FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

FEBE (pronounced [fee-bee]) Firefox Environment Backup Extension allows you to backup and restore all of your installed Firefox extensions and themes.  It actually creates individual installable .xpi (or .jar for themes) files that you can put on CD, Flash Drive or floppy (do they still make those?) and install on another computer.  You could also backup your extensions before installing an extension upgrade.  This way you could always go back if the upgrade doesn't work for you.  You may have a really good (but old) extension installed that is no longer supported and you don't want to loose it.  Now you can snatch it out of the bowels of Firefox and keep it archived.  The latest version will (optionally) backup/restore your bookmarks, preferences, cookies and just about everything else that Firefox generates.  You can even backup/restore an entire profile in one step.

FEBE 5.0 works with Firefox 2.0 (and above) on Windows, Linux, and Mac platforms.  FEBE 4.0 will work with Firefox 1.5 (but not 2.0) on Windows XP and Linux only.  Version 5.2 works with Firefox 3.0beta2.

Go to Tools > FEBE > FEBE Options > Directory and set your "Backup destination directory".  This is the bare minimum to get FEBE working, but you should explore the other options while you're there.  To start a backup, go to Tools > FEBE > Perform backup.  If you like, you can put a FEBE icon on the toolbar.  Go to View > Toolbars > Customize... and drag the FEBE icon to someplace on your toolbar.

This is the location on your computer that FEBE uses to store the backed up extensions and themes.  This directory must exist at the location you specify.  You may use the FEBE file picker (the "Browse ..." button) to navigate around and create the directory if it does not already exist.  Note: For some reason, I can't use my CD ROM drive as a destination.  It might just be my computer, but if it doesn't work for you either, you have been warned ...

When this options is checked, FEBE will generate a log file of the backup session which more advanced users can use to determine where (or if) the backup failed.  It also adds additional information to the results page.  For more information, see this post in the support forum.

In a word ... yes.  But there is a big caveat (user beware) that comes with it.  FEBE will backup your preferences (a file called "prefs.js" that contains your extension settings) but it backs up the whole thing without making any distinctions about your installed extensions.  In other words, it backs up the ENTIRE preferences file, not just the parts needed for any individual extension.  Here is the reason:  Since there is no standardized way for a developer to write an individual extension's settings to the Firefox preferences, FEBE cannot accurately extract the settings that belong to any particular extension.  I would have to treat each individual extension as a special case and write code to extract the preferences for that particular extension.  With the list of available extensions numbering well over 1,000 and growing daily, it would be virtually impossible to keep on top of the situation.

The bottom line is this:  If you restore your preferences, any changes made since you backed them up will be lost.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, since you would normally only want to restore after some cataclysmic event obliterated your browser and you are starting over with a new installation.

The same thing applies to bookmarks, cookies, passwords, and anything else that FEBE backs up.

Note:  My new extension OPIE (Ordered Preference Import/Export) can backup/restore many Firefox extension options.

Yes.  You can use FEBE's companion extension CLEO.  CLEO will package your backed up extensions and themes into a single, installable .xpi file.

There is another (and apparently not widely known)  way to restore any number of extensions/themes all at once, and it has nothing to do with FEBE.  Use Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer, I think that's some other browser) and drag and drop them into Firebox's Extension Dialog box.

 Here's a quick guide for XP users:

• Open the Firefox Extension Dialog Box (Tools > Extensions).
• Click Start > All Programs and open Windows Explorer (usually under "Accessories").
• Navigate to the directory where your backed up extensions/themes reside.
• Using the "shift-click" or "ctrl-click" method, select the item(s) you want to install.
• Drag them down to the taskbar and drop them into the Firefox Extensions tab.
• If all goes well, you should see the standard install dialog box.

There are currently three four known reasons for this.  When two extensions use internal functions that have the same name, a conflict occurs.  The only way to fix this is to modify one of the extensions by giving it unique function names.  (Greasemonkey and Gmail Manager were two that were incompatible with FEBE.)  Since it is easier for me to fix FEBE than it is to get the other extension developers to fix their extensions, I update my code whenever a conflict is reported.  If you are experiencing a conflict, please mention it in the forum. 

Another reason is long path names.  MS DOS does not recognize pathnames longer than about 256 characters.  If your backup destination directory is too long, FEBE won't work.  For instance, "C:My computer/My documents/My files/My very important files/My backups that I would hate to lose and could never get back again/Documents and Settings/local/Users/Chuck/Firefox 2.0.0.4/Firefox Extension backups/ 2007/Second quarter/June/ FEBE 2007-06-12:13:22:56" will not work.  But "C:\FEBE backups" will.

The third reason has to do with international characters.  There is an apparent bug in a certain XPCOM component (modules we programmers use to handle cross-platform tasks) that does not handle international character sets correctly.  If your profile name contains any "strange" characters like "Jürgen Išplestinis režimas PrÒfilé", FEBE may not be able to process the backup.

Starting with FEBE 5.0, another reason for this popped up.  If you have "User-defined backups" checked but have no user-defined backups defined, FEBE will hang on the progress window.  (Any other items should have already finished backing up by then.)  To get around this, either define a backup item or just uncheck the option.  I'll have a fix in the next update. Fixed in Version 5.1.2beta2.

To see if FEBE is generating errors, you need a way to display them.  If FEBE is hung up on the progress window, you can open up the error console (Tools > Error Console) and find out what's happening.  If you post the errors on the support forum, I'll try to debug the problem.

Check the Firefox error console (Tools > Error Console) and look for something about not being able to delete a directory because it is not empty.  If you find something, it means that FEBE was not able to delete the temporary folder.  It's supposed to delete it even if it is not empty, but sometimes Windows balks at this.  To verify this is actually the problem, go to FEBE options > Debug > Tmp directory and click the button labeled "Delete tmp directory".  If you don't get a pop-up window saying the directory was deleted, then we know that is the culprit.  Easy enough to fix ... just navigate (with Windows Explorer) to the tmp directory as defined above the button you just clicked, select it by clicking once and press the delete key.  Answer the prompts to completely delete the folder.

You now should be good to go.  This problem should not happen every time you perform a backup, but only rarely.  If it happens all the time, drop me a note in the support forum.

Update:  This seems to be an issue with Firefox v2.0.0.14.  I will follow the scuttlebut and keep you posted.

Sometimes (I haven't quite figured out why yet), Firefox refuses to recognize restored usernames/passwords. Don't worry, if you backed them up you can manually restore them.  Here's how:

1. Find the location of your profile folder.
2. Make sure Firefox is closed (check the task manager if you're not sure).
3. Using Windows Explorer, navigate to your backup destination directory.  This is the folder you told FEBE to store the backups.
4. Find a file named username-passwords{profile_name}.fbu and rename it to username-passwords{profile_name}.zip.  ("profile_name" could be anything ... like "default" or whatever you specified when you first created the profile.)
5. Open the renamed file by double-clicking on it. (If it doesn't open, you need to install a zip file manager like Winzip or 7-zip.)
6. Unzip the two files into your profile folder.  The files are named key3.db and signons2.txt. (Prior to Firefox 2.0.0.2 it is called "signons.txt".)
7. Start Firefox and verify your passwords are restored.  (Click "tools > Options > Security > Show passwords.)

All you have to do is rename it to a .xpi file.  The zip download and the xpi install files are exactly the same, just named differently.  Why?  Because Firefox automatically tries to install any file with the .xpi extension, I have to rename it to allow it to be downloaded.  Just use windows explorer and rename the ".zip" ending to ".xpi" and you're good to go.  Opening the zip files does nothing except give you access to the wonderful and mysterious world of program source code (which makes for good reading if you can't get to sleep).

OK, I know what you are going to ask next:  How do I install the .xpi file from my hard drive?  From Firefox, click File > Open file... and navigate to wherever your xpi file resides.  Double click on the file and Firefox should take over and install it.

Most likely, one of two things are happening.  First, check the top of the browser window and see if you are getting a message that looks something like this:


If so,  click the "Edit Options..." button to get a window that looks like this:


Click the "Allow" button, close the window and try installing again.

The other reason you may be having problems is because you do not have javascript  enabled.  Click "Tools > Options" and select "Content".  Make sure you have the "Enable JavaScript" checkbox ticked.


If it still won't install, post a note in the support forum and I'll try to figure out what's doing.

Ok, I'll pretend that you know very little about the inner workings of Firefox.  I'll also assume that you have FEBE version 3.0 (or above) installed.  In this scenario, let's say you want to copy your current profile to a new profile on the same computer.  Again, let's assume that the existing profile is named "Default User" and the new profile will be called "New user".  If you are trying to synchronize profiles on a different computer, the steps are similar.

(Note:  If you want to leave this page open while following along, you'll have to open it with (yuck ....) Internet Explorer or some other browser because you'll be opening and closing Firefox a couple of times.  Of course, you could also print it out but what with the cost of printer ink these days ... $8,000/gallon!)

But first, a word from our sponsors ...



Ok, Welcome back! 

First we need to backup the existing profile.
 
    Get to FEBE options by clicking "Tools > FEBE > FEBE Options" from the Firefox toolbar.
 
    Click the "Options" tab.  Tick the "Full profile" radio button.
 

 
Next, click the "Directory" tab.  Select a "Backup destination directory".  This must be an existing directory.  If you click the "Browse" button, you can navigate to an existing directory or create a new one.  In this case, I have chosen "C:\FEBE backup".

 

 

Click "OK" to close the options window.
 
Start the backup by clicking "Tools > FEBE > Perform Backup" from the Firefox toolbar.
 
When the backup is complete, you should get a new window that displays the name of the profile backup file.  In this case, it will be named "profile{Default User}.fbu".

Ok ... Now we need to create the new profile to restore to. First, make sure that all occurrences of Firefox are closed.  On Windows XP (if you are using Linux, you are probably savvy enough to figure out how to do this next step on your own), click "Start > Run..." and enter "firefox.exe -profilemanager" in the textbox and click "OK"...

You should get the Profile Manager dialog:

Click "Next" to continue.

Enter the new profile name.  In this case I'll use "New user".  Click the "Finish" button.  At this point, you don't want to start the new profile just yet.  Instead, you should select the "Default User" profile again and then click the  "Start Firefox" button..

When Firefox has restarted, click "Tools > FEBE > Restore > Restore Profile".

The FEBE restore profile file picker appears.  Navigate to where you told FEBE to create the backups.  (In this case it is "C:\FEBE backup\(the timestamped directory)".)  Select the backed up profile file - "profile{Default User}.fbu" and click the "Open" button.

Now the FEBE restore profile dialog box displays. 

Here it may get a little bit confusing.  The "Current (Active) profile" is the profile that Firefox is using during your current browser session.  The "Profile to restore" is the profile backup filename that contains the contents of the backed up profile data.  The "Destination profile" is the Firefox profile name that you want to write over and make the same as the backed up profile name.  Got that?  Good ...

After clicking "OK" you will see a confirmation dialog box.  This is your last chance to back out and forget about the whole thing.  If you continue, a progress window will appear.  When the restore is completed (it may take several seconds depending on how big your profile was and how slow your computer is) an Alert box will appear telling you that  everything is done.

Viola ... Your profile has been copied!  If you use the Profile Manager window to open "New user",  the browser will look and act exactly like your original "Default User".

Yes, there is. 

First let me point out the three biggest problems that FEBE runs into when attempting a restore.


As you might expect, FEBE uses MS DOS to run script files that perform the actual backup and restore functions (this will change in FEBE 6.0 ... no more batch files!).   MS DOS is pretty much a left over from the olden days of personal computing.  It was around long before Windows was just a gleam in Bill Gate's eye.  MS DOS does not properly interpret international characters.  Despite using UTF-8 encoding (an international standard), MS DOS still gets confused.  (If anyone has a suggestion as to how to get around this, please let me know!)  MS DOS also has an imposed limit of 256 characters per line.  If you specify that FEBE use timestamped directories and have a particularly long path to that folder, MS DOS will give up processing that line at the 256th character.  All you can do in this case is pick a shorter backup destination directory in FEBE options.  (Try something right off the root.  Maybe "C:\FEBE backups\".)  Another problem FEBE runs into is having MS DOS disabled on your computer.  See this link for more info and instructions on how to enable it.  There isn't any practical, efficient way for FEBE to communicate with MS DOS directly.  If a script fails, it wont let FEBE know about it (That's why FEBE offers a debug mode ... to manually supervise the scripts to see what, if anything, went wrong.)  Someday, someone will write an XPCOM interface to handle archiving that is cross-platform and doesn't have to deal with script files.  But until then ...

Ok ... I was digressing.  Back to manually restoring.

FEBE creates many different types of files during the backup.  Each of these types have a different file extension.   This is the group of characters after the last period in the filename.  (For instance, Firefox extensions have a file extension of ".xpi" and Firefox themes have ".jar".)  I'll break it down by file extension:

*.xpi)  Firefox extensions.  Example: FirefoxExtensionBackupExtensionFEBE{3.0}.xpi

*.jar)  Firefox themes.  Example: Outlook2003Blue{1.5.3}.jar

bookmarks*.html)  Firefox bookmarks.  Example: bookmarks{Default User}.html

*.js)  Javascript files.  Example: prefs{Default User}.js

*.txt)  Plaintext files.  Example: cookies{Default User}.txt

*.dat)  Firefox data files.  Example: history{Default User}.dat

*.css)  Firefox style files.  Example: userChrome{Default User}.css

*.1)  Permission files.  Example: hostperm{Default User}.1
*.fbu)  FEBE backup files.  Example: usernames-passwords{Default User}.fbu

Note: Starting with FEBE 5.0, a sanity check was introduced that should eliminate the following common errors.  If an item is not available for backup, it will be disabled (greyed-out).

The most common error/warning messages you will see on the results page are:

Could not backup userChrome!
Could not backup userContent!
Could not backup search plugins!
Could not backup permissions!

This is normal for users that do not have these items to backup.  For instance, userChrome.css and userContent.css are normally used with some (but not all) themes.  To avoid getting the messages, just uncheck the items in the FEBE options window.  Every once in a while you should enable the checks again to see if there is something there to back up.  In particular, do it after installing a new theme or extension.

If the results page displays other errors, drop me a note in the support forum and I'll try to debug it.

There are two items - "DOM Inspector" and "Talkback" that aren't extensions in the regular sense.  These two come already installed in Firefox and are a part of it.  FEBE will not attempt to back these up.

FEBE was originally developed as a utility that would extract installed extensions and themes and save them in a fresh, installable format   It soon evolved into a more general backup utility that included bookmarks, preferences, and cookies.  After that, users asked that more and more Firefox items be added to the backup list.  I finally added a complete profile backup option that would backup everything there was to backup.  The biggest difference between a full profile backup and a selective one is that a profile backup is a single file (in a zip format labeled as .fbu) that is a mirror image of the state of Firefox at the time the backup is performed.  It is all or nothing.  It would be really tough to try to restore only parts of it.  Since the profile backup does it all, it doesn't really make sense to offer individual backup options.  That's why the other options are disabled.

You probably set the backup time and just sat there with the options window open waiting for the time to pass, didn't you?  This isn't so much a bug as it is a minor annoyance.  The scheduled backup countdown doesn't actually start until something called an "onload event" happens.  This event occurs whenever a page loads.  So, after you click the button, close out the options window and go do something on the Internet.  Just one page load is all you need to start things going.  In a future version, I hope to have it work like the Ronco^® Rotisserie - "Just set it ... and forget it!"

Don't worry ...  believe it or not,  FEBE did just what you asked it to do.  In FEBE Options, there is a radio button that reads "Full profile".  If this is checked, all you will get is the one backup file.  But this file contains everything there is to backup (in your Firefox profile folder).  If you wanted to, you could examine the contents by either changing the extension name to .zip or by telling your computer to open all .fbu files with your installed zip program.  (By extension name, I'm talking about the last three characters of the file name after the period, not a Firefox extension.  This has been the source of many a confusion.  That is one reason why Mozilla is now calling what were Firefox "extensions" -- "addons".  But old habits die hard ... And I would hate to have to rename FEBE to FABA as I've grown quite accustomed to the old name!) 

Anyway, If you deselect the "Full profile" option (by selecting "Selective" as your backup type), your results report (and corresponding backup destination directory) will contain the items each individually. 

This is probably a good place to mention something to those of you who use CLEO.  You must have your backup type as "Selective" to have FEBE create the extensions and themes for CLEO to package.

FEBE cannot restore a profile that is in use.  If you think about it, it's a little like asking a surgeon to perform a brain transplant on himself.  Problematic at best.

There are actually two ways to get your profile restored.  You could do it manually (see this forum post) or simply create a new profile to aid in the restore.  Here are the steps:

1. Create a new profile.  Call it "FEBE" or whatever you want as long as it's different than your other profile name.  Start Firefox with the new profile.
2. Install FEBE.
3. Go to Tools > FEBE > Restore > Restore profile.  Open the backed up profile file.
4. You should now have two profiles to choose from ... the one you just created (and are currently using) and the other one (the one you want to restore to).  Pick the other one.
5. Follow the prompts and acknowledge the warning message.
6. Close Firefox and open the profile manager as explained in the first step.  If you want, you can delete the profile you created earlier.  You might want to leave it there in case you need to restore again sometime later.
7. Choose the other profile to open and you should be good to go!

You may think you have no extensions or theme installs pending, but Firefox thinks you do.  Navigate to your profile folder and look for a directory named "staged-xpis".  Whatever is in this directory is what Firefox thinks needs to be installed.  Most likely, it's some old extension that got hung up during installation and never got cleared.  It's easy enough to fix.  With Firefox closed, remove the "staged-xpis" directory.  Not just the contents, but the entire folder.  That should clear the warning message.

Yes.   But first a little information about what may be happening.

Chances are you have the "Verify backups?" option checked and FEBE is trying to validate a backup that went wrong.  Here's what FEBE does when verifying:  After the backup script has run or after an item is copied to the destination directory,  FEBE checks that directory for the backed up file.  It will check every second for a maximum of 10 seconds before declaring that item a failure.  In some (rare?) cases, Firefox will get tired of waiting for this section of code to finish and display the warning.  The best thing to do is click the "Continue" button a couple of times to see if the backup will finish.  If it doesn't, then there is a problem backing up that particular item.  

If allowing the script to continue a few times gets FEBE to complete the backup, there is something you can do to prevent the message from displaying.  There is a Firefox preference called dom.max_chrome_script_run_time that controls how long of a wait elapses before you get the unresponsive script message. The default is either 5 or 10 seconds. Try setting yours to something like 120 (two minutes). If that is not enough, you can set it to zero (no limit).

To change the value, type about:config in your location bar and double-click on the named preference.

For more information, see this article.

Actually, there is.   It's a Firefox extension called "Back to Top".  I know the guy who wrote it and he did a really nice job.

Since you put it that way ... sure!  You may use this PayPal link.  Thanks!

I'll add more to this FAQ as I think of more questions that might come up.  In the meantime, you can visit my support forum and post your question there.  Who knows, maybe somebody had the same question answered there.