421981 - Deleting Prefs.js deletes bookmarks and trashes profile even after restoring copy

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 419315

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect)

Description

[Recall]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9b5pre) Gecko/2008031004 Minefield/3.0b5pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9b5pre) Gecko/2008031004 Minefield/3.0b5pre

I deleted my pref.js as I like to make a clean one when removing an extension I did not like. This is to stop my pref.js getting to big and filled with unused preferences which can potentially slow down startup/performance.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Open profile folder
2.Delete pref.js
3.Restart Firefox
Actual Results:  
Deleting pref.js trashes profile.

Expected Results:  
Deleting pref.js should not trash profile.

Restoring the original copy of the pref.js does not restore the settings, bookmarks are missing and profile is totally trashed.

Comment 1

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Littlemutt confirmed over IRC

Comment 2

[Steve England [:stevee]]

prefs.js contains the line:

user_pref("browser.places.importBookmarksHTML", false);

If I remove this line from my prefs.js and then start firefox, I loose my bookmarks. (The pref is then rewritten back into the prefs.js file)

Comment 3

[Steve England [:stevee]]

Karl, when you say 'trashes the profile' do you mean something more than loosing your bookmarks?

Comment 4

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Looks like bug 384370 impacts here. Once that lands without that pref line it will restore from the most recent json backup. Still seems odd that it wouldn't check for the presence of the places db first.

Comment 5

[Recall]

Steve, I just did a bit more testing. It seems the trashed profile was not as
bad as first thought. I loose my bookmarks, and homepage. At first I thought it
was not recoverable. However I did the folllowing:

Steps to reproduce

1: Restore bookmarks from backup
2: Click homepage

Actual results

Bookmarks are restored, as well as homepage when starting firefox again.
However, as it is a bookmark backup, recent bookmarks could be lost, depending
on when the last automatic backup was made.

Expected Results

Bookmarks should not need to be restored, and homepage should also not have to
be either.

I still feel this is a big issue, as I am sure others delete pref.js when they
install an extension that messes the profile etc. This could potentially cause
a lot of complaints with people saying similar stuff to what i posted. Without
knowing you can get everything back ( apart from possibly recent bookmarks )I
can see this being a big issue.

For reference doing the same thing in Firefox 2 causes no problems ( been doing
for years ) Are preferences stored in another file as well as pref.js?

Comment 6

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

The default setting for importBookmarksHTML is true. I believe it should jut be false, nsNavHistory will set it to true if the places db is missing. Dietrich?

Comment 7

[Recall]

Just another note, I use nightly tester tools and deleting the file also breaks the compatibility override for extensions. It is a simple fix, just choose make all compatible again, but annoying nonetheless.

Comment 8

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

dupe of bug 419315?

Comment 9

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Totally!