WTH - Just installed 68.01 and everything went to hell!!!!

[benherrmann]

Up until version 68, I've had no issues. In fact, I left Vivaldi to come back to Mozilla Firefox because 68 worked superbly.

However, this morning I downloaded and installed version 68.01 and that's where all my issues begain - please read on:

1. After installing, when I tried to bring up the browser, I get a error window that tells me that "bringing up older profiles can result in an security issue - and it gives me just two options: 1) Create New Profile; or 2) Exit.

2. I clicked on exit and tried to bring up Firefox again - still the same window comes up. So now I select "Create New Profile," and it brings up a fresh browser - all of my over 1600 bookmarks are gone and I had to start from scratch (you could hear me cursing at Firefox a block down the road).

3. OK, so now I try to create new themes and every time I try to select a new theme and hit the enable button, it takes - however, when I get out of the add-ons window, the theme reverts back to the default, which is the light, boring theme. Even though I downloaded a dozen different themes, when trying to select one - it works - until you get out of the add-ons window, at which time it reverts back to the standard theme.

I cannot believe this. I'm running a clean 64 Bit Windows 10 machine with 64 Gigs of RAM. Firefox 68 ran smoothly - yet with this V68.01 update, I lost everything (two years worth of bookmarks), and I don't know where and how to recover what I had. And this theme bug is driving me batty. Will now go back to Vivaldi until somebody can figure out what occurred.

Any help out there? Suggestions, etc?

Thanks in advance....

Ben Herrmann
Fuquay Varina, NC

[kerft]

To get your old bookmarks - open Firefox, type in the address bar about:profiles, you should see 2 profiles, one that says "cannot be deleted" which means it is the current profile. Each will show "root directory" on the left and "open folder" on the right. Do open folder on the root directory line for both profiles, paying attention to which one says "cannot be deleted". Then close firefox.
RENAME, do not delete, the places.sqlite file in the current profile. This one should be more "empty" than your old profile, less extensions, etc. Copy places.sqlite from the other folder into it. Now, run Firefox. You should have your old bookmarks back.

[Brummelchen]

68.0.1 was not released yet!
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/

nothing here
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/6 ... easenotes/

so where did you get it and why?

[m.rumble]

68.0.1 has been available on most software sites for a couple of hours (neowin/softexia etc).
I installed it on my Windows 7 x64 and haven't had any problems. I use the 32-bit browser, not the 64-bit (for no particular reason).
You should back up your bookmarks on a regular basis. You never know when you might need it.

[Brummelchen]

has been available on most software sites for a couple of hours (neowin/softexia etc).

the usual "blabla, we have it first, we have the longest, our power is greater than..." - idio*

it i ready when ready here -> https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/
or via AUS (automatic update service)

it means nothing when the release folder is filled, this yellowpress scan such folders. mozilla dropped releases not the first time in the last minute.

anyhow i have doubt that .0.1 should make so much trouble.

bringing up older profiles can result in an security issue

means exactly you have a profile in use which was used by an older version not in the same path as current one (maybe portable, or x86 <> x64?). otherwise firefox would update silently and display nothing.

[James]

68.0.1 has been available on most software sites for a couple of hours (neowin/softexia etc).

You must be a pretty new Firefox user if you think random download sites having a so called new Firefox Release before being listed on mozilla.org or http://www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/ at the time means it is officially out.

The jump the gun used to be worse in the past (majorgeeks was one of the big offenders) when Mozilla used mirrors to host Firefox releases. This meant the files had to be put on main server at lease a day before official Release so the mirrors could get the files. https://www-archive.mozilla.org/mirrors.html

[WaltS48]

Up until version 68, I've had no issues. In fact, I left Vivaldi to come back to Mozilla Firefox because 68 worked superbly.

However, this morning I downloaded and installed version 68.01 and that's where all my issues begain - please read on:

Sounds like that was your mistake instead of waiting for 68.0 to update to 68.0.1.

1. After installing, when I tried to bring up the browser, I get a error window that tells me that "bringing up older profiles can result in an security issue - and it gives me just two options: 1) Create New Profile; or 2) Exit.

Yes you installed a new version which won't work with the 68.0 profile because it is a separate installation.

Starting with Firefox version 67 Firefox installations will have separate profiles.

REF: Dedicated profiles per Firefox installation

2. I clicked on exit and tried to bring up Firefox again - still the same window comes up. So now I select "Create New Profile," and it brings up a fresh browser - all of my over 1600 bookmarks are gone and I had to start from scratch (you could hear me cursing at Firefox a block down the road).

From the same reference:

Downgrade protection can be overwritten by launching Firefox through the command line with the --allow-downgrade parameter.

[jscher2000]

I think the "last version which used this profile" information is stored in the compatibility.ini file in the profile. Possibly renaming this file to compatibilityOLD.ini could bypass this problem. I suggest renaming so you can compare the "before and after" values to see why the new number is considered lower than the old one.

Currently I have this for Firefox 68; haven't installed 68.0.1 yet:

LastVersion=68.0_20190705220548/20190705220548

Update: This is what I have in Firefox 68.0.1:

LastVersion=68.0.1_20190717172542/20190717172542

[WaltS48]

I think the "last version which used this profile" information is stored in the compatibility.ini file in the profile. Possibly renaming this file to compatibilityOLD.ini could bypass this problem. I suggest renaming so you can compare the "before and after" values to see why the new number is considered lower than the old one.

Currently I have this for Firefox 68; haven't installed 68.0.1 yet:

LastVersion=68.0_20190705220548/20190705220548

Update: This is what I have in Firefox 68.0.1:

LastVersion=68.0.1_20190717172542/20190717172542

I think it the new installs.ini file in the C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox folder that shows which profile is locked to an install by the [A3710B8EBB50CD3] line in the file which is different for each install.

Bottom line is there is now a dedicated profile per install.

[jscher2000]

I think it the new installs.ini file in the C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox folder that shows which profile is locked to an install by the [A3710B8EBB50CD3] line in the file which is different for each install.

Bottom line is there is now a dedicated profile per install.

Yes, Developer Edition and Nightly definitely have different entries in installs.ini. But simply upgrading to the next version for the identical product should match the existing product code. I can't recall the details on how that is computed.

[Brummelchen]

clear installs.ini and set it to r-o. same for profiles.ini - sort, clean, whatever and set r-o. (dont forget to set r-w again when working with profiles)

[WaltS48]

I think it the new installs.ini file in the C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox folder that shows which profile is locked to an install by the [A3710B8EBB50CD3] line in the file which is different for each install.

Bottom line is there is now a dedicated profile per install.

Yes, Developer Edition and Nightly definitely have different entries in installs.ini. But simply upgrading to the next version for the identical product should match the existing product code. I can't recall the details on how that is computed.

All of my Firefox and Thunderbird versions (except TB 60.8.0) on Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Windows 10 have different entries in their respective installs.ini. All Locked to that version.

There is no problem simply upgrading to the next version of 68.0.1 through Firefox 68.0.

The OP installed 68.0.1 separately and tried to run it with the 68.0 profile which is locked to version 68.0. The new install of 68.0.1 needs a new profile created or launched with the --allow-downgrade switch.

I have a lot of experience with this doing release candidate testing for the Thunderbird 67 betas and the upcoming 68.0 release.

If was interesting getting a "You’ve launched an older version of Firefox" dialog when starting a new install of a beta with the previous versions profile. It now has been changed to say Thunderbird.

I believe the code that computes dedicated profiles is moz_block_profile_downgrade. That's the impression I get from this thread on tb-planning.

https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/tb-p ... html#start

Anyway, apologies for taking this slightly off topic.

[WaltS48]

clear installs.ini and set it to r-o. same for profiles.ini - sort, clean, whatever and set r-o. (dont forget to set r-w again when working with profiles)

You have tested this with two separate installations and only one profile and it works?

Why not just upgrade from the current install with its profile, or if you want to test a new install with the old profile use the -allow-downgrade switch?

Seems like a lot less work.

[Brummelchen]

all my builds own a separate profile and those are given by profiles.ini (manually created). firefox is started with a given profile -p <profilename> to avoid mandatory writing to the INI files. if not (-p) firefox will bring up a message because ini files are r-o.

once the kombination is set in installs.ini each firefox would grab its specified profile - exception see above, display message.

i recall from other thread: when dedicated profiles came up there exist NO general solution, you have to examine the current system and take the right choice/setting.

[dickvl]

See also:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/de ... stallation