Ubuntu
firefox package

Firefox keeps resetting my homepage.

Asked by Bruce Crowther

Ubuntu 8.10 amd64, Firefox 3.08.

This afternoon FF suddenly started resetting my homepage (should be www.google.co.nz) to ubufox startpage, and second tab Ubiquity. Tried resetting via Edit>Preferences repeatedly, no cure.
Deleted .mozilla folder, replaced with folder from a backup made yesterday: opened at proper homepage. Closed app, restarted, problem returned.
Removed Ubufox, uninstalled Ubiquity extension, opened FF, same problem, different pages.
I am reluctant to delete my current profile (has all my bookmarks etc.) and no guarantee of a cure.
This problem ONLY affects my Intrepid install, I have the same browser running in 9.04 beta in a VM, and it is not affected, so I presume it is an Intrepid problem rather than a Firefox one.

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Bhavani Shankar
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Best Bhavani Shankar (bhavi) said : 		#1

That program may have created a user.js file in your Profile folder - that could be the reason that prefs.js gets reset every time you open Firefox.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/User.js_file
http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/profile#locate

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Bruce Crowther (bwucie) said : 		#2

There was no user.js file, but several other *.js files were floating around. Taking a scattergun approacj, i deleted everything with that .js suffix, and the problem has gone away.

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Bruce Crowther (bwucie) said : 		#3

Hmm, very temporary fix. The problem has come back again, and now the prefs.js file is locked in the profile.
I will create another profile, and try to import my bookmarks to the new one.

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Bruce Crowther (bwucie) said : 		#4

Eventually decided to delete .mozilla folder again, and ran the app without it: import wizard imported bookmarks from a previous install of Opera, and behaved alright.
Hmmm.
Deleted the .mozilla folder again, replaced with the same one from my backup drive I had tried in my original post above, and so far so good.
Why this has worked, I don't know. How long it will stay fixed I don't know.
Watch this space.

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Bhavani Shankar (bhavi) said : 		#5

Okay glad that it worked