19.2 Firefox wrong version

[bigal]

Running LM 19.2 on a spare machine to test file compatibility with those on my 18.3 machine. Copied all of my data from 18.3 into a folder on the 19.2 machine and that includes both Firefox and Thunderbird profiles.

Closed down both FF and TB on the 18.3 machine then, on the 19.2 machine used

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$ sudo firefox –profilemanager

to set up FF using the copied profile. It didn’t work.

Error message as follows

Using an older version of Firefox can corrupt bookmarks and browsing history already saved to an existing Firefox profile. To protect your information create a new profile for this installation of Firefox.

The only options were

Create new profile

and

Quit

I have checked and both the 18.3 and 19.2 versions of Firefox and both are 70.0.1 (64-bit) mint -1.0.

I wondered if it was a file ownership thing but checking all the contents are set to uid=1000 and gid=1000. Just to make sure I changed the permissions to

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$ sudo chmod -R 777 <path to folder>

but it made no difference.

Any suggestions please?

[bigal]

I am more or less certain that the file ownership and permissions had nothing to do with it but when you have run out of ‘normal’ ideas you have got to look further afield.

The annoying thing is that there must be thousands of users who have upgraded without any similar problems and to compound that, I cannot find a single post anywhere to indicate that someone else has come up against this. So it is something I have done – But what?

[ajgreeny]

This problem appears only if you move a firefox profile from one machine to another, not when upgrading a FF version in place.

I agree it is very annoying and I have looked in the mozilla forums but so far found nothing. Using the profile manager and pointing that to the copied profile has worked occasionally but even when you select the "Use this profile without asking" tick-box it still causes the same error box to appear with no apparent way to override it and accept the possibility of messing up the profile.

Searching in about:config finds nothing, so like the OP I am completely mystified!

[bjmh46]

I have run across the same problem as the op, only when trying to use my firefox profile (contents) on a different distro (mx19) same version of firefox (70.0.1). Finally gave up and just restored bookmarks, copied saved logins, and did the rest manually. I have had no problem copying my whole .mozilla folder from one machine to another, mixing Mint 18.3, and 19.

Bob

[gm10]

Firefox 67+ does not like you sharing a profile folder, in particular when you've set privacy.resistFingerprinting.

But:

Closed down both FF and TB on the 18.3 machine then, on the 19.2 machine used

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$ sudo firefox –profilemanager

to set up FF

If you're running your web browser with sudo you've got bigger problems tbh. Not only will that mess up all kinds of things, it also means any browser malware will get full control of your system. Congratulations.

Also:

Just to make sure I changed the permissions to

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$ sudo chmod -R 777 <path to folder>

Many new users had to reinstall their system after running that command. I'm inclined to suggest the same to you, because if you've been handling your system as shown in this post alone then a clean install will probably do loads of good, fixing issues you probably thought were normal.

[bigal]

For many years now I have used a separate drive for my data. Data to me included both Firefox and Thunderbird profiles. Using ‘profilemanager’ on the installed machine makes it easy to access the Mozilla profiles wherever they are stored on that machine. I go further though. My data partition is shared so I can access it from any of my machines in my local are network – I have several in several different locations. The only proviso is that the profiles are not network aware so I have to close a working version down if I want to move to another machine. No great hardship.

This, however is something different. I have only experimented with Firefox as there are implications with Thunderbird and I would not want to loose any of my files there and that is despite regular daily backups.

So far I have not attempted to access the shared profile on my default LM 18.3 machine using my nice new 19.2 installation. I don’t know that I want to take that risk. This problem arose while evaluating LM 19.2 in a multi boot situation, something I have another post all about.viewtopic.php?f=46&t=305773

[bigal]

If you're running your web browser with sudo you've got bigger problems tbh. Not only will that mess up all kinds of things, it also means any browser malware will get full control of your system. Congratulations.

Sorry, that was a typo. I only run profilemanager as a normal user. That code box should have read

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firefox --profilemanager

My apologies for misleading people. Thank you for pointing it out gm10.

[karlchen]

Hello, bigal.

Firefox 70.x seems to check very carefully whether someone tries to downgrade an existing Firefox profile to a lower version than the version which is currently present.
So I suspect this has happened:

• On Mint 19.2, Firefox 70.0.1 has been installed.
• You have launched Firefox 70.0.1 once, thus automatically creating a fresh Firefo user profile, version 70.0.1.
• Later on you tried making Firefox 70.0.1 use a Firefox profile, which you had copied over from Mint 18.3. - You had reported that you tried.
• You receive the Firefox 70.0.1 warning that the profile, which you try to use, is older than the existing (fresh) Firefox profile.

First thing:
Can we be sure that the Firefox profile from Mint 18.3 is really Firefox 70.0.1?
Please, execute this commandline on Mint 18.3: dpkg --list firefox and post the output here.
Please, execute this commandline on Mint 19.2: dpkg --list firefox and post the output here.

Second thing:
Restoring the relevant things from your Firefox profile on Mint 18.3 into the Firefox profile on Mint 19.2:
Recently, I have followed the steps, given in this Firefox support document, How to export my saved logins file?, in order to restore only those things into new Firefox profiles, which were/are really relevant to me:
+ my bookmarks and favcions (the latter just a eye-candy)
+ my saved login credentials
(Though the title might suggest otherwise, it is not only about login credentials.)

HTH,
Karl

[bigal]

18.3 machine

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$ dpkg --list firefox
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                                           Version                      Architecture                 Description
+++-==============================================-============================-============================-=================================================================================================
ii  firefox                                        70.0.1+linuxmint1+sylvia     amd64                        Safe and easy web browser from Mozilla

I do not have the facility to copy the output from the 19.2 machine but the only difference is that the Versiion is shewn as "70.0.1+linuxmint+tina. Word for word everything else is the same.

[gm10]

First thing:
Can we be sure that the Firefox profile from Mint 18.3 is really Firefox 70.0.1?
Please, execute this commandline on Mint 18.3: dpkg --list firefox and post the output here.
Please, execute this commandline on Mint 19.2: dpkg --list firefox and post the output here.

That only gets you the package version, and depending on the length not even the full version string. I suggest to use apt version for something like that instead.

However, internally Firefox uses its buildID, which you can see e.g. on the about:support page.

[bigal]

Not too sure about your second thing karlchen although useful knowledge. The objective here was not to create a new profile on the 19.2 machine, only to see what implications there were should I decide to upgrade my 18.3 one. Hence my other post referred to above. This issue is most definitely an ‘implication’.

[bigal]

Okay. 18.3 machine

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$ apt version firefox
70.0.1+linuxmint1+sylvia

19.2 machine.

$ apt version firefox
70.0.1+linuxmint+tina

That latter result typed not copied.

[karlchen]

Hi, bigal.
Background story, why I came across the Firefox support page, which I had linked to and recommended:
When Firefox 69 was released, I started to experience regular Firefox crashes on 32-bit systems.
Knowing that sometimes such issues can be solved by creating a new Firefox profile (which forbids copying over ~/.mozilla from a different machine), I started creating new Firefox profiles on the affected systems.
Most settings can be easily and quickly re-configured as they had been before with a few mouse-clicks.
But this does not apply to my bookmarks + their favicons and in particular not to my saved login credentials (the latter are not synchronized across my Firefoxes through Mozilla Sync).
This is where the linked Firefox support webpage came in really handy.
Therefore I had assumed it might help you as well reconfiguring the fresh Firefox 70.0.1 profile on Mint 19.2 quickly to the state which your backed up Firefox 70.0.1 profile on Mint 18.3 had had.
Well, many ways lead to Rome. In case the suggested way is not yours, well there are other ways.
Regards,
Karl

[bigal]

Thank you for the background Karl. As you say many ways lead to Rome. In my case I do not actually want to run FF on the 19.2 machine as a primary machine. The 18.3 machine is my primary one and the whole purpose of the exercise, as indicated in my other post, was to check software and file compatibility should I decide to upgrade it to 19.2. I am the fortunate position of have a spare machine to play with and to try things out on and it is on that machine that I have 19.2 installed. I have, of course, Thunderbird to think about as well. I believe it to be a reasonable assumption that a TB profile from the 18.3 m/c will react in much the same way when accessed from 19.2.

Should the need arise you have provide a good guide on how to copy the important things from one os to another and please believe me when I say that I am very grateful. As that guide is now safely stored in my posts I will easily be able to refer to it without spending time hunting around should the need arise. I am coming to the opinion that I will not be upgrading the 18.3 machine. It is working fine and rarely gets rebooted. More to the point the software I have installed also works fine. There does not, at this point, seem to be any advantage, at least for me, for the upgrade. I will carry on with the old adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t mend it”.

Cheers

BigAl