FX really is nasty about going back a version
I just started with 89.0 and instead of the horrid 15% of CPU that 88 used it now uses 30%. That's with an enormous amount of windows (not tabs) open, but most are limited by NoScript until I temp permit them. FX Task Manager shows very little usage, so apparently no ill behaved sites. AAR 30% of an i7 with many gigs of memory is intolerable. Even the 15% was heating up the CPU.
So I'll take "some" CPU heating vs. "massive" by rolling back to 88.0.1. By the way, whatever keeps changing my option from manually approved updates to automatic, thank you for doing that at times without asking me first.
The problem is that now when I start 88.0.1 it insists on a new profile "for my own protection". But I want the old profile, with hundreds of bookmarks and dozens or hundreds of session windows from my last session, and add-ins ... for example right how I don't have NoScript and don't have time to deal with that. I tried to get around the "we're just helping you" insistence on a new profile, by copying a week-old backup over C:\Users\Bill\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\hbouy3r1.default\sessionstore.jsonlz4 and starting but it still insists. I guess that's just sessions, not the whole profile.
Can I defeat the prohibition against using the old profile, or failing that, can I import or merge the old profile in? Keep in mind that the "old" profile has been modified by having started 89. I wish now that I had never selected the old profile when I began 89 (I always prompt for profile). (But, heck, I didn't even KNOW I was going to a new version. It auto-updated, and when I started FX, and it seems to have "updated" the old profile making it now unusable for a prior version).
Or can I go to a backup and copy the tree of C:\Users\Bill\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\OldProfile\ and start FX again with 88.0.1? BTW I assume that is the version I was on a week ago.
Chosen solution
Answering my own questions: - It APPEARS that this website format is "paragraph style" so a compact subject listing is gone. Correct me if I'm mistaken. Am I wrong that it used to be compact? - From about:profiles it turns out that you cannot simply click the button to "set as default". You get the same denial as in the select-profile-startup-dialog, saying you can't use that profile. - I first tried copying all files from the old profile atop the new one, as I asked above, that is, cd /d "C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\k6awt1ap.default-release" copy "C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\hbouy3r1.default" /s but this does NOT work. - I then tried copying all files from the day-old BACKUP of the old profile atop the new one, that is, cd /d "C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\k6awt1ap.default-release" copy "C:\backup\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\hbouy3r1.default" /s but this does NOT work. SOLUTION: cd /d "C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\hbouy3r1.default" copy "C:\backup\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\hbouy3r1.default" /s
That is, the solution is to restore "in place" from backup everything that was is the "good, working" profile prior to the version 89 upgrade. I also restored sessions, which I back up every day or two manually from C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\hbouy3r1.default\sessionstore.jsonlz4
Now all I have to to is click "no" to the "A new version is available" a dozen or two times a day and I'm good. Now 30% CPU usage is back to 15%.
For someone with many, many windows, the new version 89 is seriously inefficient. I don't think it was properly tested. Even with all the things that I didn't want "improved", a default rollout should let the user opt-in to the painfully expensive new features, not just stuff them in. A high quality professional upgrade procedure would let people put checkboxes on the features they want upgraded, and for the short attention span users, have a checkbox for "accept all new features". Maybe that will avoid the torture I'm enduring.
Meanwhile, I'm going to try to stay on 88 forever. Most productive users don't WANT a new look and feel at the expense of learning a new interface anyway. Sure, some are excited at new glitz but most people will say, "It ain't broke, so why are you fixing it?" It's misguided thinking like that that makes Microsoft write such devastatingly deproductive dogspit like the Ribbon, Win 8, Vista, Win 10, or the M.D.I. that destroys VBA code. TRY to make changes OPTIONAL. Mozilla largely has the attitude that "YOU MUST upgrade every time."
But thank you Seguro, and all of you volunteers who are so awesome, for pointing me in the right direction. Except for the upgrade nag box that I will be constantly trying not to have appear right when I was clicking at that spot on the screen, I'm finally able to get things done again now. My bitter tone is at the Mozilla policymakers (who even change keyboard shortcuts. Why? Why? Why?). FX had a great performance gain in Quantum. That was truly well done. But now it's becoming Microsoft-dishonor style bloatware. (And it seems to load at one-half the speed it did when Quantum was released.) Leave it and keep it fast and simple. Jeez.
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Hi
If you wish (with Firefox closed), you can just replace the contents of the new profile folder for the old version with the contents of the profile folder you wish to use.
I recommend making sure you have a separate backup of your profile before you start.
By the way with this clunky experience (no add-ins, no saved passwords, etc.) I couldn't just log in. I tried to enter my existing account's email but it insisted on a new ID. Just to get this far, I had to create a new "Firefox" userid. I don't see the line-by-line list of forum questions as I could before, just a bunch of "paragraphs."
IIRC https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions was where I recall see a line-by-line list of posts before today.
BTW, the first time I logged in with this new Firefox ID, after giving the verification code emailed, it said to "tell an administrator" that this ID seems to be "inactive". I haven't seen that message since.
The email I used on this "new" account is the same one I've used for months prior FWIW.
Seburo said
Hi If you wish (with Firefox closed), you can just replace the contents of the new profile folder for the old version with the contents of the profile folder you wish to use. I recommend making sure you have a separate backup of your profile before you start.
Thank you Seburo for the fast work, and your understanding that I'm probably sounding very foul-mooded as I'm burning massive time thanks to a CPU-terrorizing upgrade I'm flailing to revert from. Good answer.
So the new profile is called 'default-release'. Call the prior 'OldProfile'. So like this? cd /d "C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\k6awt1ap.default-release" copy "C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\hbouy3r1.default" /s
By the way, I do see a button "set as default profile" on the old one in about:profiles. Will that work instead?
Chosen Solution
Answering my own questions: - It APPEARS that this website format is "paragraph style" so a compact subject listing is gone. Correct me if I'm mistaken. Am I wrong that it used to be compact? - From about:profiles it turns out that you cannot simply click the button to "set as default". You get the same denial as in the select-profile-startup-dialog, saying you can't use that profile. - I first tried copying all files from the old profile atop the new one, as I asked above, that is, cd /d "C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\k6awt1ap.default-release" copy "C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\hbouy3r1.default" /s but this does NOT work. - I then tried copying all files from the day-old BACKUP of the old profile atop the new one, that is, cd /d "C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\k6awt1ap.default-release" copy "C:\backup\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\hbouy3r1.default" /s but this does NOT work. SOLUTION: cd /d "C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\hbouy3r1.default" copy "C:\backup\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\hbouy3r1.default" /s
That is, the solution is to restore "in place" from backup everything that was is the "good, working" profile prior to the version 89 upgrade. I also restored sessions, which I back up every day or two manually from C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\hbouy3r1.default\sessionstore.jsonlz4
Now all I have to to is click "no" to the "A new version is available" a dozen or two times a day and I'm good. Now 30% CPU usage is back to 15%.
For someone with many, many windows, the new version 89 is seriously inefficient. I don't think it was properly tested. Even with all the things that I didn't want "improved", a default rollout should let the user opt-in to the painfully expensive new features, not just stuff them in. A high quality professional upgrade procedure would let people put checkboxes on the features they want upgraded, and for the short attention span users, have a checkbox for "accept all new features". Maybe that will avoid the torture I'm enduring.
Meanwhile, I'm going to try to stay on 88 forever. Most productive users don't WANT a new look and feel at the expense of learning a new interface anyway. Sure, some are excited at new glitz but most people will say, "It ain't broke, so why are you fixing it?" It's misguided thinking like that that makes Microsoft write such devastatingly deproductive dogspit like the Ribbon, Win 8, Vista, Win 10, or the M.D.I. that destroys VBA code. TRY to make changes OPTIONAL. Mozilla largely has the attitude that "YOU MUST upgrade every time."
But thank you Seguro, and all of you volunteers who are so awesome, for pointing me in the right direction. Except for the upgrade nag box that I will be constantly trying not to have appear right when I was clicking at that spot on the screen, I'm finally able to get things done again now. My bitter tone is at the Mozilla policymakers (who even change keyboard shortcuts. Why? Why? Why?). FX had a great performance gain in Quantum. That was truly well done. But now it's becoming Microsoft-dishonor style bloatware. (And it seems to load at one-half the speed it did when Quantum was released.) Leave it and keep it fast and simple. Jeez.