Recovering profiles
Had to restore entire backup image of C: (boot) SSD that was saved on an external USB drive. I had been using FF 156, but the image restored FF 155. My FF profile is always stored on D: (internal HDD).
I launched FF and got a message that my profile was created with a newer version of FF and might not be compatible. The only option was to create a new profile or exit. I created a new profile but when FF opened I had no direct access to my existing profile on D: HDD. It wasn't listed when I clicked the Profiles button on the toolbar.
Came across a site that said to run Start>Run>firefox.exe - P. A box opened that listed both the newly created profile and my existing one on D: HDD. I selected the profile on D: and FF launched without any problems - everything fully restored. So if the existing profile is compatible, why was it so difficult to select it?
How 'bout this..? When FF detects that an existing profile was made with a newer FF version than currently running, why not give the user the option to install the latest FF update on that same message screen, in addition to the option to create a new profile? Then just relaunching FF after the update should allow an existing profile to be selected/used. Obviously existing profiles are compatible with FF updates since everything still works after routine updating.
Exact same thing happened with Thunderbird after reimaging C: because an older version was restored. I tried running thunderbird,exe -P without knowing if that would even work, and it easily allowed me to restore all 5 of my mailbox profiles with thousands of emails that are stored on D: in seconds.
Please make things easier...!
All Replies (2)
Firefox has to start with a compatible profile first (even a blank one) to have been able to update itself first.
So the steps you followed are exactly the steps to execute in such situation.
If you have suggestions for better wording, or a help article that would be linked from such dialog, please do file a bug — I think there already is one filed for the updater to be run from that error state directly if I remember correctly.
@jbr - Thanks for the quick response...
So it should be fairly easy to provide an "Update Now" button on the error screen I got after reverting back to an older version of FF. The older version (155, installed on C:) found my existing profile on the D: drive, and correctly indicated it had been used with a newer FF version (eg, 156).
Clicking an "Update Now" button on that error screen could restart FF using a generic (blank) profile. The user could then click Help>About Firefox on the toolbar, and let if offer/install the latest update. When the updated FF opens, it should be able find/load the profile previously found but rejected by the older version.
BTW: I spent quite a lot of time reading Mozilla support yesterday for ways to recover my profile before posting here. That included seeing instructions to copy files from old profile's folder into new profile's folder. That didn't work for me. FF would still ask me to create a new profile.
And unless I'm totally oblivious, I didn't see a single reference to running Firefox.exe - P on Mozilla support site to resolve this problem. Only when I searched around on the net did I find any mention of that command, and it solved my FF profile issue instantly, indicating the old profile was/is valid and usable. The related -P command solved the same profile issue for TB which had also reverted to an older version when I reimaged the boot drive.
Maybe Mozilla support should prominently offer that command as one of the first thing to try to find/enable a profile, along with any caveats about why it might not work as expected.
It might also be recommended that users change their profile's name right after it's created. If I hadn't done that, I would never have known that profile "3roj9cgn" was the profile I wanted to recover, without the name change I made.
THX
You must log in to your account to reply to posts. Please start a new question, if you do not have an account yet.