261433 - firefox fails to save preferences or clear history

Status: VERIFIED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect)

Description

[Rob McCool]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040923 Firefox/0.10
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040923 Firefox/0.10

Using 1.0PR for Linux, two machines I have show the same problem. Trying to
clear history and download manager data, edit prefs, click the appropriate clera
buttons, press okay, firefox puts up a dialog box saying that it failed. History
is not cleared. The two systems that show this problem are both Gentoo Linux and
both upgraded from 0.9.3 to 1.0_PR.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Select Edit->Preferences
2. Select Privacy
3. Click the clear buttons next to "History", "Download Manager History", and
"Cache".
4. Press Okay to exit preferences.

Actual Results:  
Dialog box appears, saying "Failed to save the preferences file. Any preference
changes will be lost at the end of this session. Further, history still shows
data and URL bar completion still shows prior results.

Expected Results:  
Cleared all history and download manager information.

Comment 1

[shadytrees]

Go into your profile folder and make sure that history.dat, the Cache folder,
downloads.rdf, the profile folder itself, etc. isn't set to read-only.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/index.phtml?title=Profile_Folder

Comment 2

[Rob McCool]

They are fine. Note that I have the disk cache turned off so there is no Cache
directory. All relevant files are either mode 644 or mode 755 and owned by me.

Comment 3

[mnoblet]

Platform : gentoo on amd64
Reproducible : always

I encounter the same bug, in the same conditions (however, it does not
only concern the privacy section, but every section of the preferences). I also
have upgraded from 0.9.3 to 1.0PR.

Moreover, I lose any bookmarks I create.
Steps to reproduce:
- Create a bookmark
- It appears in the bookmarks menu
- Quit Firefox
- Reload it
- The bookmark is lost : it doesn't appear anymore in the bookmarks menu

I have checked the rights on the files, they are all right : every file in
~/.mozilla is owned by me, and I have rw rights.

Comment 4

[Chris Hubick]

I see this as well, on both my Fedora Core 2 systems, after upgrading to PR from
0.9.3.

If I make any changes in preferences, when clicking OK I get a "Failed to save
preferences..." dialog.  Changes made in about:config are also lost.

0.9.3 worked fine, and file permissions appear to still be ok - I can edit
prefs.js manually with a text editor.

Comment 5

[Rob McCool]

I was able to fix this by taking two steps:

* Building with the typeahead extension disabled
* Removing "compreg.dat" from my profile.

My bookmarks are now saved properly, and the cache and history can also be
properly cleared.

I'm leaving this open in case someone wants to track down what the problem was.

Comment 6

[shadytrees]

Nah, resolve it as WORKSFORME, since that's standard Bugzilla procedure.

Comment 7

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

sorry for bugspam, long-overdue mass reassign of ancient QA contact bugs,
filter on "beltznerLovesGoats" to get rid of this mass change