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Upgrading your profile from Release to Nightly, which occurs automatically when you open it with Nightly, is a one-way irreversible step. This could prevent you

Upgrading your profile from Release to Nightly, which occurs automatically when you open it with Nightly, is a one-way irreversible step. This could prevent your profile from being used with Release without crashes, or lose profile data such as bookmarks or saved passwords when later used with Release, depending on what work is underway in Nightly and if it happens to be backwards-compatible. Be sure to backup your profile if you choose to switch channels. Note: I am told that Developer channel uses a separate profile, but there are instructions below showing people how to override that, at which point this warning becomes relevant once again.

andreareina 8y ago
Oof. Would you happen to know if it's the same with the developer edition as well?
- pygy_ 8y ago
  The developer edition has its own user profile.
  - floatingatoll 8y ago
    That’s a good point. However, some of the instructions below specifically tell people how to force any channel onto using the existing Release profile. I’ll update my post.
  - andreareina 8y ago
    And I told the developer edition to use my regular profile because that's the one that has all my settings and add-ons and I didn't realize the risk was there. Guess at this point all I can really do is hope and cross the bridge when I get there.
    - obituary_latte 8y ago
      If you’re on Mac, you should be able to recover the old profile with time machine. Or if you are on windows and have another backup setup.
- floatingatoll 8y ago
  Yes, the risk remains. If I read this right (from my phone), Release is 66, Developer is 67, Nightly is 68. This isn’t guaranteed to be a problem, but it’s not guaranteed okay either. YMMV. (See reply about Developer, though.)
abrowne 8y ago
FWIW I started using beta, nightly and the old "UX" channel, first on Mac and then on Linux, and before I knew it could be a problem I switched between them with the same profile all the time. Maybe there were subtle bugs I wasn't aware of, but nothing I ever noticed.
- floatingatoll 8y ago
  I haven’t run into any issues in a while, but you only have to get hit by lightning one time to lose your profile data. Best to be consciously careful about it.
  - abrowne 8y ago
    I do agree, and I'm more careful now. Always keep a backup, at the very least. I now symlink ~/bin/firefox to nightly because some apps seem to have it hardcoded to open "firefox" rather than what's set as default.
weavejester 8y ago
Looks like it would have been better to copy the profile instead. I managed to get most of my profile back using Firefox Sync, though for some reason it didn't transfer across my preferences and I had to redo those.

andreareina 8y ago

Oof. Would you happen to know if it's the same with the developer edition as well?

pygy_ 8y ago
The developer edition has its own user profile.
- floatingatoll 8y ago
  That’s a good point. However, some of the instructions below specifically tell people how to force any channel onto using the existing Release profile. I’ll update my post.
- andreareina 8y ago
  And I told the developer edition to use my regular profile because that's the one that has all my settings and add-ons and I didn't realize the risk was there. Guess at this point all I can really do is hope and cross the bridge when I get there.
  - obituary_latte 8y ago
    If you’re on Mac, you should be able to recover the old profile with time machine. Or if you are on windows and have another backup setup.
floatingatoll 8y ago
Yes, the risk remains. If I read this right (from my phone), Release is 66, Developer is 67, Nightly is 68. This isn’t guaranteed to be a problem, but it’s not guaranteed okay either. YMMV. (See reply about Developer, though.)

abrowne 8y ago

FWIW I started using beta, nightly and the old "UX" channel, first on Mac and then on Linux, and before I knew it could be a problem I switched between them with the same profile all the time. Maybe there were subtle bugs I wasn't aware of, but nothing I ever noticed.

floatingatoll 8y ago
I haven’t run into any issues in a while, but you only have to get hit by lightning one time to lose your profile data. Best to be consciously careful about it.
- abrowne 8y ago
  I do agree, and I'm more careful now. Always keep a backup, at the very least. I now symlink ~/bin/firefox to nightly because some apps seem to have it hardcoded to open "firefox" rather than what's set as default.

weavejester 8y ago

Looks like it would have been better to copy the profile instead. I managed to get most of my profile back using Firefox Sync, though for some reason it didn't transfer across my preferences and I had to redo those.