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Am on Firefox 47, and notice that Firefox is creating a large number of new JSON files, like 1 every 5 minutes. This is recent, unwanted behavior. Help!

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  • Last reply by cor-el

Am on Firefox 47 on Windows, and notice that Firefox is creating a large number of new JSON files, like 1 every 5 minutes. This is recent, unwanted behavior. I back up files every night, and just recently noticed these files showiing up as new, and I believe it started with Firefox 47. I did do a CNTL/SHIFT/Q several days ago, trying to figure out where some activity at idle was coming from, during the time the JSON's started to show up, by the way. Did I turn on something that needs to be turned off? I shut down my PC every night, by the way, and have cleared cache, etc. What could be causing these JSON files to be created so often, starting recently (maybe after Firefox 47 install)? Thanks for help!

Am on Firefox 47 on Windows, and notice that Firefox is creating a large number of new JSON files, like 1 every 5 minutes. This is recent, unwanted behavior. I back up files every night, and just recently noticed these files showiing up as new, and I believe it started with Firefox 47. I did do a CNTL/SHIFT/Q several days ago, trying to figure out where some activity at idle was coming from, during the time the JSON's started to show up, by the way. Did I turn on something that needs to be turned off? I shut down my PC every night, by the way, and have cleared cache, etc. What could be causing these JSON files to be created so often, starting recently (maybe after Firefox 47 install)? Thanks for help!

Chosen solution

That are files created by the datareporting component and have a folder for each month. I see these folders and files as well.

Try to set toolkit.telemetry.archive.enabled to false on the about:config page to see if that makes Firefox creating new files.

Please do not comment in bug reports
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html

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The prefix of those JSON files? IOW, the rest of the name will tell what those files are used for.

In what location are those files created?

Thanks! 194 created last month folder, already 544 in 06 folder! C:\Documents and Settings\HP_Administrator\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\pjbofr3v.default\datareporting\archived\2016-06

1466550368981.63dcc09b-1e27-455f-8445-0bb16b2656ba.main.jsonlz4

Chosen Solution

That are files created by the datareporting component and have a folder for each month. I see these folders and files as well.

Try to set toolkit.telemetry.archive.enabled to false on the about:config page to see if that makes Firefox creating new files.

Please do not comment in bug reports
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html

Thanks so much for the help! Changing toolkit.telemetry.archive.enabled to false seems to have stopped the files from being created, but... 1) What did I lose by doing this - are my bookmarks still being backed up, etc.? 2) Why did this large number of these being created start with FF 47 - was some default or function changed changed? 3) So, can I just delete these folders that begin with 2016-01 then 02, 03, 04, 05, 06 (folder creation and moderate 100-200 file creation in each folder begins January 1, 2016, though I have run FF since 2013, and ramps up to over 600 in the 06 folder) without loss of any function or future recoverability?

Thanks so much for any answers, in advance!

Yes, you can delete all the folders and files in the "datareporting\archived\" folder to remove the saved telemetry data.