Why "firefox -help" does not show "-profile" option though it is supported
I was trying to open a profile on another hard disk partiton on multiboot machine. I was trying to fild the option with firefox -help. But there was no mention of opening a profile by specifying path to profile. I had to dig out this link:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Starting_Firefox_or_Thunderbird_with_a_specified_profile
and the method is specified under "Bypassing the Profile Manager" section. Why is this not documented. are there any issues in using this method.
I am using Firefox version 23
الحل المُختار
Per one of the main Firefox developers in many Bug reports related to "Profiles" and the Profile Manager, expecially concerning Requests for Enhancement:
"The profile manager is not designed for "simple home users", who should normally never see it."
" Public opinion doesn't really matter, it's a design decision that has been made."
Thus many of the features of "playing with" Profiles isn't ducumented as well here at SUMO as you might find in the non-official MozillaZine KnowledgeBase and in their support fora. If you look carefully at the MozillaZine KB you'll find much documentation for older versions of Firefox and from long before this forum was started in 2008 (or was it 2007 ?).
Please see this thread - http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2249039 - and also view the 3 threads that I hyperlinked at the end of that article. There's a wealth of direct user suggestions contained in those four MozillaZine Builds support threads regarding "playing with" Profiles.
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الحل المُختار
Per one of the main Firefox developers in many Bug reports related to "Profiles" and the Profile Manager, expecially concerning Requests for Enhancement:
"The profile manager is not designed for "simple home users", who should normally never see it."
" Public opinion doesn't really matter, it's a design decision that has been made."
Thus many of the features of "playing with" Profiles isn't ducumented as well here at SUMO as you might find in the non-official MozillaZine KnowledgeBase and in their support fora. If you look carefully at the MozillaZine KB you'll find much documentation for older versions of Firefox and from long before this forum was started in 2008 (or was it 2007 ?).
Please see this thread - http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2249039 - and also view the 3 threads that I hyperlinked at the end of that article. There's a wealth of direct user suggestions contained in those four MozillaZine Builds support threads regarding "playing with" Profiles.
As far as "issues" when launching Firefox directly when using the same Profile with two different Operating Systems, not as much as in the past. But there could be issues connected with the prefs.js file in the Profile folder. Those issues seem to be mainly related to add-ons which rely upon a full "path to" in their preference "value".
Plus you'll need to be using the same version Firefox program version with both OS's, or you'll see the "update check" for add-ons every time that Profile is launched with a different version of Firefox.
I was trying to migrate few profiles from one partition to another, before I did, I wanted to know which profiles I need to be moved. So I opened the profiles with the "-profile" option giving the full path.
Yes I did find the "checking for update" dialog since it was 22 on one and 23 on the other.
One thing that just occurred to me which might be semi-related:
On WinXP I found out that I needed to use -Profile (with the capital P) to directly launch a Profile (bypassing the Profile Manager) in the Firefox 4.0 version. Using -profile didn't work after Firefox 3.6 for me.
Not sure it that is a problem with Linux or newer versions of Windows, or just XP or just my WinXP installation.