Open Bug 434307 Opened 16 years ago Updated 2 years ago

Firefox3b5 doesn't like profiles from encFS

Categories

(Toolkit :: Storage, defect, P5)

x86
Linux
defect

Tracking

()

REOPENED

People

(Reporter: m.arefiev, Unassigned)

References

(Blocks 1 open bug)

Details

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b5) Gecko/2008050323 Iceweasel/3.0b5 (Debian-3.0~b5-4)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b5) Gecko/2008050323 Iceweasel/3.0b5 (Debian-3.0~b5-4)

I keep my entire .mozilla directory in an encrypted EncFS filesystem and keep a symlink pointing to it in the home directory (~/.mozilla → ~/encfs/.mozilla), after I had upgraded to FF3.0b5 it stopped working properly: FF only loads the extensions but not my settings.  I tried to move only my profile (.mozilla/firefox/pd4gywo9.default) and it didn't catch it, nor did writing the path explicitly in the profiles.ini file work.  Symlinking directories and changing paths inside a single filesystem always works.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Move the default profile to another filesystem.
2. Make a symlink to it or change the Path variable in profiles.ini to point to it.
3. See an empty session with no bookmarks but all extensions.
Actual Results:  
An empty session with no bookmarks but all extensions :(

Expected Results:  
A working Firefox instance with all previous settings loaded with a profile directory being stored on another filesystem.

It worked with 2.0.0.12
I have run into a similar problem.  I have been using a single profile shared by both Windows and Unix/Linux since the days of Netscape 4.x.

On my home system, the shared profile is physically resides on a NTFS (WinXP) file system and Linux mounts it via CIFS.  Because I still have Firefox 2.0.0.14 on my WinXP hosts, I had made a new profile for use with 3.0b5.  I created this profile using a freshly upgraded Ubuntu 8.04 Linux host, copied over my bookmarks and passwords, and installed a few essential extensions.  The next day I used this same profile from WinXP using a freshly installed Firefox 3.0b5.  Last night I returned to the Ubuntu host and discovered my 3.0b5 profile was corrupted.  I deleted the extensions.rdf and extensions.cache and restarted Firefox.  That recovered all but one of the extensions (which Firefox now marked as incompatible, despite having previously installed it successfully just a few days before?), but bookmarks and history were still gone.  Tried reloading bookmarks, but they refused to load.  Attempting to download a file (the Linux version of Firefox 2.0.0.14) caused Firefox to crash, which was repeatable.

Created a fresh profile on the Ubuntu host and verified Firefox 3.0b5 was still working.

At this time, I have not had an opportunity to return to the WinXP version of Firefox 3.0b5 to ascertain whether or not the corrupted profile is still usable from WinXP?
I've upgraded to the latest 64-bit Firefox 3.0 release distributed for Ubuntu 8.04 for AMD64 and have further isolated the problem scope with respect to CIFS.

The latest release works just fine starting with an existing Firefox 2.x profile on the local ext3 file system that Firefox 3.0 has subsequently updated.  The latest release works just fine if you create a new profile on the local ext3 file system.

Create a new profile on a CIFS mounted NTFS file system and Firefox 3.0 can't complete the creation of the profile; look in the new profile folder and you will find multiple corrupt "places" files.  No default bookmarks are available in the new profile and you can't import bookmarks.  Firefox 3.0 is also very slow starting up with this (incomplete) profile.
Product: Firefox → Toolkit
Flags: blocking1.9.1-
Depends on: 462287
Why is this dependent on bug 462217 as opposed to a duplicate?
Mike Beltzner, I assume you meant bug 462287 in your question?  This bug is dependent because the problem with CIFS is in addition to the original problem reported in this bug, which was against EncFS.  That is why bug 430987 was marked as a duplicate of this bug, because that bug report was only against CIFS.

The changes made to the user profile for Firefox3 evidently were not exhaustively tested on all potential file systems.  Is there a comparable technology to sqlite that could be substituted in a future release that would be more cross-platform friendly?
No, but you could fix sqlite.
No longer depends on: 462287
Blocks: 719952
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Component: Startup and Profile System → Storage
Ever confirmed: true
Summary: Firefox3b5 doesn't like profiles from other filesystems → Firefox3b5 doesn't like profiles from encFS
Per policy at https://wiki.mozilla.org/Bug_Triage/Projects/Bug_Handling/Bug_Husbandry#Inactive_Bugs. If this bug is not an enhancement request or a bug not present in a supported release of Firefox, then it may be reopened.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 6 years ago
Resolution: --- → INACTIVE
Status: RESOLVED → REOPENED
Priority: -- → P5
Resolution: INACTIVE → ---
Severity: normal → S3
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