310586 - preferences not written to user.js

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 50038

(Thunderbird :: Preferences, defect)

Description

[wkearney99]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050915 Firefox/1.0.7
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050915 Firefox/1.0.7

If you edit a custom header Tbird writes it only to prefs.js.  If the value is
being set in user.js it's not the one that gets updated.  But it's the one
that'll get used the next time Tbird is started.  It appears Tbird doesn't check
whether or not a value has been set in user.js.  Is this by design?  Then you
can probably imagine the frustration a user's gonna have when they make
preference changes only to find them ignored when restarting Tbird.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. create a user.js
2. set a preference in it
3. change that preference while in tbird
4. quit and restart tbird
5. note the preference change was ignored.

Actual Results:  
the preference value was written to prefs.js.  but since user.js exists it
overrides the value.  

Expected Results:  
understood that user.js is setting that value and written it into that file
instead of prefs.js

Comment 1

[Adam Guthrie]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 50038 ***

Comment 2

[wkearney99]

The fact that SO MANY reports have come in on this issue seems to indicate
there's a PROBLEM.  The documentation needs to clarify what user.js actually
does.  As it's written one might get the impression it's for "user preferences".
 When, in fact, it appears to be an "override" file suitable only for
supplanting anything that might get set in prefs.js.  

FIX THE DOCS.