Seamonkey will not hold personal default settings

I'm using Windows-XP and Seamonkey 1.0.5 and got a new probleme I never seen before.

After a total computer lockup and hit the reset button reboot, All my persoanl Seamonkey default settings went away and the sidebar menu and the personal tool bar was displayed on the screen in the browser.

When I went to mail, all of my personal preferences had disappeared and the standard Seamonkey defaults for screen display were showing.

I reset everything to how I want the screen to look and it will not hold the settings.

On a reload, Both the browser and the mail go back to the stardard default settings and will not retain my persoanl settings. I tried it a dozen times.

Since I use a new profile for each new year I have several profiles from past years and both my 2005 and 2006 profiles are still normal and I can change them and they hold the new change but, the 2007 profile will not.

I suspect there is a corrupt configuration file someplace and I took a shot at replacing the 2007 "pref.js" file with the one from the 2006 profile but, no luck so I apparently don't know what I am doing.

I could probably make a new profile and things would work but, I was wondering if someone can tell me which file to replace or an eaiser way out of this.

Thanks, Ray Smyth

 

Ray,

You tried the correct #1 solution, which is to replace the prefs.js file. Since that didn't work, then something is corrupt in your Profile. I would go ahead and create a new Profile.

Below are the files you want to copy from your SeaMonkey Profiles\*.slt folder. Allow these files to overwrite the existing files in the new Profiles\*.slt folder. Don't copy any files, other than the ones listed below:

xxxxxxxx.s - Password data
xxxxxxxx.w - Form Fill data
abook.mab - Address Book
bookmarks.html - Bookmarks
cookies.txt - Cookies
cookperm.txt - Cookie Manager/Cookie Permissions
custom.dic - Dictionary
history.mab - Collected Addresses (if you use this feature)
key3.db - Security Certificates (if applicable)
loginNames-aim.rdf - if applicable
loginNames-icq.rdf - if applicable
mailViews.dat - Current Message Views
panels.rdf - Panel displayed in the Sidebar
search.rdf - Search Plugins in the Sidebar
training.dat - Junk Mail training data
user.js - If you have created the file, if not disregard
usercontent.css - If you have created the file, if not disregard
userchrome.css - If you have created the file, if not disregard

Create the Mail, and Newsgroup Accounts

Copy these files only from the OLD profile, and paste into the NEW profile:
• Mail files (Inbox, Sent, etc., without the msf extension)
• Mail Filters (rules.dat)
• Copy all SBD folders to the NEW Mail folder (These are the subfolders)
• Delete files in the subfolders with .msf extensions

Caution: these files will replace any existing files in the new Mail folder (if any). You may first want to rename the Mail files, e.g., rename Inbox to OldInbox, etc. The renamed files will appear in the SeaMonkey Mail. This will ensure that you lose no existing mail.

That is really an obsolete version of SeaMonkey. Once you get your Profile up and running, you should really considering updating to the latest version, 1.1.6, which can be downloaded here:
http://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/

There have been many security vulnerabilities addressed since 1.0.5. Take a look here: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/known-vulnerabilities.html#SeaMonkey

 

Thanks Ramona,

As your aware I'm always reluctant to fix what ain't broke and version 1.0.5 has been doing just fine but, I decided to take your advice and install 1.1.6

However, I decided to try something else first.

My computer has 3 hard drives with nothing on C: except the OS and program files.

All my data files are on drive D: and D: is where I also keep each years Seamonkey profile under one main Folder named PROFILES.

Drive E: is not used except for backups

I use Norton Ghost version 10 to make a full scheduled backup of drive D: to Drive E: every night at 1:00 AM.

I therefore decided to use Ghost and do a restore of just the PROFILE folder from last nights backup.

This meant I restored all my profiles i.e. this years and about 4 others from previous years.

After the restore, I still had the same situation as before and Seamonkey would not retain the personal default settings.

It was at this point I decided to do as you suggested and installed version 1.1.6 of Seamonkey.

I was a little surprised that after the new install, Seamonkey picked up all the old profiles and personal default settings and worked like it was yesterday.

Everything was absolutely normal and as it has been in the past except, I had lost the HOME Button I keep on the Navigation Bar which allows you to hide the Personal Tool bar.

So, I went to http://webdesigns.ms11.net/seamonkey.html and reinstalled the Home Button and all was back to normal again.

I am now wondering if there is a configuration file of some sort within the Seamonkey system files which is on Drive C and not in the profile folder.

Do you have any idea. It's not important now. But, I am curious why the new install fixed it and not the Ghost restored profile files.

Thanks again -- Ray

 

It is a long post, and I may have gotten lost somewhere. You just say that you installed 1.1.6. I take that you installed it on top of 1.0.5. If you did that the profile does not come into the picture. You have two folders to contend with: one is the Seamonkey program files, and the other one is the Common Files|mozilla.org|GRE| numbered folder.
The profile is never affected by the presence of a new program, unless you managed to keep and use two or more programs with the same profile.

 

Ray,

I was assuming that you did a "clean" install, i.e., uninstalled the older version using Add/Remove. If so, then I can only assume that something in the SeaMonkey Program Files folder was corrupt, and then replaced by the new version. This would totally eliminate any corruption in the Profiles.

The issue isn't whether or not it is trouble free, but that you were running an insecure browser. That's the only reason I urge members to update to the current version. If you took a look at the "highly critical" security vulnerabilities that have been fixed since 1.0.5, then you were well advised to update.