Preferences not saved

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Revision as of 14:04, 6 December 2007 by Alice Wyman (talk | contribs) (consolidated first 2 sections, updated link, added Category:Configuration" and "see also" link to related 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) in the profile folder. Check the file properties of the prefs.js file (and "prefs.js.moztmp" file, if found) and make sure that the "read-only" attribute is not set. You can also delete any "prefs-<n>.js" file copies.

Note that other software such as Dell Network Assistant may be causing the problem by locking or "protecting" the preference file. If you have this program, try disabling or uninstalling it [2]. See Multiple profile files created for more information about locked or multiple files in the profile.

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 for help finding it). 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 Resetting preferences for more information.

See also