Applications Panel is blank even after complete uninstall and reinstall.
I have a client who is having an odd issue. His applications panel under options is completely blank. He is having issues with opening downloaded files and viewing videos in the browser window. I have uninstalled firefox, removed his profile, removed all folders associated with firefox. Removed the mozilla/firefox folders in the appdata folders. Followed the instructions for resetting download actions here: http://kb.mozillazine.org/File_types_and_download_actions#Resetting_download_actions and here: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Download_Actions_list_is_empty . I have also reset firefox using the troubleshooting tools.
Nothing seems to work except for running Firefox under a new windows profile which is an unacceptable solution.
Is there anything else I can try. My client said he used to use MozBackup to backup/restore his FF profile and settings. I have searched for issues relating to that program but turned up nothing.
All Replies (4)
Hello,
It sounds like there's a problem with the mimeTypes.rdf file.
Either enter about:support in your address bar, or go to:
- Help (or
> 
) > Troubleshooting Information
- Beside Profile Folder, click the "Show Folder" button to access the location of the file.
- Close Firefox (Menu > Exit
)
- In the Windows Explorer window, rename or delete the mimeTypes.rdf file.
- Restart Firefox so that the file is recreated and file actions reset.
Modified by CoryMH
Thank you for the reply but that was one of the suggested solutions in the second link I posted. It did not work.
Sorry, I seemed to have overlooked that in the second link.
If there are any extensions (I don't see any in the System Details you copied over - if that is the case then please skip down to the next section), you can try Firefox Safe Mode to see if that fixes it. Safe mode is a troubleshooting mode that temporarily turns off hardware acceleration, resets some settings, and disables add-ons (extensions and themes). If the dialog appears fine in Safe Mode, please follow the article Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems - if you have a lot of extensions it might be better to disable half of the extensions to see if that fixes the problem (if it does, the problematic extension is in the half you disabled, otherwise it is in the half that is still enabled).
Since Firefox works fine in a new profile, an alternative could be to transfer all of the important data (bookmarks, passwords, etc.) to the new profile. Please see Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles, or Recover important data from an old profile for more information on what to transfer. Be sure not to copy over the mimeTypes.rdf file in case that file corrupts the new profile.
You can set that new profile to always run by checking "Use the selected profile without asking at startup" in the profile manager. Please see Profile Manager - Create, remove or switch Firefox profiles if you are not sure how to access this feature.
Sorry, I misread your earlier post it seems - you said Windows profile and not Firefox profile.
What happens if you create a new Firefox profile as described in the second part of my last post? If the new Firefox profile loads everything up correctly, all of the essential information such as bookmarks and passwords can be transferred over by following those support articles.
Just to be clear which articles would be helpful for creating and transferring profile information: