manage to because this would require administrator rights. Could it cause the bug ?

Comment 7

[Migou]

(In reply to Migou from comment #6)

Created attachment 9477648 [details]
Firefox - versions installed.png

Hi Dave, Thanks for invertigating my case. Note that there are other people descirbing the same problem on the internet.

I am the only user of my computer.
I have checked for another hidden version of firefox (screenshot), and there seems to be only one version of it.

When the problem last happened (monday 7th of april), my version was 136.0.
I see a new version 137.0 was released on april the 1st, but I never installed it.

Suppose firefox tried to update the file but didn't manage to because this would require administrator rights. Could it cause the bug ?

Comment 8

[Migou]

There's something new. Firefox automatically updated to 137.0 a few minutes ago. Hence, my last hypothesis is not plausible.

Comment 9

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

(In reply to Migou from comment #8)

There's something new. Firefox automatically updated to 137.0 a few minutes ago. Hence, my last hypothesis is not plausible.

You say you're on an enterprise computer, is it possible that the enterprise setup is forcibly pushing Firefox 136 onto your computer after it may have updated to 137 locally?

Comment 10

[Migou]

Attachment: back to 136.0.png

I think you've got it !

I think I installed this version of firefox through window's software center. This morning (5 hours ago) firefox told me version 137.0 was successfully installed.

Just now, I launched firefox again and he showed this sequence (older version => installation process) and I got version 137.0.1 !

Now, I checked the software center, and the version it manages is 136.0 !

Comment 11

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Not sure why this was closed.

(In reply to Migou from comment #10)

Created attachment 9477760 [details]
back to 136.0.png

I think you've got it !

I think I installed this version of firefox through window's software center. This morning (5 hours ago) firefox told me version 137.0 was successfully installed.

Just now, I launched firefox again and he showed this sequence (older version => installation process) and I got version 137.0.1 !

Now, I checked the software center, and the version it manages is 136.0 !

Chris, do you understand what might be happening here?