{"id":2501,"date":"2013-02-27T11:37:36","date_gmt":"2013-02-27T00:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/nnethercote\/?p=2501"},"modified":"2013-02-27T14:03:40","modified_gmt":"2013-02-27T03:03:40","slug":"improving-reset-firefox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/nnethercote\/2013\/02\/27\/improving-reset-firefox\/","title":{"rendered":"Improving “Reset Firefox”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently wrote<\/a> about the wonderful “Reset Firefox” feature, which in one fell swoop can fix all sorts of bad behaviours.\u00a0 What follows is a number of complaints that commenters had, and some ideas about how to address them.<\/p>\n

“The name is misleading”<\/h3>\n

It’s true.\u00a0 It sounds like it will erase all of your data and customizations.\u00a0 The SUMO page<\/a> says the following.<\/p>\n

The Reset Firefox feature can fix many issues by restoring Firefox to its factory default state while saving your essential information.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Factory default state” and “while saving your essential information” are two phrases that sit together awkwardly. But it may be too late to change the name now.<\/p>\n

“But I have lots of configuration tweaks”<\/h3>\n

And they’ll all be lost.\u00a0 You can look in about:support to see “important modified preferences”.\u00a0 Or you can look at the “user set” entries in about:config.\u00a0 Or you can look at both, and wonder the two lists are different, and what the definition of “important” is.<\/p>\n

It would be very helpful if you could see who or what was responsible for each of those changes.\u00a0 Was it the user, via the Preferences dialog?\u00a0 The user via about:config?\u00a0 An add-on?\u00a0 Something auto-updated by core Firefox code?\u00a0 (And why do I always have dozens of “user set” preferences relating to printing, even on my Linux machine that I never print from?)<\/p>\n

Would an API tweak help?\u00a0 We could change the “setPref()” function (or whatever it’s called) to take an additional, optional argument that indicates who set it.\u00a0 It wouldn’t fix the problem immediately but would give a path forward.<\/p>\n

Update: I found bug 834034<\/a>, which is about preserving a user’s custom spell-check dictionary.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“But I have hundreds of tabs open”<\/h3>\n

And they’ll all be lost, too.\u00a0 Apparently the Session Manager<\/a> extension solves this problem.\u00a0 But that’s not obvious, and still a pain to manage.\u00a0 Maybe we could mention it in the documentation?<\/p>\n

Update: Alexander Limi pointed me in the direction of bug 833943<\/a>, which is about fixing this.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“But I have Dozens of add-ons installed”<\/h3>\n

And one of them might be causing your problems.\u00a0 You can get the list of installed add-ons from about:addons, so this one isn’t too hard to fix up manually.<\/p>\n

“I can’t see the ‘Reset Firefox’ button” \/ “I want to reset a non-default profile”<\/h3>\n

The “Reset Firefox” button only shows up in the default profile.\u00a0 (And sometimes not even there — I don’t get it on my default profile on my dev machine, where I have half a dozen profiles present.)<\/p>\n

There’s a bug<\/a> open about this.\u00a0 I could be wrong, but it doesn’t sound that hard to fix.<\/p>\n

“How do I undo it if it breaks something?”<\/h3>\n

The SUMO page addresses this.<\/p>\n

After the reset is finished, your old Firefox profile information will be placed on your desktop in a folder named “Old Firefox Data.” If the reset didn’t fix your problem you can restore some of the information not saved by copying files to the new profile that was created. See Copying files between profile folders<\/a> for instructions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The instructions on copying files between profile folders are clear, except for the fact that even an expert user will have little idea which files within a profile are important.\u00a0 It’s an intimidating process.<\/p>\n

“Why isn’t this automated?”<\/h3>\n

Well, because it loses some of your configuration.\u00a0 You don’t want Firefox discarding all your extensions every six months.<\/p>\n

“Why is this even needed in the first place?”<\/h3>\n

Ah.\u00a0 An interesting question.\u00a0 What exactly are the sources of the problems that Reset Firefox fixes?<\/p>\n