Mark Bourne wrote:
I've just updated SeaMonkey 2.26.1 to 2.33 on Windows Vista. Some notes
on a few issues and solutions I came across, in case they help anyone
else...
First off, back up your profile before updating - usually a good idea
anyway, just in case the new version messes something up in the profile
such that it won't even work in the old version.
1. Crash on Startup - due to missing xulstore.json
2. UI Customisations Lost - does anyone know a solution?
3. Saves Passwords Lost - fix found
1. Crash on Startup - due to missing xulstore.json
-------------------
After updating, every time I started SeaMonkey with the old profile, it
prompted for the master password but crashed after cancelling that
prompt. I tracked this down to xulstore.json being missing from my
existing profile folder. Creating an empty xulstore.json file in the
root of the profile allowed SeaMonkey to start. To find your profile
folder, see:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_SeaMonkey
I've reported this at:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1143503
Turns out this was already reported as bug 1092810:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1092810
It seems to be triggered by a combination of things in the old profile.
2. UI Customisations Lost - does anyone know a solution?
-------------------------
After fixing the above issue, a lot of the UI had reverted to defaults.
For example:
- All mail folders were collapsed (usually they remember the last state).
- Window division positions were reset (e.g. I previously had the folder
pane wider and the message pane shorter in Mail & News).
- Lightning reverted to day view, rather than month view.
Subsequently changing things and restarting, the customisations are
remembered. This is a one-off reset after the update.
This is probably related to the first issue, since xulstore.json
replaces localstore.rdf for storing UI customisation. See:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Localstore.rdf
So creating an empty xulstore.json probably put everything to defaults.
Perhaps an interim update would have converted localstore.rdf to
xulstore.json and avoided both these issues.
I haven't found a solution for this. Does anyone know of an easy way to
convert an old localstore.rdf to xulstore.json format?
It seems the crash is at least partially down to having a master
password set on the profile. Comment 16 by H. Hofer on bug 1092810:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1092810#c16
mentions a workaround for both the crash and losing customisations,
which works for me. It also seems to avoid losing the saved passwords
without the messing around in about:config I previously linked to.
In summary:
If you haven't yet upgraded to SeaMonkey 2.31 or higher, remove the
master password _before_ upgrading. Use Edit > Preferences > Privacy &
Security > Master Passwords > Change Password, enter the current
password and leave the new password blank (DO NOT use "Reset Password"
as that clears all your stored passwords). You can set the master
password again after upgrading.
If you have already upgraded, and haven't already worked around the
crash in another way, back up your profile and follow the steps in that
comment.
In my case, since I'd previously worked around the crash by creating an
empty xulstore.json and used SeaMonkey for a couple of days, I combined
parts of my old 2.26.1 profile with my new 2.33 profile. Take care doing
that - make backups first and if in doubt don't bother and just put up
with the customisations being reset!
- Backed up my new profile.
- Restored most of my 2.26.1 profile from a backup created immediately
before upgrading; I kept a few parts such as the mail folders from the
new profile to avoid losing emails etc. from the last couple of days.
- Followed H. Hofer's steps.
The only customisation I've spotted so far which was lost is that the
mail & news folders were all collapsed rather than in their last state
(a bit annoying since I have a lot of folders & subfolders nested
several levels deep, but no great disaster). I haven't yet spotted
anything else which has been reset. Window division positions, column
selections and widths, and Lightning view are all as they were before
upgrading.
Mark.
_______________________________________________
support-seamonkey mailing list
support-seamonkey@lists.mozilla.org
https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
