Profile Manager 1.0 beta 1

[tanstaafl]

Mark Banner posted the following in tb-planning mailing list:

I'm not sure if folks on this list will have heard or not, but post
Firefox 4.0 it is planned to remove the profile manager from Gecko. From
what I've heard this is to do with reducing the complexity of start-up
and hence improving start-up performance.

However they are "replacing" the profile manager with a standalone
application and they now have a beta version of that application:

http://jagriffin.wordpress.com/2011/01/ ... 1-0_beta1/

For Thunderbird, it is highly likely that we'll be picking the removal
of profile manager up. From the discussions I've heard between Firefox
and SeaMonkey it sounds like it would be hard to keep some extensible
functionality for profile manager. However that's still a little way off
and we'll have to make the decision on that closer to when it actually
happens and there's more information available.

In the meantime I'd *strongly* recommend giving the standalone
application a go and providing feedback - if there are issues in its
use, then now is a good time to get them recorded so they can be
incorporated early.

I've just given it a quick run and it seems to work reasonably well, but
check out the comments on the blog and the bug list as there are various
known issues:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cg ... ct=Testing

Two of the comments on the blog were:

you need the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package, for x86 its here: http://goo.gl/r5tyX

and

I doubt it will ever be bundled with Firefox; the intention is to have it available as a separate download for people who are interested. I can’t speak for Thunderbird or other xulrunner apps.

[rsx11m]

Some more pointers:

• bug 214675 keeps track of removal of the current profile manager UI,
• bug 539524 of the experimental Profile Manager Application;
• related mozilla.dev.planning discussion.

If I read this correctly, the plan is to remove the user interface components, but to retain command-line switches like "-profile" to allow some low-level profile manipulation and selection (hopefully).

[tanstaafl]

The author of the utility states "I am not going to try to create an end-user tool" and his list of possible requirements does not include moving a profile. He views it as strictly for "testing and triage and support teams".

I tried the utility and it did not find any of my Thunderbird profiles. The user interface is not generic like Mozbackup is - its hard coded for Firefox.

I tried to use it to move a profile like we document in Moving your profile folder. It did not use the location I specified, it created a subdirectory underneath it and used it instead. i.e. I told it to create a profile at C:\Users\eric\Profiles\Firefox\tanstaafl and it created a C:\Users\eric\Profiles\Firefox\tanstaafl\b0myawu9.tanstaafl subdirectory and updated profiles.ini accordingly . The whole point of using the profile manager to move a profile was to avoid users having to edit profiles.ini (which experience has shown is VERY error prone for a typical user). This breaks that.

I also tried the copy command. It also creates and uses a subdirectory rather than the specified location.

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=erm4gh
IsRelative=0
Path=C:\Users\eric\Profiles\Firefox\erm4gh
Default=1

[Profile1]
Name=tanstaafl
IsRelative=0
Path=C:\Users\eric\Profiles\Firefox\tanstaafl\b0myawu9.tanstaafl

I submitted a comment on the blog (its "awaiting moderation") asking him to please "consider either changing the behavior, adding a optional setting to enable the current behavior, or adding some menu command that updates profiles.ini to use a profile at the specified location.". It would help if somebody else provided some feedback there too.

[rsx11m]

I tried the utility and it did not find any of my Thunderbird profiles. The user interface is not generic like Mozbackup is - its hard coded for Firefox.

Did you try this?

Note: by default, ProfileManager works with Firefox profiles. To use it with the profiles of a different xulrunner app, pass the name of the app to it as an argument, e.g., ‘profilemanager thunderbird’.

[tanstaafl]

Nope, didn't see that note. I tried it. Same problems.

None of the version commands work as it doesn't find my default version or any of my other versions of Thunderbird. The backup command doesn't tell you where its backing it up to and profilesmanager's prefs.js has no settings for that location. Turns out it backed it up in the profiles directory tree. If you do that it will blindly overwrite any profile there with that name, with no warning. The archive command creates a zip file in the profilemanager's installation directory.

The help displays https://wiki.mozilla.org/Auto-tools/Pro ... ileManager

[Nomis101]

I've tried ‘profilemanager thunderbird’ and it found my TB profile, also all "Firefox"-strings in the UI converted to "Thunderbird".

[tanstaafl]

I should have been clearer in my last post that it worked with Thunderbird if I used that command line argument, but it had the same problems.

[James]

On Linux when you start the profilemanager-bin by itself it will start with Profiles for Firefox. I find if you add thunderbird right after profilemanager-bin in launcher shortcut or commandline then the ProfileManager will start with Thunderbird Profiles.

Hmm even with a recent Trunk nightly of SeaMonkey and new Profile for it, the ProfileManager will not start if I try to start with seamonkey on end as it gives a error of TypeError: this._appsData[this._app] is undefined

[Rocketman]

I just installed ProfileManager & it didn't find any profiles for any app. Can someone be a little more specific about arguments. I tried arguments, but they didn't work. Profiles are in standard XP locations. FF & TB are in the default location, but not default directories. Could this have anything to do with it?

[tanstaafl]

"FF & TB are in the default location, but not default directories. Could this have anything to do with it?"

No. Neither my Firefox or Thunderbird profiles are in the standard locations, and that didn't cause a problem. Do you have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed?

[Rocketman]

"FF & TB are in the default location, but not default directories. Could this have anything to do with it?"

No. Neither my Firefox or Thunderbird profiles are in the standard locations, and that didn't cause a problem. Do you have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed?

Yes, I installed Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package.

[tanstaafl]

I suggest you ask for help on the author's blog.

[Rocketman]

I suggest you ask for help on the author's blog.

I have & he apparently doesn't have a resolution yet. And I'm not the only one with that problem. After my post on his blog, several people have chimed in that they also get no profiles found. We'll just have to wait for a fix.

[James]

There is a 1.0 Beta 2 out for testing by the way.

[toscha42]

Not too bad. PM found all my Firefox / Minefield profiles (placed not a the standard location). And with the 'thunderbird' parameter also found all Thunderbird / Shredder profiles (not in standard location as well).

Thumbs up so far!