Firefox issue(s)
1) To import an existing profile you have to make a new directory for FF to access and unfortunately every time you close FF with the new profile it leaves a "lock & parentlock" file that have to be deleted before you can launch FF again otherwise it will say it's already in use.
2) If using a FF in a custom profile and you logout of Bazzite without closing FF the profile becomes corrupted and even deleting lock files will not retrieve it.
3) Using the default bazzite profile and enabling sync will bring over some if not most of the data; however, certain extensions break such as containerise.
Should I open a trouble ticket with Mozilla or is this a feature of an immutable OS? I have never had an issue using custom profiles on non-immutable linux distros as well as windows systems?
16 Replies
how are you importing your profile?
also, immutability is (likely) irrelevant here. assuming that you are using the Flatpak for Firefox, it would never need to read from or write to any part of the immutable file system
The process is use the profile manager to make a new profile in the home directory open FF once to make sure it works then close FF. Verify FF closed ie no loose processes running, then copy over existing profile from usb drive to the location created for the "new profile". Open FF and everything works fine and close FF. Only now when you go to open FF again you get a warning that "FF is currently running" that has to be resolved aka the lock files.
The lock file problem happens to any profile I make in the home directory and I can't make a profile anywhere other than the home directory whereas the "default" profile is where the flatpak FF is installed.
Where are you attempting to read the file from (or to)?
Not quite following. I'm making a new profile in the home directory so in my case the first iteration was called "~/FFprofile" and I fill it with the contents from a zip file that originates from a usb drive.
Did you give Firefox permissions to access that folder via Flatseal?
No I'll read up on it at https://www.debugpoint.com/manage-flatpak-permission-flatseal/ and give it another crack tonight. Other than someone mentioning doing so where would an unfamiliar user know that this would need to be done?
DebugPoint.com
A Beginner's Guide to Manage Flatpak Permission Using Flatseal
A tutorial on how to manage Flatpak package permission using the Flatseal application with examples and additional tips.
Look at the file system section in flatseal for the app you’re trying to use an external file with. Look to see if the file you want is contained in those folders
Add new folders to the permissions list as needed
The folder you want to use is not contained in the permissible range of folders by default
Thank you for the suggestion. So I changed flatseal FF to give access to files in the home folder and the lock issue persists unfortunately. Do you have any other suggestions that might be worth looking at?
Find out why that lock file is being put into place then
How do I review the logs in bazzite? I checked /var/log but I don't see a messages or syslog file and all the info I can get from the lock file is " lrwxrwxrwx. 1 bazz bazz 13 Jun 13 09:35 lock -> 10.1.1.122:+2: "
Unfortunately changing the flatseal and testing the profile nuked my FF profiles entirely 🎉 so for the time being I am using an alternative browser lol
Well, when you open it up to all of home, it’ll try reading from the profiles contained in the default Linux path of either
~/.config or ~/.local/share
Instead of the flatpak’s version of those folders
And if it’s going to the main folders, it will ignore the flatpak’s config foldersI checked those folders and don't readily see logs there. I mean I'm sure they are there I just don't see anything readily named log or messages or whatever.
I'm exasperated, this feels like a Linux experience from two decades ago where if you want a simple feature/function to work you have to spend hours working on it and rely on the kindness of others to help figure it out. I mean at least I'm not doing it over IRC so I can come back and review progress but this genuinely feels like two steps back.
I don't expect a Linux experience to be seamless (yet) but using an imported profile from one of the most popular browsers really should not be this difficult. Like how can I in good faith recommend this distro to any of my friends who are considering switching off of the MS ecosystem.
What would take longer? Rebuilding the profile or doing this?
I have never bothered importing profiles on any OS with Firefox. I just rebuild every time
In retrospect I would say trying to get the import to work has taken much longer. Rebuilding would probably take about an hour and I've invested quite a bit more than that trying to get it to work. I think I'll admit defeat and just rebuild the profile. Thank you for your help, it's a shame it didn't work out. I realize my use case is extremely niche and that most people can/will use the sync feature instead of the manual importing.
I import because I have userscripts as well as extensions that take a while to setup. It's all good. I'm an outlier here, it's still disappointing but at least it's not something that's going to affect a majority of people.
I’ve never had an import work 100% on any OS which is why I got to that point
Which implies a Firefox issue
I have imported this FF profile across at least a dozen (probably more) OS and the only issue I have encountered was the default landing page for FF can get cattywhompus. This is my first instance of it just not working, like I had a work around for the lock files (launching would run a script that deleted them and then executed FF) but I couldn't get it to work when a 3rd party app like discord would open a file in browser so I had to make a secondary browser my "default browser".
The real dealbreaker was that evidently not shutting down FF and just logging out would corrupt the whole profile. The behavior is fucky to say the least and I'm willing to put the work to make it work but like you pointed out its a matter of ROI on time invested.
I have tried sync twice now and both times it fails to grab most of the settings for the addons that I am after so it's pointless and I also don't like having to upload personal data into corporate clouds even if it is "encrypted" because I'm relying on that clouds security to prevent my data from being breached at some point.
Regardless, I'm rebuilding the profile lol. Thank you for your help (and patience)