Preferences not saved

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Revision as of 03:03, 6 December 2007 by Alice Wyman (talk | contribs) (Read-only preference file: linked to Multiple profile files created and removed other article content covered by the linked article)
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This article deals with Firefox or Mozilla Suite not saving any changes made to options or preference settings after you restart the application. If only Firefox toolbar customizations are not being saved, see this article.

Read-only or locked preference file

The inability to save any preference changes can be caused by having a read-only or locked prefs.js file or "prefs.js.moztmp" file in the profile folder. You may receive an error similar to "Failed to save the preferences file. Any preference changes will be lost at the end of the session" [1]. You may also find multiple files named "prefs-n.js" (where n is a number) appearing in the profile folder. Check the file properties of the prefs.js file and any "prefs.js.moztmp" file found and remove the "read-only" attributes. You can also delete any "prefs-n-js copies. See the article, Multiple profile files created for more information.

Dell Network Assistant

Dell Network Assistant may also cause this problem. If you have this program, try uninstalling it.[2]

User.js file locks certain preferences

If you are able to change some preference settings but not others, look for a user.js file in your profile folder (Windows users, read this). The user.js file does not exist by default; it is created by users and, in a few cases, by some software programs, so that certain settings get written back to the prefs.js file each time you restart Firefox or Mozilla Suite. If you find a user.js file, either remove it from the profile folder or edit the file to remove any unwanted settings. See the article Resetting preferences for more information.

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