No idea why those prefs would be lost after an update. One suggestion is to put those preferences in a user.js file, which Firefox checks every time Firefox is opened as part of the launch routine.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/User.js_file

In some cases, if Firefox is unable to update the settings folder properly after an upgrade, it may perform a Firefox Reset. Do you notice any additional profile folders in either of the following locations:

• On the Windows desktop, named Old Firefox Data

• In the Profiles folder for the current Windows user -- you can open it using this:
  
  %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

This can also happen if there is (or has been) a problem with the profiles.ini file.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox

This would also give you the import wizard ti import data from other browsers.

There are no issues with my profile neither on customer PCs.

I know the trick with the user.js. However this fix has one major drawback: we do not want to keep track of user.js on tens of work stations, even around the world. Though it might be an option to change the PC-make-ready process, at first glance it does seem to be a gentle solution.

Now this: after trying your suggestions and reading some help I noticed that the user prefs for the page setup are stored by default printer. See e.g. attached picture.

Could it be that on updates the default printer (which is a FF default!) is reset and that therefore these page setup prefs are not found?

I can easily check on next update, just a matter of time and patience :), but if so the solution isn't there yet, I think.

BTW: my question says 'could find a solution', which is not so ;)

That long decimal value is indicative of a corruption in Firefox, but that preference isn't used by Firefox any longer.

print.printer_ prefs haven't been used since before Firefox 6.0 - 6.0 and later versions use printer_

In Profiles that have been used with 5.0 + earlier versions AND the Firefox 6.0 + later versions both sets of preferences will appear. If you Reset each of the earlier prefs they won't come back as the newer prefs will (after using the printer once).

the-edmeister, ok. I will try this.

Still I have a question: my own FF installation is brand new on a brand new laptop. So how could it happen that these prefs are there? Seems to indicate some issue in FF.

I would argue that the long decimal is a result of the fact that 1mm = this value in inches, isn't it?

You see, I 'm trying to clarify everything the get a complete picture :)

Thanks so far for replying.

0.03937" isn't that 1mm?

Those "size" values will be displayed in inches if the Letter / Legal / other American paper sizes are set, and in mm for the "A" paper sizes used elsewhere. So if someone would be using A4, a 1mm setting would appear as 1.0 - not 0.03937 .

From what I have seen, only 2 digits after the decimal point should appear. Those (or similar) with 15 digits has been mentioned frequently here as occurring with broken printer settings.

As far as "why" with a fresh installation, I have no idea. Any chance your company is using a custom Firefox configuration file (cfg) to set your own default prefs? And those old prefs are configured as the default for all your installations? One way to check that would be to create a new Profile and see if those prefs appear automatically in the new Profile before printing anything. No printing prefs should appear as "user set" - or maybe only those??

Until a few weeks ago "we" weren't aware that those prefs had changed with Firefox 6.0. This support article - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fix-printing-problems-firefox - needed to be edited, after a user mentioned that he didn't have the older preferences and that article was misleading. I started investigating with every version from Firefox 2.0 up to Firefox (Nightly) 27.0, and discovered those prefs had been changed in Firefox 6.0 over 2 1/2 years ago. I had a number of other support contributors verify my findings in the Contributors forum; this article was edited as a result.

I have the same issue. It seems to me that version 24 resets the page setup. I recently sent out an update in my organization to update to version 24 and got users who had this issue. I did some testing to see what i could find.

Going from 22 - > 23.0.1 using my own depolyment method did not change the page setup Going from 23.0.1 - > 24 using my down deployment method changed the page setup Going from 23.0.1 - > 24 using the About Firefox menu changed the page setup Going from 24 - > 24 using the About Firefox menu did not change the page setup.

It happened on two computers, one with old profile one with new profile. I dont think it has anything to do with the profile being corrupted. Something in version 24 must have changed.

Hi eporro, do you have a diff of prefs.js or another list of what got changed in your environment? That might help in uncovering what happened.

To make a correction in my post, i meant to say going from 24 -> 25 and not 24 - > 24.

I did not save the prefs.js unfortunately. I also cannot recreate the issue after updating to version 24 once and then uninstalling it and starting from a lower version number. Not even if I selected to remove user preferences. There might be other files that still remain that are not getting deleted that I do not know about.

I spoke too soon. I was able to replicate the issue on one pc.

The weird thing is that if I went to 24 from 23.0.1, it would go to default but if I uninstalled 24 and reinstalled 23.0.1, it would go back to my preferences. I compared both prefs.js files and they both had the same thing except for some session settings and plug-in settings.

Also, where in the prefs file do you set the preferences for page setup? I found this ----print_footerright", ""---- and others for headers and one for each printer. But I can see that the space in between the quotes so shouldn't that mean that footers and headers should be blank?

is there a way to set it to blank for all printers?

When I filter about:config on the word footer, I see one entry that looks like the generic template:

print.print_footerright

However, mine has the default value , so there is no corresponding line in prefs.js (prefs.js largely has preferences set to non-default values, plus preferences created by add-ons).

The others I see are all for specific printers. Is the problem that the upgrade is changing your default printer, thus selecting a different set of footer preferences?

eporro,

Can you post a screenshot of the about:config prefs panel that shows those prefs?

During the 6 week run of Firefox 24.0 as the Release version, I don't recall seeing any other support questions about Firefox 24.0 printer preferences issues (other than this thread). And I haven't seen any issues on my PC, either.

just updated to v25.0.

The issue didn't occur on my own dev environment. However, since last update i created a user.js (see attached). So I am not very sure if it was a version 24 problem or my user.js fixes the problem.

Tomorrow I might be able to check a few other PCs.

the-edmeister, that's why we were so surprised. I had about 6 or 7 customer cases where this problem occured. It's still not a 100% sure it is bound to FF24, from my point of view. However: just tested 2 situations at a Caribbean customer: - from FF23.01. to FF25 --> works properly. - from FF24 to FF25 --> works properly. So for the time being I am still convinced that something was wrong in the previous version (24) or at least something that might have been in the application for a longer time and appeared in 24?!

Anyhow, I am glad the problem seems to be fixed and therefore I will plan to say 'Solved' unless other information runs into my view coming week.

here is a picture of the configs. This is on an install of v24

eporro,

All three of those _print_footer.... prefs are at their default values, which should be Page # of # on the left, with the center blank, and the Date/Time on the right.

If you want to "lock" preferences, I think the best way is to do that via a user.js file. One advantage to doing it that way is that the user.js file can be copied over to other Profiles on the same PC and to other computers using the same printers - and / or - "printer" software, as with the PDF printers. As long as the "device" names are the same.

Have you tried Firefox 25.0, which was released on Tuesday morning?

How are those the default value? The entries are empty so no headers and footers should be printed. If I manually reset the prefs, the entries get values like &T for title. Attached proof

With some further testing going back and forth between v23.0.1 and v24, no matter what I did, when I would reinstall v 23.0.1 the page setup settings would be the same of when I upgrade v23.0.1 to v24 and the settings I had when I uninstalled v24 and reinstalled v23.0.1 would be the same when I reinstalled v24. So it seems to me that v24 is reading/saving the page setup prefs in a different section that v23.0.1.

To further explain this is what I am seeing:

• I set v 23.0.1 to have blank for all headers and footers. I install v24 and the headers and footers go to the default settings.
• I set the title left header to be blank in v24 and then I uninstall it. I then reinstall v23.0.1 and the headers and footers are all blank, just like I had set in the step above.
• i reinstall v24 and then the the title left header is blank again and not the default settings.

And once again, the prefs.js files show no change for the header and footers in either version.

I have setup a user.js file which sets all footers and headers to blank when using v24 and then v24 respects those settings and sets headers and footers to blank, even though the origial prefs.js file from v24 already had those entries as blank.