Talk:Recovering a missing profile

Its not clear why you created a new article rather than enhancing Recovering_a_profile_that_suddenly_disappeared . I like your "Using the Profile Manager to recover a profile" section. I modified Moving_your_profile_folder to recommend moving a profile by copying it and then follow similar instructions. That also lets Recovering_a_profile_that_suddenly_disappeared leverage that. Tanstaafl 23:51, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

My inspiration for this article was actually the fact that new Mozilla Firefox KB is using it as a "source" article for the initial set of Mozilla KB articles: http://support-stage.mozilla.org/tiki-index.php?page=Recovering+a+profile+that+suddenly+disappeared - I figured, why should Mozilla be adapting a Thunderbird/Mozilla Suite article? We should have a similar article that applies to Firefox!

... I was going to edit the Recovering_a_profile_that_suddenly_disappeared article to also apply Firefox but that article had so much information specific to Thunderbird, and parts of it also applied to Mozilla Suite/SeaMonkey, that I thought it would be best to keep it simple and create a new article that just included basic profile recovery for Firefox and Thunderbird. Mozilla Suite/SM 1.x still use the registry.dat, and those apps create a new profile folder even when you create a new profile in a custom location.... selecting a folder will place the "profilename" folder directly underneath, with the *.slt folder with the actual data underneath that, so recovering a profile is altogether different. I've experimented by deleting the registry.dat with Mozilla Suite open, and that removes all but the default profile. You can then recover other profiles by simply entering the EXACT same name as the missing "profilename" folder in the new profile wizard, if the missing profile is in the default location. You can also choose the folder for a a missing profile in a custom location, by choosing whatever folder is two levels up from the *.SLT folder, if I remember right. It's been awhile ...OK, I found it in my notes- I remembered it right :) (ref.) Anyway, That all changes in SeaMonkey 2, which also includes a profiles.ini file, so the same instructions will apply to SM 2 as apply to Firefox and Tbird. Long story short, I figured it would just be too complicated to revise the Recovering_a_profile_that_suddenly_disappeared article to apply to all three applications. Alice 01:15, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, though I think it would have been easier than you thought. If its just a question of too much effort I'd be willing to modify the original article to cover Firefox too.

You aren't telling people how to prevent the problem from occurring again (the overwhelming cause at least for Thunderbird is a bug, not crashes etc.), and its confusing to have both articles show up in Thunderbird categories. I've edited the first paragraph to direct Thunderbird users to the original article, and removed this article from the Issues (Thunderbird) category. If Moving_your_profile_folder is updated to deal with older versions of SeaMonkey should I state that Recovering_a_profile_that_suddenly_disappeared also supports SeaMonkey, or do you have another alternative in mind? Tanstaafl 05:09, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

You aren't telling people how to prevent the problem from occurring again (the overwhelming cause at least for Thunderbird is a bug, What bug is that? The Tbird article says, Thunderbird has a nasty habit of once in a great while forgetting about the existence of a profile if it uses the default name. Do you have a reference for the bug and the workaround? Alice 18:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't find a bug report - the search terms I used had too many matches. So I submitted one (392956). If its a duplicate I assume they'll identify the other bug report. While writing Keep_it_working_(Thunderbird) I created a thread in Thunderbird General to discuss what should go in that article and several of the more well known helpers reviewed the draft and argued at length over what should be said. It wasn't a perfunctory review. The first item in that article is how to prevent that bug. Tanstaafl 05:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I created a thread in Thunderbird General to discuss what should go in that article Do you have a forum link? I checked the Keep it working - Thunderbird article history (you posted a bad link in your reported bug 392956 by the way, since you used the old article name - the trailing parenthesis was dropped). The "nasty habit" text where you discussed the problem of disappearing profiles was in the first version, which you wrote December 24 2005, if it helps find the thread. In any case, the bug report says,

Once in a great while when you start Thunderbird it forgets about the existence of an existing profile and runs the new account wizard. Exiting and starting again doesn't workaround the problem - it looks like you lost your profile even though all of the files are still there.

If all your files are still there and if no additional profile folder exists then that sounds like a trashedprefs.js file, which keeps track of Thunderbird and Mozilla Suite mail accounts, not a missing profile. I have a list of Mozilla bug reports at http://wymette.home.att.net/mozbugs.html (forgive the bad coding and lack of TOC - I simply use my boookmarks.html file to create it) which lists bugs that cover many of the issues that I've come across in the forums. Under "Profile and Prefs bugs" and "Profile data loss duplication or corruption" I've listed a lot of profile and "prefs.js gets wiped" bugs, including "mail/news accounts settings lost" type issues. Maybe you can find something there that fits. Alice 10:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I found another Thunderbird article that describes lost profile versus lost mail account settings (prefs.js issue) a bit more clearly: Disappearing_mail#Part_III (Shouldn't these articles about disappearing Tbird profiles or account settings be cross-referenced?)

Disappearing mail is a good starting point for several issues buts its too long/complex due to it trying to include text for all of those issues in itself. I'd like to simplify it by replacing parts of it with prominent links to other articles, and moving some of the text to new or existing articles. A couple of the paragraphs in part II probably belong in Empty_folders , part of part III is a duplicate of Recovering_a_profile_that_suddenly_disappeared, and I haven't fully thought through yet whether the "prefs.js corruption" section would be better off in one about missing accounts/settings. I suspect it would be easier for the reader if we try to use separate (but heavily cross-linked) articles to deal with missing or empty messages, accounts/settings, folders and profiles, and prominently steer the user in the right direction regardless of which of those articles they start with. Tanstaafl 06:00, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

If Moving_your_profile_folder is updated to deal with older versions of SeaMonkey should I state that Recovering_a_profile_that_suddenly_disappeared also supports SeaMonkey, or do you have another alternative in mind? I did update Moving_your_profile_folder to apply to Mozilla Suite/SeaMonkey 1.x but I don't know what that has to do with the profile that suddenly disappeared article, which already says that it applies to Mozilla Suite. If I were editing the "profile that suddenly disappeared" article I would remove everything about the "default profile name bug" and moving or renaming the profile "workaround" until I could find the references (bug or forum link) that verify the problem and what prevents it. In the meantime I would rename that article as "Recovering mail accounts and other settings that suddenly disappear" with the solution being to keep a backup copy of prefs.js since the article is more about lost account settings due to a problem with the prefs.js file (or just merge that article with Disappearing_mail... ) . Here's an example of how these issues get confused: Bug 205120 – Lost Profile after WIndows Crash, which starts off as a "registry.dat" issue with missing profile, then "morphs" into a Thunderbird prefs.js corruption issue. Alice 03:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't really care about updating Recovering_a_profile_that_suddenly_disappeared to deal with older versions of SeaMonkey. I wrote it to deal with a problem that I frequently see reported in the Thunderbird forums that you apparently don't believe exists because it doesn't occur with Firefox and SeaMonkey. While some Thunderbird users might run into problems due to trashed prefs.js files thats not what the article deals with. The users that the article has helped typically keep their existing prefs.js file and workaround the problem by modifying profiles.ini (in various different ways). Tanstaafl 06:00, 23 August 2007 (UTC)