Preferences go missing if I compile Firefox...

[simondo42]

Hi all,

I have a confession to make. I've never been able to compile Firefox. Well, that's not entirely true. I can can compile it fine. It's just that the compiled version has a problem where it forgets certain preferences, particularly those in the Advanced tab. Even if they were set before starting Firefox. Even if I change them to their correct values and click OK and then re-open the preferences tab. I can change them manually in the prefs file but when I open up the preferences tab they're gone. And Firefox certainly acts like they haven't been set. The Firefox-bin ebuild doesn't act this way -- it has no problems with saving preferences. I've tried deleting the .mozilla directory and starting with a fresh profile. No good.

I've had this problem right from version 0.93 (which is when I started using Firefox) so it's not version-specific. I run on an up-to-date ~x86 system (I know), so I'm using gcc 3.4.3. I did try compiling with 3.3.4 but this didn't help. Nor did reducing the CFLAGS/CPPFLAGS/CXXFLAGS to the recommended 'sane' values (-O2 -march=pentium3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer)

Anyone else had this problem and worked it out? The bin version of Firefox is perfectly acceptable, but the source version in Gentoo seems to get more love with fixes and enhancements from the community.

Thanks,
simon

[Tamsco]

are the permissions in .mozilla ok?. It sounds like you cannot write to your preferences directory
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[simondo42]

Yep, the permissions are fine. If I run the bin version of Firefox using the same .mozilla directory the problem goes away.