Profile changed back after fixing it
3.6 installed itself this morning. I guess I chose the wrong item, as your profile manager did not explain what was going on. I did not choose default. After not getting my settings, I looked here, and found out about profiles for 3.6. The NEW profile had been created in C:\Users\Public. I then copied all of my old (only) profile to this new location. I restarted Firefox and found my settings again, though I had to reset ForecastFox settings. During this session I set several bookmarks. Then after my session, I went on to other things. I then returned to Firefox and found that all my settings (and bookmarks) were gone. I then found out how to start the Profile Manager and this time chose default. Something is very wrong about how you went about this.
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Sorry that you had the problems you described after the Firefox program update, but that isn't the way Firefox is supposed to work or even does work if something went wrong as a result of an update or any other problem. Five or 6 years ago the developers changed the Profile Manager so that it doesn't appear when there's a problem; all Firefox 1.5 and later versions show a "Profile is already running ..." message instead of showing the Profile Manager window.
http://home.comcast.net/~the-edmeister/images/fx-boxes/1.5-warning-box_Firefox_is_running-small.png
1. The Profile Manager is a hidden implementation detail that the user should never see, unless they use the correct command line switch to bring it up. Someone did something with your Firefox installation for you to see the Profile Manager after the Firefox update - that's not how Firefox works under normal circumstances, or even when there's a glitch in the update.
2. After a Firefox update or upgrade, will use the "Last Used" Profile per the setting in the profiles.ini file, the one marked Default=1, regardless of the name of that Profile - the Profile having "default" in the Profile name has no influence on that.
3. Firefox will never create a new Profile anywhere except the correct location - C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\ - on WinXP and W2K, other OS's have their own default locations.
The user has to click a button during the creation of a new Profile, and select the location they want, for the new Profile to be located - for it to end up in a location such as C:\Users\Public, that you mentioned. Firefox just plain won't do that without user input.
Do not even consider using the Profile Manager to remove the Profile in that location, because if you have data or files from another program in the same folder that "someone" placed that Profile in, you are going to everything in that folder - the Firefox Profile files and everything else! By design for large scale corporate installations, that is the preferred action, and the developers refuse to change that action as "normal" users shouldn't be using the Profile Manager or using non-default locations for Profiles to begin with.
Well, I used Firefox yesterday, with no issues. First thing this morning, when I started Firefox, the profile manager appeared. I had never seen it before. What are the possibilities that might have caused this? I am the sole user of this computer and have no reason for a new profile. I would not put ANYTHING in the root directory, let alone a Mozilla Firefox profile. I did know the location C:\Documents and Settings\***\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles prior to today, and I would have used that, if it were needed. The only thing I can think of is that I installed the Anonimizer Nevercookie extension yesterday. Could that have done it?