RESET frefox - what online support doc doesnt tell you
Hi: I reset FireFox yesterday as i could not find my session.js file.. and it was going too slow.. I did this on reply from developer of add-on "Session Manager". "No Session Manager won't help you if you are already experiencing problems with your Firefox profile. I would recommend going to do what Firefox help said (which was replace sessionstore.js, which i could not find anywhere...). If that doesn't work, I would recommend resetting your profile by following the instructions at http://mzl.la/MnSTZB"
On finding your Firefox profile, the BEST way. meaning the simplest is (i discovered this morning) > about:support > button "profile" will take you straight there... so no getting confused in directory paths. see screenshot below.
I read the Firefox Online Help and is headed "Reset Firefox – easily fix most problems"... and in it tells you what is migrated but FAILs to help you out, by warning you of the common things you will loose. Its pretty basic Communication skill to know if you dont tell people what something is NOT, they are likely to be unclear. Telling someone what it IS (but ignoring the NOT) assumes they are expert, they know the whole.
And even.. that heading is misleading... it shoulld say - easily fix most problems at a 6hr cost to reinstate your environment.
"6hrs it took me"
>that is" bad news" - and I am probably 80% there. So if there is any other watchouts, tips, please advise please please.
>"good news", i can now move bookmarks around (in show all bookmarks) without waiting 16sec between each action.
>"other good news", in trying to find my addons i stumble on 2 new great ones e.g. ffox compatiabilty programe, icons on menu bars.
so I share my surprises so, hopefully ffox will improve their documentation + improve addon migration requirement.
"Surprise 2" ALL the configuration of each of these ADDONs ..... GONE.... Most add-ons have no migration path for resset.
this is the hardest part, as it took me a solid month of tweaking to really get teh add-ons doing what I would like them to do. Most add-ons do not support "backup" or "export" of the configuration. 1 exception. That is TabUtils add-on.
the add-ons that DONT support migration, that have a decent about of config to have it work as you desire > downloadstatus bar > menu editor > netusage > download helper (and set the download window where I like it) > 1password - ffox addon did not keep settings (there are 3 to change) > userscripts - i learned stored in profile directory under gm_scripts. you can copy from old to new
"Q2: What is requirement of FFox to developers of addon to support migration ability of configuration? "
> Could you consider showing this in the add-on, eg. no migration supported.
> So at least we know when selecting whether to install if we need to do something else e.g. take screenshots of our configuration. And if one addon did support migration and another didnot, i would prefer to install the one that did.
"Surprise 3 Preferences are gone" (on menu bar Firefox / Preferences)
so best take screenshot of each of these as I never remember what they all mean...
"Surprise 4 zoom in/out gone"
You LOOSE all your zoom settings for ALL the pages you have ever visited... bugga!
Surprise 5 Loose all "remember me" checkboxes on all webpages you login at and have checked the box
"Surprise 6 But wait.. Ffox does try to ease the pain..."
I thought i had lost everything.. (yesterday) but then found Firefox had created a new directory on my desktop called "OLD Firefox Data (this morning).
These needs to be informed in the online help, where they tell you what is migrated. e.g. here: What does the reset feature do? All of your Firefox settings and personal information is stored in your profile folder. The reset feature works by creating a new profile folder for you while saving your:
Bookmarks Browsing history Passwords Cookies Web form auto-fill information
"TELL me here about... about all the COMMON stuff that is NOT"
OLD Firefox data will be created to ease your migration effort of addons
Addons (you call them extensions in the online help, i realised this morning. But i dont know what extensions are, we go to addon manager, we search for addons. why not call them the lay lingo... extensions bar humbug... ....)
Preferences (Firefox Preferences, tell me where i set the things I will loose, as I know if I use them or not)
Navigation Toolbar - Customise Toolbars (right click on grey area, to customise - set nav toolbar location and which icons"
Zoom settings of web pages visited
Remember me of logins of web pages visited
etc...
"Learning 7" the root cause
I think there is a more fundamental problem with firefox bookmark handling. For us to have to reset... "that will fix most problems"... is NOT QUALITY SUPPORT. That is hiding the issue. I have communicated this view before, and even had the cheeky reply by a FFox Support that is not hiding.. it is standard. Well sorry it is not. I am from the old school... DOS days... in my childhood.. and restart/resets.. complete rebuilds are covering issue. your starting fresh, not troublshooting root cause. If that is thinking.. embedded in support.. then the ffox browser quality will unfortunately ultimately detioriate.
I do believe the bookmark is the root of the issue, that ultimately led to degradation of the firefox browswer, so slow performance (e.g. i could type faster than my cursor could keep up).
After reset, i had significantly noticable improvement in speed when surfing. Lets see if it continues.
hope this feedback is seriously considered. I do love frefox. But RESET Firefox is worse than the old PC blue screen of death.... Im on mac these days.. so had long forgotten what that blue screen feeling is like.
regards
Modified by seasaltseasalt
All Replies (4)
also, now i found my Firefox profile directory
Q1: there are many crash reports in there can i delete them all? as i have reset.
Q2: is there a way to backup bookmarks automatically e.g. once a week?
Q3: What link is best learning on getting the purpose of "sessionstore.js" and so session manager addon, and the console?
so i learn how to better troubleshoot my ffox issues and avoid reset.
thankyou
crash reports image
Easy way to find your Firefox Profile about:support
will be navigated to a page called "troublshooting information"
screenshot
If you actually read https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-firefox-easily-fix-most-problems, you'll see the following:
"Warning: When using the reset feature, the following items are either NOT SAVED or set to their defaults."
And then a list of what is not saved, including: Extensions, Open tabs, windows and tab groups and that Site-specific preferences, search engines, personal dictionary, download history, DOM storage, security certificate settings, security device settings, download actions, plugin MIME types, toolbar customizations and user styles are also not saved.
This is all clearly laid out here. If you had read the article more closely you would have seen this.
Since this isn't really a request for help I'm going to lock this post.