Mozilla 1.6 strange behavior - prefs.js replaced

vega

As many of you know, Mozilla stores all your configuration in a file named "prefs.js" in your profile directory.
This file stores information about your e-mail folders, accounts, password manager, popup blocking and everything else you can think of...

My problem is that for the 3rd time in this week Mozilla is replacing my prefs.js file for a new one and when I start mozilla it asks me for a mail account, if I want to allow popup blocking, etc, just like a fresh install.

I've read that if you create a "user.js" file copying the contents of prefs.js, user.js will override prefs.js. Maybe this can be a solution for the problem (I'm just testing it) but will not solve the problem that my bookmarks.html file is also replaced, and that's annoying. For my luck, I had just made a backup copy of my 2500 links long bookmarks. My e-mail, saved forms, passwords and preferences are untouched, all I need to do is to replace the new prefs.js for the backup copy, before that, Mozilla don't know about my mail, but again, it's a pain in the ass.

This is happening from a week to now and I've been using 1.6 for some time in other Linux OS, does anyone know if this is related to Gentoo or the mozilla ebuild?

I'm using:

Carlo · Developer Joined: 12 Aug 2002 Posts: 3356

Yes, Mozilla kills bookmarks and preferences. This is nothing new with v.1.6 and earlier versions did that too. It's not a Gentoo speciality. I backup this stuff daily.

Carlo
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vega · Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2004 10:46 pm Post subject:

hummm... Ok.
I thought it was strange because I use mozilla since the early days as my primary and development browser and that never happened before. But this week it happened 3 times already...
Maybe I was lucky until now. Go figure.
Anyway, I was paying attention to mozilla's behavior and it seems that most of the times it erases prefs.js and bookmarks.html is when I use Crtl+q to exit the application. But not always.
BTW, my user.js file is being used instead of prefs.js and mozilla is not overwriting it, that's a good start.

Carlo · Developer Joined: 12 Aug 2002 Posts: 3356

Mozilla definitely kills your prefs.js when you fill up the space of the used fs and you close it then. But that's only one reason, when it happens. Iirc there are some fixes applied in the current 1.7 beta, but this problem persists that long, that I won't believe it, until it works for at least three years without a problem.

Carlo
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