The code you posted works fine, so there must be a problem with the formatting of the mozilla.cfg file.

Are you sure the mozilla.cfg file is a plain text file and not a RTF or otherwise formatted file?

You can open the file in a Firefox tab or in the Scratchpad.

Hi cor-el

When I move away the mozilla.cfg and the autoconfig.js files away, I'm able to open Firefox. Then I can open the mozilla.cfg in a firefox tab with no issues. I double checked using Sublime text editor and it shows as Plain Text as well.

Here is what I have in defaults\pref\autoconfig.js

// Firefox Config pref("general.config.filename", "mozilla.cfg"); pref("general.config.obscure_value", 0);

You can try to add a try and catch block and check the Browser Console for error messages.

// first line is a comment
try{
// Disable updater" > $ffConfigFile
lockPref("app.update.enabled", false);
// make absolutely sure it is really off
lockPref("app.update.auto", false);
lockPref("app.update.mode", 0);
lockPref("app.update.service.enabled", false);
// Disable default browser checks
lockPref("browser.shell.checkDefaultBrowser", false);
} catch(e){Components.utils.reportError(e);}

Unfortunately, that doesn't change the output. Firefox crashes before it starts up with that error that there is a syntax error at line one.

Playing with it some more, I was able to get past that error by putting everything on a single line. That indicated it was something weird with some sort of newline encoding.

I originally created this file using powershell here. If I do that, I get the configuration error again. So it's got to be something with the way the file gets formatted using powershell to append text to the file.

echo "Setting auto update to false for Firefox"

   New-Item "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\preferences" -ItemType directory
   $generalConfigFile = "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\pref\autoconfig.js"
   $ffConfigFile = "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\mozilla.cfg"

   "// Firefox Config" | Add-Content -Path $generalConfigFile
   'pref("general.config.filename", "mozilla.cfg");' | Add-Content -Path $generalConfigFile
   'pref("general.config.obscure_value", 0);' | Add-Content -Path $generalConfigFile

   "// Disable updater" > $ffConfigFile
   'lockPref("app.update.enabled", false);' >> $ffConfigFile
   "// make absolutely sure it is really off" >> $ffConfigFile
   'lockPref("app.update.auto", false);' >> $ffConfigFile
   'lockPref("app.update.mode", 0);' >> $ffConfigFile
   'lockPref("app.update.service.enabled", false);' >> $ffConfigFile
   "// Disable default browser check" >> $ffConfigFile
   'lockPref("browser.shell.checkDefaultBrowser", false);' >> $ffConfigFile

Now that I'm looking at it, I'm not sure why the mismatch from using the "Add-Content" for the generalConfigFile vs just the >> to the ffConfigFile.

I updated it all to use the "Add-Content" module and it works with no issues!

Now that I'm looking at it, I'm not sure why the mismatch from using the "Add-Content" for the generalConfigFile vs just the >> to the ffConfigFile.

I updated it all to use the "Add-Content" module and it works with no issues. I appreciate the help though!