Newbie Q's about switching/copying profiles 115ESR -> r3dfox 128ESR

[Dibrom2]

Just installed portable version of 128.12.0 RC-2 ESR from 7zip archive.

Q1: The description says "the profile directory is inside the browser folder. It does not touch appdata at all". I went straight to about:profiles and my profile folder is located in: C:\Users\Dibrom2\AppData\Roaming\Eclipse Community\r3dfox\Profiles\ttyj9pso.default-default What have I done wrong? Completely vanilla new installation no customisation and the profile folder is NOT in the program folder like the instructions say it should be?

Q2: How do I force the profile to move into the program folder like it's supposed to be?

Q3: Is it possible to seemlessly transfer a FF 115ESR profile to use in r3dfox 128ESR and how is that done? Do I just copy the 115 profile complete and unmolested straight into the r3dfox profile folder and select it as the new default? Will that work or will that crash everything and bring the house down all around me?

Thank you for all useful help and advice offered to a complete r3dfox newbie

[krystian3w]

Maybe you deleted or lost the important file while unpacking in browser directory:

pmundprt.mod

that file is responsible for creating a profile folder in the main directory next to the files.

From my experience, only add-ons usually break (maybe I'm copying their settings directories incorrectly), most icons change to a missing file error and similarly to the settings panel (add-on functions seem to work, e.g. CSS form Stylus or JS form Tampermonkey – both are executed, but I can not modify them until I update the add-on by loading the last XPI).

[the-r3dacted]

The portable mode file is an empty file named pmundprt.mod inside the (r3dfox)\browser folder. If this file doesn't exist, then it uses normal mode. If it exists, it uses portable mode with a folder simply named "Profile" in the r3dfox directory.

There's also pmprt.mod which runs the browser in no-remote mode. So you can have multiple instances of the same browser running. However it doesn't support being set as the default browser as running the same .exe again only results in an error.

From my experience, only add-ons usually break (maybe I'm copying their settings directories incorrectly), most icons change to a missing file error and similarly to the settings panel (add-on functions seem to work, e.g. CSS form Stylus or JS form Tampermonkey – both are executed, but I cannot modify them until I update the add-on by loading the last XPI).

This should have been fixed in more recent r3dfox versions? Does it still happen?

[krystian3w]

I'd have to try once again moving my main profile from 115 to 128 again to see if it still breaks.

If you remember that you fixed it without waiting for the Mozilla developers to fix it, I probably won't be able to reproduce the problem at my side.

[Dibrom2]

Maybe you deleted or lost the important file while unpacking in browser directory:

pmundprt.mod

that file is responsible for creating a profile folder in the main directory next to the files.

That zero byte file is contained within the 7ZIP archive downloaded. Easy enough to check. It is also contained within the extracted contents I used to manually install r3dfox. It is contained here: browser\pmundprt.mod and it is zero bytes.

; Generated by WIN-SFV32 v1.0
; (Compatible: Total Commander 11.56RC1)
pmundprt.mod 00000000
MD5: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e *pmundprt.mod

[Dibrom2]

The portable mode file is an empty file named pmundprt.mod inside the (r3dfox)\browser folder. If this file doesn't exist, then it uses normal mode. If it exists, it uses portable mode with a folder simply named "Profile" in the r3dfox directory.

This DOES NOT WORK then as intended. I am the proof. I manually installed the 7ZIP portable installer and ran the executable. Very first thing it did was create a new profile in Appdata, not the program directory.

[the-r3dacted]

I'm confused because I use the portable mode, and it works fine for me.

Try making a shortcut of r3dfox_esr.exe and append -profile Profile to the target box and see if that works.

[krystian3w]

Maybe it's ESU's fault again (or those East European server/embedded patches 2023-2026 are bad)?

So far I can no longer reproduce the add-on icon crashes and their settings not being able to be opened.

[Vangelis66]

I manually installed the 7ZIP portable installer and ran the executable

... What do you actually mean by manually installed ?
The 7-zip "portable" archive IS NOT an installer and, as such, it doesn't install (itself or anything else); you just need to extract/decompress it onto a user-writable disk location, certainly NOT in the proper "Program Files" (or "Program Files (x86)") directory, where installed (for all users) programs usually go, and then run the main executable r3dfox_esr.exe (which you wrote you did) ...

As other members here in this thread have already verified, this "portable" setup works as intended for me; about:profiles is actually empty in my case, because I don't have any "installed/non-portable" r3dfox profile here;

and when visiting

about:support => Application Basics => Profile Folder

it writes:

"G:\PortableApps\r3dfoxPortable\128esr\128.12.0\App\Profile"

(r3dfox_esr.exe binary is inside the App folder); so, as I hope you can see, %APPDATA% isn't written to at all...
My OS is Windows Vista SP2 32-bit, with all MS updates up to its EoL...

If you've actually discovered a bug in r3dfox's portable setup implementation, then you're certainly the first! 😜
Is your Windows user account an administrator one or is it a less-privileged one?

[Dibrom2]

I manually installed the 7ZIP portable installer and ran the executable

... What do you actually mean by manually installed ?

By "install" I mean exactly what you wrote:

... What do you actually mean by manually installed ? The 7-zip "portable" archive IS NOT an installer and, as such, it doesn't install (itself or anything else); you just need to extract/decompress it onto a user-writable disk location, certainly NOT in the proper "Program Files" (or "Program Files (x86)") directory, where installed (for all users) programs usually go, and then run the main executable r3dfox_esr.exe (which you wrote you did) ...

The only difference is that I did manually create a directory for it inside Program Files, for the simple reason that it makes most sense for me to have ALL programs that run applications in the one place AND that folder happens to be sitting on the same SSD as the OS, which means it executes and runs faster that way than from a mechanical drive (which all the rest are). I have plenty of other portable apps which reside in exactly the same way completely contained within their own manually created folders under Program Files and it makes no difference whatsoever. If r3dfox cannot work as described in a portable fashion from within its own directory that just happens to reside under Program Files on the same SSD as the OS, then it will be the very first portable program I've come across that can't.

(r3dfox_esr.exe binary is inside the App folder); so, as I hope you can see, %APPDATA% isn't written to at all... My OS is Windows Vista SP2 32-bit, with all MS updates up to its EoL...

My OS is WinBorg 7 Ultimate x64 with all updates slipstreamed into the installer to Jan 2021. There is no 'App' folder or sub-folder at all. I have no idea what you're talking about. The executable is in the root folder of wherever you choose to put it. In my case I have named the install directory 'r3dfox' and that's where the executable sits. There is no sub-directory called 'App'.

Is your Windows user account an administrator one or is it a less-privileged one?

I am Administrator with all rights and fully unfettered access to anything and everything. My computer is wide open. There are no other user profiles other than Administrator and no-one has access to the computer other than me.

[krystian3w]

If I understand correctly, you chose the location to unpack "Program Files\YourName\Rd3fox_esr.exe"?

Maybe then the browser directory with an empty file pmundprt.mod is ignored... (This may be a bug inherited from the mypal code or a deliberate action based on the path and not the registry settings related to the preferred installation directory). On my side, placing it in program files only makes working badly with UAC active (the directory can not be created initially, it may not have permissions to modify profile files in the future) - unfortunately I haven't tested it with experimental patches from the period after January 14, 2020 to December 2021 (which would indicate that you or the "modder" purchased the 1 annual ESU (without 2 left years for companies and corporations or pretending to be Windows Server/Embedded which ends support in December 2025 or 2026)).

[the-r3dacted]

Oh, if it's in program files, Firefox needs admin to write there, so it won't put the profile there. I figured it would just hard error instead of launching, but I guess somewhat recently they added a fallback.

[the-r3dacted]

This issue is weird, I'm not sure what to do. If it's still a problem, open a new issue in the new repo.

[Vangelis66]

This issue is weird

... Not really... For reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_application

Applications capable of being "portably" installed are usually saved on detachable/external storage media, so they can be easily transferred across different host machines, with ALL of their settings intact across those different hosts...

I have ALL of my portable apps located inside an external disk ("G:\PortableApps\", in my case) and I routinely move them across three computers (1 desktop/2 laptops) in my household; or take them with me to work/a friend's house, etc; most of them are in the PAF format, several in the WinPenPack one, a few have custom portable launchers, like r3dfox has...

Another benefit of having portable apps outside the OS disk/partition is SURVIVING an OS loss; when the HDD in one of my laptops died, ALL of my (portable) apps survived, because they were on an external USB disk! And since 2005, when I first became the owner of a PC (XP SP3 32-bit), my internal disk is always divided into (at least) two partitions, C+D, the OS is on C, portable apps on D! Proved very handy when a vicious virus, during those early days, totally wiped Windows on C...

TL;DR: %ProgramFiles% (wikipedia) is a reserved directory for ALL user installation of applications that come with a standard/non-portable installer.; and in Vista+, the location isn't writable by a user with non-admin rights...
If OP wants to have his portable apps on the SSD disk, for speed and performance reasons, he may well do so, but on a location not immediately related to the OS itself, e.g. on C:\PortableApps\; IIANM, all PAF installers use that same logic by default to "install/save" their payload on disk; r3dfox "portable" can be "installed" in that same manner, outside of %ProgramFiles%, and then the user profile will be created in a Profile dir, adjacent to the main executable... No issue at all 😉 ...

Just my 2c, ofc...

[Dibrom2]

I've deleted r3dfox entirely now from Program Files and started again reinstalling it this time into its own r3dfox folder in the root of C:\ instead. This seems to have worked. I now get the default profile created in the Profile directory. Now if I overwrite everything in Profile with the contents of my default profile from FF v115.14.0, then all my bookmarks and settings and extensions and add-ons etc. are recreated in r3dfox as expected.

My question now though is how do you manage multiple profiles in r3dfox? If I go to about:profiles in r3dfox it lists no profiles at all. None. Not even a default profile. So how do you separate different profiles? Is it possible to even run multiple profiles in r3dfox?

[krystian3w]

I think only with a command indicating the profile, which can be converted to a *.LNK shortcut (instead of a *.bat or *.cmd file).

#340 (comment)

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#340 (comment)

As for the error, I get a generic ‘can not read/create profile’ when the browser is in a folder with UAC write requirements (I doubt that updates for servers/embedded/ESU hide it/break it so that it disappears).