Why are two profiles automatically created in Firefox
When I was troubleshooting another issue in Firefox I came to realize that there are two profiles that are created by default in Firefox 124.0.2. I realized this when I opened the Firefox profile manager by running the command firefox.exe -P. The 2 profiles that were already created are
- default-release
- default
Please see the attached screenshot for more details.
Is this the expected behavior for Firefox, i.e. by design/default, it will create two profiles? And why is it so, i.e. Why create two profiles? What is the difference between these two profiles?
All Replies (5)
Current releases use a default-release profile (i.e. default with the update channel appended). The other default profile is probably a profile used by on older Firefox version. You can check compatibility.ini in a profile to see what Firefox version last used a profile and you can also see from the last modified dates how old a profile is.
cor-el said
Current releases use a default-release profile (i.e. default with the update channel appended). The other default profile is probably a profile used by on older Firefox version. You can check compatibility.ini in a profile to see what Firefox version last used a profile and you can also see from the last modified dates how old a profile is.
In the default profile folder there are only 5 files and no compatibility.ini. Does this mean that this is an old profile which is no longer used now? And it can be deleted safely? i.e. If I delete the default profile it will in no way impact the working of the browser?
You may want to load the old profile first and see what is inside it before deleting it.
Note that if you would use this profile, then Firefox will upgrade this profile to the version you use.
What files and folders are in this profile?
Can you attach a screenshot?
- https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-create-screenshot-my-problem
- use a compressed image type like PNG or JPG to save the screenshot
cor-el said
Note that if you would use this profile, then Firefox will upgrade this profile to the version you use. What files and folders are in this profile? Can you attach a screenshot?
- https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-create-screenshot-my-problem
- use a compressed image type like PNG or JPG to save the screenshot
The following 5 files are there in the profile directory of the default profile are
- cert8.db
- key3.db
- parent.lock
- secmod.db
- times.json
The screenshot is attached.
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