New: about:profiles

Discussion about official Mozilla Firefox builds
TheVisitor
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New: about:profiles

Post by TheVisitor »

This could be the end of the 'old' Profile Manager - or maybe not...

New 'about' command as noted in the Subject about:profiles in latest hourly, should be in tomorrow's Nightly.

info about change(s): https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1179129 <--Would be nice to have about:profiles

This patch met with some resistance - so who knows where this is really going, and for how long.

EDIT: This may have already replaced the old 'Profile Manager'
Entering the firefox.exe -p from the windows Search box now opens the about:profiles page rather the old dialog box...
I guess further testing will be needed to make sure we don't lose a valuable troubleshooting aid, in creating 'test/new/throw-away' Profiles
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streetwolf
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Re: New: about:profiles

Post by streetwolf »

Clicking on 'Create a new profile' doesn't do anything for me. Perhaps this is just the front end?
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TheVisitor
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Re: New: about:profiles

Post by TheVisitor »

streetwolf wrote:Clicking on 'Create a new profile' doesn't do anything for me. Perhaps this is just the front end?

WFM, maybe one of your 'blocking' addons stopping the action ?
darkred
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Re: New: about:profiles

Post by darkred »

darkred wrote:Since yesterday where the patches for replacing Profile Manager with about:profiles have landed
and bugs 1179129 - Would be nice to have about:profiles and 1232629 - Replace ProfileManager with about:profiles are marked as FIXED (I'm using inbound),
the UI is like this:
Image

As you may see, there's no button to remove/rename a profile and the Create a profile has no functionality.
I guess it's still a work in progress
Is there a bug in bugzilla to check on this progress? I couldn't find any
TheVisitor wrote:Create New Profile = WFM perhaps you have blocking addons ? NoScript/Adblock etc ?
I'm on inbound. I only have Greasemonkey 2015.11.20.nightly and AdBlock Plus 2.7.
But, disabling them both,
and even launching Firefox via

Code: Select all

C:\Program Files\Nightly\firefox.exe" -no-remote -profilemanager
I get the same interface with above.
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TheVisitor
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Re: New: about:profiles

Post by TheVisitor »

@Darkred - perhaps something amiss with the x64 bit builds - I'm on latest m-c win32 builds, on win7
darkred
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Re: New: about:profiles

Post by darkred »

TheVisitor wrote:@Darkred - perhaps something amiss with the x64 bit builds - I'm on latest m-c win32 builds, on win7
Yes, so I just filed but 1233016 - (about:profiles) in latest inbound x64 the 'Create a New Profile' button has no functionality and there's no 'Rename' button
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the-edmeister
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Re: New: about:profiles

Post by the-edmeister »

I really enjoy reading comments like this in Bug reports - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.c ... 179129#c18

bsmedberg - the Profile code owner has been "threatening" to remove Profiles from Firefox for over ten years now and every 5 years or so another Profiles related project gets started. Last time it was the Profile Manager XUL Runner application and now it is about:profiles and now he is talking about about:profiles as an extension rather than "in-tree".

Back in April I quit doing any testing of builds - new PC and I decided not to install anything except for release versions - but this about:profiles does interest me or at least make me curious about it.


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calbu
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Re: New: about:profiles

Post by calbu »

How does someone who has a bad/corrupted profile (continuous crash on startup) open the profile manager with about:profiles? Is there any way to simulate this scenario and see whether firefox.exe -p works?
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WildcatRay
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Re: New: about:profiles

Post by WildcatRay »

calbu wrote:How does someone who has a bad/corrupted profile (continuous crash on startup) open the profile manager with about:profiles? Is there any way to simulate this scenario and see whether firefox.exe -p works?
I suspect they have not thought through the elimination of the stand-alone profile manager as they should before making such a major change. [-(
Ray

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WaltS48
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Re: New: about:profiles

Post by WaltS48 »

When I entered about:profiles in the address bar, Nightly indicated I was using my default profile, which is the profile I use for Beta versions.

I start Nightly form a desktop launcher using

Code: Select all

~/Apps/fxnightly/firefox -p nightly
telling Nightly to start with my nightly profile.

Troubleshooting Information > Open Directory opens my nightly profile.

When I tried just

Code: Select all

~/Apps/fxnightly/firefox -p
about:profiles opened, and the only choice I had was my release profile for Firefox 42.0 (Linux Mint hasn't updated yet).

I also have a new completely empty profile in my .mozilla/firefox folder called euvxs63f.default-1447703419745

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BruceAWittmeier
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Re: New: about:profiles

Post by BruceAWittmeier »

calbu wrote:How does someone who has a bad/corrupted profile (continuous crash on startup) open the profile manager with about:profiles? Is there any way to simulate this scenario and see whether firefox.exe -p works?
When I enter about:profiles I get an error indicating address isn't valid.

When I enter about:about (listing of about: options) I do NOT see about:profiles as an option - suggests it is not available at this time. Perhaps this is why you are seeing a crash.
EDIT: shouldnt be the case - I just entered Firefox about:profiles and it attempted to open the page but displayed the error message address isn't valid.

If you are trying to get a copy to run, try renaming your prefs.js file in your daily profile to something like prefs.ren and attempt to restart your browser.
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the-edmeister
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Re: New: about:profiles

Post by the-edmeister »

WildcatRay wrote:
calbu wrote:How does someone who has a bad/corrupted profile (continuous crash on startup) open the profile manager with about:profiles? Is there any way to simulate this scenario and see whether firefox.exe -p works?
I suspect they have not thought through the elimination of the stand-alone profile manager as they should before making such a major change. [-(
My guess is that someone started working on that new "feature" based upon comments made in a meeting that the Profile code owner didn't attend or wasn't listening to the comments about it [like an over-my-dead-body avoidance of a side discussion]. I read the full Bug report and this comment - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.c ... 179129#c25 - has me wondering what was discussed outside of the Bug report via email or a meeting. bsmedberg "disappeared" before that and didn't make any further comments afterwards. And with out him I don't think this "feature" will go very far. Over the years I have gotten the idea that the "code owner" has the "first right of refusal" over "their" code.
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therube
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Re: New: about:profiles

Post by therube »

(Just to note, this also breaks SeaMonkey, Nightly, SeaMonkey 2.43a1.)
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joeg
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Re: New: about:profiles

Post by joeg »

Ummmm, why is a profile manager necessary? Why not just rename or delete the current one? As soon as you open Fx, it generates a new one.
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Foxinabox
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Re: New: about:profiles

Post by Foxinabox »

the-edmeister wrote:I really enjoy reading comments like this in Bug reports - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.c ... 179129#c18

bsmedberg - the Profile code owner has been "threatening" to remove Profiles from Firefox for over ten years now and every 5 years or so another Profiles related project gets started. Last time it was the Profile Manager XUL Runner application and now it is about:profiles and now he is talking about about:profiles as an extension rather than "in-tree".

Back in April I quit doing any testing of builds - new PC and I decided not to install anything except for release versions - but this about:profiles does interest me or at least make me curious about it.


.
I don't really understand bsmedberg's comment there. It sounds like he wants to get rid of the profile manager and about:profiles. But all I read is that one comment out of context, so I'm probably not seeing the big picture.

I find profiles essential for testing and debugging extensions. Is there another way to test them in a virgin environment?
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