Unzipping a FEBE profile into Firefox profile location

[stevek302]

Hello,

Chuck, you recommended I use your procedure - How to manually restore your Firefox profile - viewtopic.php?f=5&t=593 for putting in a FEBE {default}.fbu file. On the page it says to unzip the renamed and now zipped profile into the profile location - %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles, it says there will be other profiles there. I did this, and the old default profile came up. How do I get it to become the default? The unzipped one is also there. Then I cut the old profile file out and have it still. Then Firefox wouldn't open. I renamed the previous default to old default. That did nothing, but open a new, clean Firefox. The previous profile had a number at its beginning, so I put a number in front of the newly unzipped profile to move it to the top of the folders. I renamed the unzipped one with profile manager to the default profile, still nothing. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Steve

[cbaker_admin]

Could you send me a screenshot of your main profile folder (i.e., %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles)? That way I can get a better idea of what we're dealing with.

[stevek302]

Yes I can Chuck. Attach through forum or use your email?

Thanks,

Steve

[stevek302]

Chuck, I've attached three. Sorry, the scroll feature on the capture utility I use doesn't function. 1 through 3 is top to bottom.

Thanks,

Steve

[stevek302]

Chuck, this attachment is what happens now when I open Firefox, clicking on desktop icon. Choosing either of top two gives something like - Your profile is missing, or may be inaccessible - message. The bottom one opens, to clean new install of 34.0.5.

Thanks,

Steve

[cbaker_admin]

Thanks for the screenshots, but I need to see the directory one level up from what you posted. The directory %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles should just list the profile folders.

For instance, mine looks like this:

[stevek302]

Chuck, upper one is "Search" results, lower is after right clicking and opening folder location. If I left click "Profiles" folder, I go where the first trio of screenshots show. The per cent sign is there in search bar, just hidden to the left, I did it again to make sure.

Than-you,

Steve

[cbaker_admin]

Go to the location shown in the very last image you posted. In that folder, double-click on the directory "Profiles". That is the listing I need to see. Also post the contents of the "profile.ini" file.

[stevek302]

This bottom request is same as same as first screenshot. The next two are captures of opened the two ini. files which show.


Thanks,

Steve

[cbaker_admin]

Hmm ... Judging from your screenshots, Firefox is really messed up. We can fix it in one of two ways: Reinstalling Fx or trying to repair it manually. I think it is easier to do it the first way.

First off, make a copy of your %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox folder and put it somewhere safe and completely out of any Fx path (create a folder right off the root and name it 'Fx' - i.e., 'C:\Fx'). Make sure a copy of profileFx4default.zip is there ... we'll need it later.

Using Windows Control Panel, uninstall Firefox. After the uninstall, make sure that %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox is either completely empty or doesn't exist.

Using either Google Chrome or MS Internet Explorer, download and install the latest version of Fx by going to https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/.

When the installation is complete, you need to restore your old profile data into the current Fx profile. To do this, open your copy of profileFx4default.zip and extract the contents into your new Fx default profile directory which should be in %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default (where xxxxxxxx is eight random characters). Fx must not be open while restoring your profile.

At this point, you should be able to open Fx. But since you've newly installed Fx v35 and the FEBE profile backup is from a earlier version, you'll need to go through Fx thoroughly to see if everything is working as it should. (I quit using 'Fx4' in the profile backup name in favor of the actual Fx version in FEBE v8.0 that was released in April of 2014. So your profile backup is from whatever version of Fx was current at the time.).

[stevek302]

Will get back to you Monday, if I don't get to it earlier. Having a bit of a cold. I've got the first part complete, where no info shows with %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox and folder created C:\Firefox, and no program in uninstall list (uninstall did not run, it said it was missing or had been uninstalled) after I finished moving folders.

Thanks,

Steve