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Date:      Thu, 08 Dec 2005 22:30:37 -0500
From:      bsdlogical <kwlogical@bellsouth.net>
To:        freebsd-ports@freebsd.org
Subject:   Firefox user profiles stored in strange directories
Message-ID:  <4398FA5D.2030601@bellsouth.net>

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I've recently noticed that Firefox stores profiles (in the ~/.mozilla
directory) under unreadable characters. At first glance I thought they
were Unicode, and my terminal couldn't read them. However, attempts at
reading them as Unicode characters have failed. The following is
thedirectory hierarchy starting at ~/.mozilla:
===
bsdlogical@krypton$ ls -lahR .mozilla
total 16
drwx------   2 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 ?d&(
drwx------   2 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 ?d&(0??
drwx------   2 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 ?d&(p??
drwx------   3 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 ?d&(???
drwx------   2 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 ?d&(???
drwx------   7 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 .
drwx------  53 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   3.5K Dec  8 22:18 ..

.mozilla/?d&(:
total 4
drwx------  2 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 .
drwx------  7 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 ..

.mozilla/?d&(0??:
total 4
drwx------  2 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 .
drwx------  7 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 ..
-rw-r-----  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical     0B Dec  8 22:18 console.log

.mozilla/?d&(p??:
total 6
drwx------  2 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 .
drwx------  7 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 ..
-rw-r-----  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   624B Dec  8 22:18 console.log

.mozilla/?d&(???:
total 6
drwx------  3 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 .
drwx------  7 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 ..
drwx------  6 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   1.0K Dec  8 22:20 7mvpapea.default

.mozilla/?d&(???/7mvpapea.default:
total 1128
drwx------  6 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   1.0K Dec  8 22:20 .
drwx------  3 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical     0B Dec  8 22:18 .parentlock
drwxr-xr-x  2 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 Cache
-rw-r--r--  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   685K Dec  8 22:18 XUL.mfasl
drwx------  2 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 bookmarkbackups
-rw-r--r--  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical    16K Dec  8 22:18 bookmarks.html
-rw-------  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical    64K Dec  8 22:19 cert8.db
drwxr-xr-x  2 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 chrome
-rw-------  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical    97B Dec  8 22:18 compatibility.ini
-rw-r--r--  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   121K Dec  8 22:18 compreg.dat
-rw-------  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   499B Dec  8 22:19 cookies.txt
drwxr-xr-x  2 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 extensions
-rw-r--r--  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   178B Dec  8 22:18 extensions.cache
-rw-r--r--  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   183B Dec  8 22:18 extensions.ini
-rw-r--r--  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   2.3K Dec  8 22:18 extensions.rdf
-rw-r--r--  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   207B Dec  8 22:20 formhistory.dat
-rw-r--r--  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   1.2K Dec  8 22:20 history.dat
-rw-------  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical    64K Dec  8 22:19 key3.db
-rw-r--r--  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   766B Dec  8 22:20 localstore.rdf
lrwxr-xr-x  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical    16B Dec  8 22:18 lock ->
127.0.0.1:+93065
-rw-r--r--  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   287B Dec  8 22:18 mimeTypes.rdf
-rw-r--r--  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   479B Dec  8 22:18 prefs.js
-rw-r--r--  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   752B Dec  8 22:18 search.rdf
-rw-------  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical    64K Dec  8 22:18 secmod.db
-rw-r--r--  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical    89K Dec  8 22:18 xpti.dat

.mozilla/?d&(???/7mvpapea.default/Cache:
total 134
drwxr-xr-x  2 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 .
drwx------  6 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   1.0K Dec  8 22:20 ..
-rw-------  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical    24K Dec  8 22:20 _CACHE_001_
-rw-------  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical    28K Dec  8 22:20 _CACHE_002_
-rw-------  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical    76K Dec  8 22:20 _CACHE_003_
-rw-------  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   276B Dec  8 22:19 _CACHE_MAP_

.mozilla/?d&(???/7mvpapea.default/bookmarkbackups:
total 20
drwx------  2 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 .
drwx------  6 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   1.0K Dec  8 22:20 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical    16K Dec  8 22:18
bookmarks-2005-12-08.html

.mozilla/?d&(???/7mvpapea.default/chrome:
total 8
drwxr-xr-x  2 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 .
drwx------  6 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   1.0K Dec  8 22:20 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   1.1K Dec  8 22:18
userChrome-example.css
-rw-r--r--  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   663B Dec  8 22:18
userContent-example.css

.mozilla/?d&(???/7mvpapea.default/extensions:
total 4
drwxr-xr-x  2 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 .
drwx------  6 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   1.0K Dec  8 22:20 ..

.mozilla/?d&(???:
total 6
drwx------  2 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 .
drwx------  7 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Dec  8 22:18 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical    34B Dec  8 22:18 profiles.ini
===
On another machine, the top of the hierarchy looks like this:
===
bsdlogical@argon$ ls -lah .mozilla
total 12
drwxr-xr-x   4 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Nov  5 18:20 .
drwxr-xr-x  60 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   4.0K Dec  8 19:18 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   335B Sep  5 13:25 appreg
drwxr-xr-x   3 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Sep  5 13:25 firefox
drwxr-xr-x   2 bsdlogical  bsdlogical   512B Nov  5 18:20 plugins
===
This problem has occurred since version 1.0.4 or so. In addition,
Firefox sometimes randomly creates a new profile. Besides being a minor
annoyance (favorites and settings disappear), it is also unpredictable.
===
bsdlogical@krypton$ uname -a
FreeBSD krypton.bsdlogical.com 5.4-STABLE FreeBSD 5.4-STABLE #2: Mon Jul
18 11:41:51 EDT 2005    
root@krypton.bsdlogical.com:/usr/src/sys/i386/compile/KRYPTON  i386
===
I'm using Firefox 1.5 at the moment (I haven't experienced the random
creation of a new profile, but the strange characters still persist -
even after forcing Firefox to regenerate the ~/.mozilla directory). Has
anyone had such problems before?

-bsdlogical



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