FEBE cannot remove a file because it's not there

[khms]

Message is:
FEBE cannot remove the following old backups:
/home/kai/.mozilla/FEBE/default/FEBE 2017 10-14 04.00.03 : NS_ERROR_FILE_TARGET_DOES_NOT_EXIST

They must be removed manually. If this problem is due to directory permissions, you can prevent this from occurring in future backups by giving 'Full control' (Windows users) or 'chmod 777' (Linux) to the backup folder. You may also attempt to fix the permissions using FEBE Options > Advanced > Set read/write permissions in backup folder.

For more information about directory permissions, see this post in the support forum

Note: Your current backup should not have been affected by this problem and should complete normally. Future backups, however, will continue to display this message (but otherwise complete normally) until the issue is resolved.

FEBE 8.9.3.1, FF 52.4.0 (How about either adding that to the copy-to-clipboard function, or making the last page in the options copyable? Just an idea)

[cbaker_admin]

Isn't /home/kai/.mozilla/FEBE/default/ the Firefox install directory? It's not a good idea to place the FEBE backups there - Firefox applies the permissions there and shouldn't be changed. Try using a different backup destination directory (maybe someplace like /home/FEBE) with the permissions set to drwxrwxrwx (chmod 777).

Do you have FEBE Options > Advanced > Miscellaneous > Message popup style > Include 'Copy to clipboard' button on popup messages checked? In any event, you should be able to highlight/copy/paste the contents of the error message window (CTRL-A, CTRL-C, CTRL-V on Windows ... don't remember offhand what it is on *nix systems).

[khms]

No, it's not. It's parallel to the FF profile directory (which is in .mozilla/firefox/<profile>/), the install directory is somewhere else entirely.

In any case, I don't see how this could possibly be a permissions problem. Other FEBE backups live there quite happily, and the problem only occurs when (I'm assuming) FEBE tries to remove the same backup two times, perhaps as consequence of a crash - or else tries to remove a backup that was never written. It's not there - the path in question does not exist. Which is why FEBE gets a NS_ERROR_FILE_TARGET_DOES_NOT_EXIST.

Copy to clipboard ... yup, that's how I got that message to start with. That is the exact, unmodified message. Except for the first and last line, obviously. Of course, that button doesn't exist on the last options page, and selecting text doesn't work there either ...

Just to avoid confusion, here's the message again:

Code: Select all

FEBE cannot remove the following old backups:
/home/kai/.mozilla/FEBE/default/FEBE 2017 10-14 04.00.03 : NS_ERROR_FILE_TARGET_DOES_NOT_EXIST

They must be removed manually. If this problem is due to directory permissions, you can prevent this from occurring in future backups by giving 'Full control' (Windows users) or 'chmod 777' (Linux) to the backup folder. You may also attempt to fix the permissions using FEBE Options > Advanced > Set read/write permissions in backup folder.

For more information about directory permissions, see this post in the support forum

Note: Your current backup should not have been affected by this problem and should complete normally. Future backups, however, will continue to display this message (but otherwise complete normally) until the issue is resolved.

Oh, and contrary to claims, it doesn't seem to pop up for future backups.

Really, it would seem to me that the fix is fairly simple: when trying to remove a file or directory, just treat NS_ERROR_FILE_TARGET_DOES_NOT_EXIST as "no error". You wanted to remove it, and for whatever reason, it's not there. Mission successful.

[cbaker_admin]

Are you still receiving the error? If so, is it for the exact same directory? (I'm thinking maybe some peculiar caching issue. Nobody else has reported this problem.)

You're right in assuming that the error would occur if trying to delete the same directory twice, but I've look at the code in that area and it only executes the remove method once on each directory. If you are no longer getting the message, it would be tough to try to debug it after the fact. It doesn't really make sense you would get a "File not found" type message because the code simply enumerates the directories in the backup location and performs a remove action on each one once in turn.

In any event, I cannot provide a fix because I will no longer be supporting FEBE after Fx v57 is released in about three weeks. If they haven't already, Mozilla will not be accepting any XUL/XPCOM extension updates. I've already ported FEBE (and my other extensions) to Pale Moon and will only support that version.