650064 - Running Aurora and Firefox in parallel

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[gossi]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0
Build Identifier: 

I was happy to download the new Aurora version to test new features. I was unhappy when it was telling me a firefox instance was already running and Aurora closed :( So I shut down firefox to test Aurora, boot it up played around a little.

Well, Firefox is my first place browser and I want to browse my web and do may day-to-day work with it. With the stable version and the activated! plugins running there.

Aurora would be my test browser, testing new feature you guys implemented and playing around.

Both share the same profile, having the same panorama tabsets, try to run the same plugins (most of them are deactivated). Actually these are two totally different use-cases. Would be great to have them both running in parallel. Thanks.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Isn't this what the ability to create multiple profiles is for?

Comment 2

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

Reporter, the following page guides you through creating multiple profiles - if that helps?
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles

You can then run the release Firefox build off of one; Aurora off of another :-)

Comment 3

[gossi]

Thanks this works. But nevertheless, whom do you might think of remembering the path /Applications/Aurora.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -ProfileManager ? (If you are not a firefox engineer)

At the moment the dialog at the aurora start simply won't let you get Aurora running. It says an instance of Firefox is running and a button to close the message and turn Aurora off. So this might look like a better dialog to me:

"Firefox and Aurora uses profiles to keep track of your personal data.... blabla about profiles...
Firefox and Aurora are not able to run on the same profile. What do you want to do?

[Close and do nothing] [Close firefox, start Aurora] [Create a profile for Aurora]"

Make the last option the dialogs default action.

Comment 4

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

> But nevertheless, whom do you might think of remembering

No one, just like no one remembers the path /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin

You add a shortcut or shell alias for it instead.

For the rest, that's not a core code issue.

Comment 5

[gossi]

Thanks for moving this bug :)


Well, It was to early to cheer the profile manager. Yesterday I started Firefox with its default profile. Startet Aurora and created its newly Aurora profile. Closed Aurora, startet again without the profile manager, the aurora profile was running, fine. Closed Aurora for that day. Closed Firefox later that day. Today Firefox was starting with the Aurora profile - all my tabs are gone? was my first thought, but could change back to my default (firefox) profile, here they are.

So, profile manager is not working reliable across fx and aurora...

Comment 6

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

By default the profile manager loads the last profile used if you don't specify.

Comment 7

[gossi]

Ah, this should be separated, too then. As Fx and Aurora run as two "independent" programs, they should act as such.

Comment 8

[Eric A. Meyer]

I'd like to note that I followed the the directions at http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles under OS X Leopard (not Snow Leopard) and it isn't working as I would expect.  When I quite Firefox 4 and launch Aurora, it checks for add-on compatibility.  I tell it not to look for updates, then quit it and launch Firefox 4.  Firefox then checks for compatibility.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  In the Profile Manager, so far as I can tell, both browsers are using the profile "default".  This is true whether I invoke the manager as per http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles or use the new (beta) standalone Profile Manager.

Also, since I started doing this, the Web Developer Toolbar in Firefox defaults to "Icon" menus and won't remember changes to that option.  I can change them but the change doesn't persist from one browser session to the next.  I don't know if that helps or not, but it's an effect I noticed.

Comment 9

[[not reading bugmail]]

I guess we would not have this problem if we didn't have Firefox profiles which in itself tends to cause lots of headaches and bugs for users.

I have 3 profiles: FF4, Nightly and Aurora

set each shortcut to launch a specific profile: 
FF4: firefox.exe -no-remote -P "FF4"
Aurora: firefox.exe -no-remote -P "Aurora"
Nightly: firefox.exe -no-remote -P "Nightly"

Comment 10

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

(In reply to comment #9)
> I guess we would not have this problem if we didn't have Firefox profiles which
> in itself tends to cause lots of headaches and bugs for users.


Err really?

Firefox profiles are incredibly useful.

Comment 11

[[not reading bugmail]]

(In reply to comment #10)
> (In reply to comment #9)
> > I guess we would not have this problem if we didn't have Firefox profiles which
> > in itself tends to cause lots of headaches and bugs for users.
> 
> Err really?
> 
> Firefox profiles are incredibly useful.

Yeah for sure, I agree.. but if you looked for the number of bugs that have been filed, most users don't have a problem, but often testers do using multiple builds and it can cause problems since users don't know the basics about profile use.  Mozilla makes no guarentee of the stability or correctness, or support claims when users hose there installs/profiles.

in reply to comment 8:
Web Developer settings are tied to the profile.  So all you are doing is using the same profile with two different builds.  default profile is the default if you close one and launch the other build it will use the last profile you ran, that is exactly what was said is the problem in previous comments.

You have to create more than 1 profile and add the -P or -Profilemanager to force the app to start the profile manager on startup, which allows you to select a profile based on which one is attached to which build.

-no-remote allows you to use two different flavors of the FF4 builds at the same time which forces each build to act like a different application, not the same, and using -P in conjunction with "insert profile name here"  forces it to load a specific profile on launching the shortcut.

Comment 12

[[not reading bugmail]]

(In reply to comment #11)
> -no-remote allows you to use two different flavors of the FF4 builds 

That should be any firefox build, not limited to FF4.