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Web :: Browser issues :: How to move the default profile of Firefox 1.0 PR
By: VGR	Date: 01/11/2004 10:56:21	Points: 0	Status: Answered Quality : Excellent
Hi. This is not a question but rather information I find useful and want to introduce in the knowledge base. I wanted to move the "default user" profile of my Mozilla Firefox to an other drive because of the cache consuming too much space on C: For memory, the default profile directory on my Win2K box is C:\Documents and Settings\<myuser>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<random>.slt as the application directory is %APPDATA%/Mozilla/Firefox/ , where %APPDATA% = Documents and Settings\%USER NAME%\Application Data\ on Windows 2000, XP, etc; ~/ on Unices, and ~/Library on MacOS X I performed a simple move of all the profile data found under <random>.slt to a fresh new directory, say H:\profiles\ Then I performed the profiles.ini (C:\Documents and Settings\<myuser>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles.ini) modification as documented on Mozilla's help & FAQ pages, ie I changed it to : [General] StartWithLastProfile=1 [Profile0] Name=Default User IsRelative=0 Path=H:\profiles\ This didn't work. The browser would hang in the middle of displaying the startup page (its TITLE was already in title bar of the window), with no error message and no clue to what was happening. By looking at the files datetimes in the profile, I saw that indeed the browser was going to the CORRECT profile location. Thus something else was blocking it, something IN the profile's data. I looked at the "command line parameters" of Mozilla & Firefox ( http://www.mozilla.org/docs/command-line-args.html#options ) and found, of course the "-p" I knew - but avoid to use because I specified an absolute path in profiles.ini and DO NOT WANT the profile manager to show !!! - and the useful-but-not-working "-safe-mode". NONE is available that looks like what I searched for, ie "-log-all-startup-errors" or "-display-startup-errors" or just "-log-all-errors-to-some-file". Normally, no other file contains directory pathes information, so normally, changing "profiles.ini" is enough. Thus I desperately tried the manoeuvre set in http://www.chrispederick.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=120 about "extensions problems" when upgrading FFox - althought I didn't change any extensions and didn't upgrade my browser : it's still the same FF 1.0 PR as yesterday, when it worked superbly - I renamed the profile(new location) 's "extensions" in "extensions.old" and launched the browser It started. I had all settings (boormarks, memorized form data etc) but of course no extensions. Now shut down browser, overwrite the newly-created - and empty - "extensions" subdirectory with the contents of "extensions.old" and re-lauch. it worked. Stupid thing, but does the trick. HTH
By: Bernard	Date: 01/11/2004 17:04:47		Type : Answer
intéressant... qui gagne des points alors ? ;-)

By: VGR	Date: 02/11/2004 09:35:32		Type : Comment
I must admit my "solution" isn't perfect at all. After some testing, I had to uninstall & re-install all extensions. The "extensions" panel would freeze otherwise. The good point is that FF doesn't erase the prefs.js settings for uninstalled extensions, so the uninstall&reinstall operation is fast & innocuous. So sorry but this is no magic. Moving a profile folder will remain a tricky thing.

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