cor-el,

My testing with Firefox 5 is going well. I can see the FF5 does have the "Do you want Firefox to save your tabs for the next time it starts?" dialog box that comes up when I have more than one tab up when I'm quitting the app... I guess I must have only had one tab when I looked for that before.

Also, the page loading is considerably quicker, so it makes it seem like I'm getting a little boost in bandwidth... nice.

You said, (and I read in one of the links that you provided) that just copying all data from my old FF3.6 profiles folder to the new FF5 folder is not the thing to do.

I guess I'm just supposed to install my saved bookmarks file and maybe a passwords file, (which doesn't apply for me since I don't save passwords) and everything else should be installed separately - manually... kind of a drag since I have a quite a number of extensions and add-ons... that was my whole plan, just to bypass all that manual installation of all those things... such is life.

Also I noticed with this new FF5, the browser does not go into a momentary coma when a bookmark is dragged and dropped to a bookmarks folder, the way that the newest recent three or so updates for FF3.6 were acting.

I had noticed that everything in FF3.6.18 and the last couple of updates was seemingly slower than the performance had been in that version of the browser before the last few updates.

It was noticeable enough that I considered the possibility (since it seemed unlikely that Mozilla would make an update that made the browser operate slower than it had before within the same version number series (version 3) in the normal confines of a routine update plan) that they had actually intentionally made FF3.6.18 and the prior two updates run slower so it would drive people to update to the new version 4 and 5 Firefox browsers. That may seem a bit cynical, but anything is possible in this business world.

Anyway, thanks again.

numetro

Well, there are still some nutty things going on with the Firefox profile manager as long as there are two profile folders in "Users>Username>AppData>Roaming>Mozilla>Firefox>Profiles".

After using Firefox 5 for a while today and seemingly getting a few things figured out, I installed my bookmarks via the "Backup and Restore" option under "Organize bookmarks" under "Bookmarks" on the menubar. Now, after the other things that happened today, that "Organize Bookmarks" option is gone under "Bookmarks" on the menubar... so how can I backup or restore the bookmarks files that I want to save or have saved already?

Then I installed a theme that the FF themes page did not have grayed-out and after FF5 wanted to be restarted to complete the theme installation, then FF 3.6 opened with the new theme, not FF5. Then after closing FF3.6 and waiting a few minutes to re-open anything because of the problem with Firefox holding on to virtual memory and corrupting profile data if there isn't a five minute or so pause between closing one Firefox and opening the other, I tried to open FF 5 (clearly named in my profile manager) and it opened FF 3.6 again, but disabled all of my add-ons and extensions, as it stated it was doing when it opened FF3.6 instead of FF5, as I had chosen to do.

After trying to open FF5 a couple more times, and pausing 5 minutes in between each attempt, it kept opening up my again corrupted FF3.6 profile with the add-ons and extensions disabled.

I finally just replaced my FF3.6 profiles folder with the backup for it that I had saved, moved the FF5 profile folder completely out of that location, and then successfully opened up FF3.6 again with all of its prior configurations in tact because I pasted in its original profile folder and replaced the corrupt one.

So the key to using two versions of Firefox with the profile manager without corrupting and crossing over some data from one to the other (as I have found now after this experience) is to just completely move one profile out of the profiles folder in order to open the correct one without corrupting anything, even though the profile manager still shows both profiles available when one of the profile folders is completely moved out of the profiles folder.

So if I want to run FF5, I move the FF3.6 profiles folder out, and if I want to run FF3.6, I move the FF5 profiles folder out.

And the list below are the other things that are either missing or inexplicable with Firefox 5...

1) I found the setting in FF5 that automatically opens the last browsing session in the "Options" panel, but I was getting the reminder window for a while with FF5 when I was quitting the app, that asked me, "Do you want Firefox to save your tabs for the next time it starts?"... but now I'm not getting that anymore, whether or not I have it set to automatically open the last browsing session in the "Options" panel, and whether or not I have more than one tab open... more erratic behavior.

2) For a while I had a progress bar that showed up at the bottom right corner of the FF5 browser, now that has disappeared and I can't figure out where to set that to appear again.

3) For a while in FF5 I had my tabs showing up below the bookmarks toolbar, like normal, but now they appear above the address bar, regardless of the one theme that I have installed, and I can't find out where to set the tabs to appear below the bookmarks toolbar.

4) And finally, what happened to the "Duplicate Tab" option when one right-clicks on a tab... was that done away with?... bad idea.

Any input on these evolving issues would be tremendously helpful... otherwise, I can post these new questions in a new thread.

Thanks,

numetro

cor-el,

Okay, I found most of my answers to my questions via the "Ask a question" page. Still, one needs to install an add-on just to have the progress bar... I must have been remembering it from FF3.6.

I found your answer about the "Duplicate Tab" feature being missing and read your info about... "Firefox 4 later use a combined Stop/Reload/Go button that is positioned at the right end of the location bar...", but there is no Stop/Reload/Go button that is positioned at the right end of the location bar in FF5... there is the "Go" arrow when I type something in the address field/bar, but there is nothing that duplicates the current tab.

What is "Middle-click"?... I tried right-clicking the regular reload button but that just brings up the context menu.

I see I can copy a tab by holding down the Ctrl key and dragging the tab left or right on the tab bar... and the first time I tried it I was able to open the URL in the location bar (duplicate tab) by typing Alt+Enter, but now that keyboard command will not work again.

And I found the info about getting the tabs below the toolbar and where the "Backup & Restore" bookmarks thing is. Also I found the "about:config" settings to set FF5 to ask about saving tabs and windows.

The profile manager is still pretty wacky if there are two profiles in the profiles folder... it gets confused, so removing one or the other profiles folder is the work-around that I've found works.

Once I get all the bugs worked out of FF5 and get all the add-ons and extensions in that now need to be installed manually, then I'll migrate completely over to FF5 and do away with FF3.6.

It has always seemed a bit strange that one needs to install some of the obvious add-ons that Firefox demands to do basic things... like the Adobe Download Manager (I think it's called)... why does FF need an extension to handle Adobe downloads?... I need an Adobe download and installation to handle Adobe downloads and installations? How would FF handle an Adobe extension download before the Adobe download manager extension is downloaded and installed to handle the Adobe downloads?... its the chicken and the egg.

Last, when one imports all the bookmarks saved through restore and backup, all the little bookmark icons are blank until they are clicked, so in order to get them back to easily recognize what sites they all go to, one needs to click each one of a thousand bookmark icons that have been saved in order to have the little icons back... major problem.

One needs to be a scientist to run Firefox these days.

numetro

I always do things like this using vm's.. Just tends to make life much easier, Check-out VMWare or Virtual Box..

Thanks Mugzi the cat, but this is a two month old thread here.

At this point, after FF5 ate my FF3.6, in spite of installing it in a different programs folder and swapping out profiles folders back and fourth so as not to corrupt the original FF3.6 profile folder, now somehow the entire main FF3.6 app folder is gone from its original location in Programs folder number one, even though FF5 was installed in Programs folder number two.

FF3.6 worked for a little while with ongoing problems caused by profile folder corruption due to major flaws in the profile manager app and virtual memory problems after closing one browser and trying to open the other.

No matter, the profile manager is basically useless and I'm just using FF5 now. But now I read what a memory eater FF5 is and that's why Mozilla has gone through two more generations of updates to FF7 and now beta 8.

I read good things about FF7, but at this point I'm tired of struggling with all the things that were changed and missing and the things that needed to be re-installed after upgrading to FF5.

With each new generation of semi-weekly updates of FF browsers, Mozilla says, "Okay, this one is good, dump all those other ones we said were good before, this one is better... really, this is the one."