Today my windows xp2 crashed (probably because of Kerio firewall; it can cause such crashes from time to time). First Windows displayed the memory dump screen, then after some time restarted itself and finally displayed the message "Windows recovered from serious error" (or something like that).


After that when I started K-Meleon, my personal settings were completely gone. Also bookmarks cannot be found. I can't even open the bookmarks because they aren't available in the menu. The menu now displays only File, Edit, View, Sessions, Tools and Help.

Also, whenever I start a new window of K-Meleon, instead of the empty page now I get this displayed in the main portion of the screen:


homePageDefault=http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/
#homePageDefault=http://www.mozilla.org/
keywordList=http://home.netscape.com/escapes/keywords
webmailKeyword=http://webmail.netscape.com
fallbackDefaultSearchURL=http://www.google.com/search?q=
otherSearchURL=http://www.google.com
browser.startup.homepage=resource:///readme.html
#browser.startup.homepage=http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/start/
browser.throbber.url=http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/
browser.search.defaulturl=http://www.google.com/search?q=
general.useragent.contentlocale=US
browser.translation.service=http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=/language_tools&u=
browser.translation.serviceDomain=translate.google.com
startup.homepage_override_url=http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/start/


The URL for this page is: chrome://navigator-region/locale/region.properties


It seems that all my earlier settings are still intact in their K-Meleon folder (C:\Documents and settings\Myprofile\Application Data\K-Meleon\8a19btsc.default) but I don't know how to "tell" K-Meleon to use them.

Can anybody help me with this, please? How can I restore my previous settings in K-Meleon?

I would try a browser reinstall. The new install would
probably find the profile from your earlier browser
installation.
To be on the safe side, you should make a backup copy
of the old profile and put this elsewhere on your computer
before reinstalling the browser.
If after restarting the browser your bookmarks and settings
should not appear as before, you could always copy and
paste back the respective files into your new profile.

Fred

Before reinstall, make a backup and delete de prefs.js file. Yes, you'll lose your personal configuration, but not your profile.

I already had that error but I don't remember right now how I fixed. I had it much time ago.

Reinstalling K-meleon didn't fix the issue, but renaming the K-Meleon's folder in the Local Settings folder did.

I renamed this folder:

C:\Documents and settings\Myprofile\Application Data\K-Meleon

into

C:\Documents and settings\Myprofile\Application Data\K-Meleon_old

The next time I started K-Meleon it generated a new "K-Meleon" folder in that path, and it ran normally with its default settings. The issue with the menu (dissapearance of the bookmarks option) is now fixed.

I managed to copy the bookmarks from the old folder. I can't bring back the other settings (e.g. passwords), but that's not much of a problem anyway.


Thanks for your help.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2009 06:05PM by benspace.

That's why I told you to delete prefs.js. If you do, the settings are setting to default to the current profile.

Anyway, for the passwords you need a file with numbers with .s extension and the file key3.db.

The old profile is obsoleted but the data are normally not destroyed.

Profiles.ini shows the path to the NEW PROFILE. Look with Your file manger into Profiles: names & location and edit the bold value.

You probably have only two profiles & profile names.
It must point the path to the old not the current location.


[Profile0]
Name=default
Path=etaqbqbo.default
IsRelative=1
Default=1

Another path to repair is to copy relevannt files, e.g. bookmarks.html into the new profile. Post what You want.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/2009 12:18AM by guenter.

@ benspace:

I know Kerio Firewall crash, but kerio isn't a good modern firewall.
I used it a lot of time but I changed by other for crashes and because other are free firewalls and better (more secures).

Look Matousec.com firewall challenge.

K-Meleon in Spanish

I still prefer kerio 2.1.5. I had gone back to it after those newer firewalls either forgot my settings or let programs "call home" even after I set the programs to not access the net

I just had the same problem but not because of anything crashing afaik.

If I understood prefs.js file & also what other tech-minded posters were saying maybe I could fix the problem, but alas it's all a new world to me.

So it's goodbye K-meleon as i can't risk this happening again. A shame as it was a good browser, until this morning

Quote
stuart
So it's goodbye K-meleon as i can't risk this happening again. A shame as it was a good browser, until this morning

this problem may happen to all browsers that don't use the registry and rely on ini or prefs files in profile folders.. that is; all geckos( firefox and seamonkey and ocra) aswell as opera and webkit browsers like chrome and safari.. so all you'll be left with is internet explorer and its shells.(you don't really want to use those?)

for kmeleon, there're 2 extensions to backup your profile and settings in case of system crash or any other reason that can corrupt prefs files.

1st extension is xul based adapted by gunter, this gives you options of what files to backup : http://pagesperso-orange.fr/jujuland46/JujuLand/KMES/K-Ext110_ProfileBackup.exe

2nd extension is autoit and can be used with hao's non-xul kmeleon ccf me
http://kmext.sourceforge.net/files/profilebackup-portable.7z

with these extensions you can restore back your functioning profile after a corruption without any problems.
use whichever you prefer

Suggestion: Links to questions (and answer) like Where are my bookmarks, I can not use Hotmail, how to make Km portable etc. should be copied into Km FAQ, which itself should be made sticky on all subforums. So when a problem occurs, take a look into FAQ, and if it isn't there, then ask away.

That way similar or the same questions woldn't get asked over and over again and desga and others won't have to paste links Look at this thread.

And similar sticky topic where links to all disrupted and others kmm would be available. If something goes terribly wrong, you know where to look. That way, you do not have to search the forum or beg disrupted and others.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2009 07:24PM by panzer.

Quote
disrupted

Quote
stuart
So it's goodbye K-meleon as i can't risk this happening again. A shame as it was a good browser, until this morning

this problem may happen to all browsers that don't use the registry and rely on ini or prefs files in profile folders.. that is; all geckos( firefox and seamonkey and ocra) aswell as opera and webkit browsers like chrome and safari.. so all you'll be left with is internet explorer and its shells.(you don't really want to use those?)

[...]

Don't want to be contraditing such an high profile member of our small community as you are, but I had the same problem this morning with KM, but I have never ever experienced the same with any other browser -- I also have portable Opera, Orca and portable Iron in my system...

--- sig ---

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/2009 04:06PM by foobarly.

Quote
foobarly

Quote
disrupted

Quote
stuart
So it's goodbye K-meleon as i can't risk this happening again. A shame as it was a good browser, until this morning

this problem may happen to all browsers that don't use the registry and rely on ini or prefs files in profile folders.. that is; all geckos( firefox and seamonkey and ocra) aswell as opera and webkit browsers like chrome and safari.. so all you'll be left with is internet explorer and its shells.(you don't really want to use those?)

[...]

Don't want to be contraditing such an high profile member of our small community as you are, but I had the same problem this morning with KM, but I have never ever experienced the same with any other browser -- I also have portable Opera, Orca and portable Iron in my system...

i'm a high profile member? i thought i was executive club.. i'm kinda offended by this.. i know you don't mean it in a bad way but you might as well call me a bourgeois . all i do is convert few extensions written by others and according to the users ideas and i could have never have converted them without others' help like gunter and alain for xul help, james for macros and desga for autoit and a lot of other members like using their icons in a binary etc. what i like about km forums is the lack of 'social statuses; which are very obvious in other forums.. unless you spend a lot of time here; you'dn't know who's moderator and who's not.

maybe you're right, it doesn't happen in opera as in kmeleon.. but it is bound to happen to any program that uses files for settings instead of registry..whether it's a system crash that corrupts files when that program is running..or sometimes another os on a different partition that once you boot in it, it might identify that file as bad..especially if it contains unicode characters that the other os doesn't understand..there could be many reasons.. but almost always they are due to the os and not to the program..i had same thing happen with firefox recently when i had it open and suddenly decided to hook the sound card to an old but very powerful amplifier (not very smart i know..especially when the system is running but i was trying to send a message to a noisy neighbour ).. while fiddling at the back..system went to blue screen, when i rebooted windows deleted some of firefox profile files and unlike kmeleon, firefx doesn't try to revert to defaults..it just runs without a window and then pops a message about already running. i never experienced it with opera but i don't use it as much and it could be just luck that a mishap happens when a certain ini-reliant program is running but never happens when another is running.. ofcourse the probability is much higher with a program you use a lot.

i dont know if this is related but the folders where geckos normally store profiles is different from opera and webkits.

in geckos it's C:\Users[username]\AppData
in opera and webkit: C:\Users[user name]\Local Settings\Application Data

maybe has something to do with admin writing privileges different between those 2 folders.. i don't know. please feel free to contradict me whenever you want.. i'm not a 'high-member'.. i'm not anything.

you are right.. i just tested something in opera.
first opera uses same folder as geckos not as webkit but there's a very big dffierent.. the opera prefs 'opera.ini' file is not locked when opera is running. that means that unlike gecko browsers the prefs are loaded from that file into memory once and then the file is released.. in case you want to change a setting, it's locked when changing the setting..writes to the ini file and releases it again.

that means that in case of crash or a system misdemeanour , the file will not get corrupted .. i don't know if webkit is the same.. for a quick test you can try launching a browser and delete it's preference file..if it gets deleted, means files are not locked when browser is running if it displays file is used means file is locked by the browser.

so yes..this kind of profile corruption will never happen in opera the same way it happens in geckos.. i stand corrected

Quote
stuart
I just had the same problem but not because of anything crashing afaik.

If I understood prefs.js file & also what other tech-minded posters were saying maybe I could fix the problem, but alas it's all a new world to me.

So it's goodbye K-meleon as i can't risk this happening again. A shame as it was a good browser, until this morning

1.) To me it looks like: It is the scan disk runs. I found undamaged files/content (e.g. from a bookmarks file) in the scan disk dumps.

2.) Fixing prefs.js by hand is normally a think of the distant past. Only PPL using special non default settings may possibly need to know.

3.) Did You also leave/change Your OS

p.s. K-Meleon's configuration files are AFAIK not locked during browsing.

* If you make changes to this file while the application is running,
* the changes will be overwritten when the application exits.

Try to delete (after backup! You never know!) prefs.js. Profile.ini or registry.dat of Profile.
Some are rewritten on exit AFAIK some are not.
When the browser crashes You loose changes in some cases.

A crashed K-Meleon does not overwrite his default profile and data when it is crashed. A Thunderbird and some other apps do.

K-Meleon makes a new Profile after a bad crash. So it does not damage data.
You can usually copy the old profiles data to the new profile.
The repair has not always been so easy.

If You have reason to think You will get a scan disk run - You can try and override and make a backup before You allow the scan disk.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/2009 09:47PM by guenter.

Quote
guenter

Try to delete (after backup! You never know!) prefs.js. Profile.ini or registry.dat of Profile.

guenter, (& all you guys) it is really kind of you to take the time to reply, but I think I need a two-year fulltime course to begin to comprehend what you are saying.

Maybe not that bad, but until a friend who works in IT arrives in August I wont know where to begin!

It's all relative I guess as I showed someone how to cut & paste last month & now they think I am an IT genius, despite my protests!!

Warm wishes, Stuart

Nothing to know - You will find new profile via:
Edit (menu) > Configuration (submenu enty) > Profile Folder

If that gives You no idea where You are on HDD it is open its bookmarks.html (right clcik and open). Remember the profiles name. The browser will show You the absolute path of bookmarks.html which is in that folder. Now look around that location with Explorer or better a dedicated file manager (there are free ones).

Most PPL use always default (or at least the same) install settings.
A smart thing to do

So the old Profile folder should be right next to it in the same main directory.
Both have odd names: ovo4on0p.default (RandomString.default).

Make backup of new Profile folder, I love backup in case the cure is worse than the desease I can return to it. Then copy the content of the old profile folder into the new profile folder and overwrite the files. Nothing can go wrong You always have the backup.

If You find more than one suspects - open their bookmarks.html in the browser.
There must be one that looks good (just like You favorite lost bookmarks - that would be in the right profile folder )

Here is where Profiles normally are, Holger Metzger only knows K-Meleons old default location.
The new default is where he says Firefox has his / the only differnce our is called K-Meleon.

The old Profile location is still in use e.g. for portable K-Meleon, when You deselect Multi User profile support or something like that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2009 06:31PM by guenter.

@ benspace

Much the same happend to me this after noon. After finding that I could not fix it, a current backup of KM put me right back in action in about one minute. Keeping a backup of important files, apps and setup files on the machine as well as CD always comes in handy when stuff happens, and when we least expect it, stuff will happen.

Charlie

~~If it ain't broke, why screw it up?~~

@disrupted:

Just to clear my head, I addressed you as high-profile, 'cause I like to believe that what we have here at K-Meleon General is some form of meritocracy coated direct democracy, and no matter what you say, your merit is evidently much greater than mine.

But I dig your free thinking ways even more; thanks for being around...

--- sig ---

Quote
foobarly
that what we have here at K-Meleon General is some form of meritocracy coated direct democracy

no way! all k-meleoners are created equal.. km is a communism

No way, it is the meritocracy of the work horses (who make things they can share) not the all are equal of Orwell's "consumer class" (BTW. Before I forget, I want my favorite firefox extensions combined with the speed of K-Meleon - can You migrate them for me )

only if they are poorn extensions

Make it hard then: refspoof http://refspoof.mozdev.org/

A pity, it has sidebar

The other ones I wanted are ported or have native equivalent.

changing referrer?.. i think this can be made with macro but way beyond me, requires a guru like desga

i tested the spoofref ext... the sidebar is of very little importance..mainly opens help pages. the extension registered its protocols fine under kmeleon..also settings and options have set properly in prefs.. the main problem is the extension doesn't recognise kmeleon's urlbar(which ofcourse isn;t xul) to grab the addresses from it and use its spoof refer.. when i tested in fireslut, it uses this protocol to soof and refer
_{spoof://[spoofed url]/;ref://[referer url]}
e.g
_{spoof://google.com/;ref://fuckfuck.com}







using the same string in km, it didn't display 'protocol not registered' which means it recognises it but doesn't know what to do with it..the problem is with the spoofref overlay.js.. this needs a real js expert, with a very well-crafted macro to take the string and pass it to the js inside the chrome so it loads the page with the assigned referer..also editing the overlay js to recognise the urlbar and remove xul ff bar from it.

while was fiddling with it, i remembered that a long time ago; i downloaded a converted extension called refcontrol from joykillr's website http://www.digivill.net/~joykillr/kmeleon

it didn't work at the time and didn't care to bother with it cause thought no one cared for it..so i took a shot at it and it just had a couple of errors in the manifest(no spaces between content and jar! which caused console so say no chrome registered blah blue).. it works fine..it's not as versatile as refspoof but it does the job..you have to edit sites everytime through options. i tested it on swiftfree and checked panel and it works.







i've uploaded it here with the revised manifest
http://kmext.sourceforge.net/files/refcontrol-joykillr.7z

i've also uploaded crippled refspoof if you want to play with it
http://kmext.sourceforge.net/files/refspoof-kmcc.7z



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2010 08:29AM by disrupted.