309645 - Unable to create profile on fat partition

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 313360

(Toolkit :: Startup and Profile System, defect)

Description

[Jan Vlug]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050908 Firefox/1.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050908 Firefox/1.4

When I try to create a new profile for Firefox on a vfat partition, I get the
message that the profile is already in use.
When I check the directory where the profile should be created, the directory
only contains a .parentlock file.
Creating profiles on an ext3 partition is no problem.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. start firefox -profilemanager
2. select Create Profile... <Next>
3. select Choose Folder...
4. select a directory on a mounted fat partition
5. enter a user name <Finish>
6. select the newly created profile <Start FireFox>
Actual Results:  
a messagebox pops up stating:
   Firefox cannot use the profile "<new profile>" because it is in use.
   To continue close the running instance of Firefox or choose a different
   profile.

Expected Results:  
A new profile should be created.

Comment 1

[Michael Elkevizth]

I have been having the same problem. In opensuse 10.0 this happens running 1.5b*
and 1.0.6 and 1.0.7 which have both had code backported from 1.5 for file
locking according to the opensuse team. If a profile that already exists is
moved to a vfat partition, firefox will fail to start that profile complaining
that there is already a running instance of firefox. If the .parentlock file is
removed, firefox will create a new one when trying to start and fail again. I
use the same profile from WinXP on a separate partition and all works fine. I
feel that this is a major problem due to the fact that firefox is the only
multi-platform browser that is capable of sharing profiles between those
profiles which is a large selling point.

Comment 2

[Wolfgang Rosenauer [:wolfiR]]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 313360 ***