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HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2015-05-14, 12:46
by dark_moon
When you get problems with Pale Moon, the first step is to test if the Pale Moon Safe Mode/ a new Pale Moon profile helps.

The easiest way to do this is to open the safemode:
Where you find Safe Mode
Where you find Safe Mode
After clicking on it, you get this screen:
Safe Mode window
Safe Mode window
If you don't know what exactly the problem is/ or you just want to try Pale Moon without your addons once, then just click on Continue in Safe Mode.
After that you can see this in your addons overview (can be open with about:addons in urlbar too):
disabled Addons
disabled Addons
But may just disabling addons doesn't help because an addon creates a bad setting or your Pale Moon profile is corrupted. Then you have 2 methods to fix it (only works if you have Pale Moon installed):
First the easist and fastest way. Open Troubleshooting:
Where you find Troubleshooting
Where you find Troubleshooting
After clicking on it, you come to this site (can be opened with about:support in urlbar, too):
Troubleshooting (about:support) window
Troubleshooting (about:support) window
Then just click on Reset Pale Moon.. which opens this window:
Troubleshooting3.png
Troubleshooting3.png (18.06 KiB) Viewed 48683 times
Pale Moon now trys to reset your profile and in most cases this simple method fixes your problems.

If this didn't help/ or you want to test shortly a clean Pale Moon config, without the whole reset, then firstly you need to open the Pale Moon Profile Manager.
You can open it by typing palemoon -p in your Windows startmenu (only works if you have Pale Moon installed). It looks like this:
Profilemode1.png
Or you create a shortcut with this target: "C:\Program Files\Pale Moon\palemoon.exe" -p
(Maybe you need to change the path to your Pale Moon).
The -p after the inverted commas is important and stands for Profile Manager.

If you now open it, you get this window:
Profilemode2.png
Profilemode2.png (21.53 KiB) Viewed 48683 times
Here you can easy create a new Pale Moon profile, without loosing any data. Just press Create Profile and start it.


Thats all. I hope this helps users to fix problems with their Pale Moon profiles.

Re: HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2015-09-13, 14:46
by Night Wing
I must be getting old since I'm having a problem trying to create a new Pale Moon profile in Windows 7 and I do have Windows Pale Moon installed.

I've followed "dark moon's" instructions to the letter. Yet when I left click on "palemoon -p" (without the quote marks) in the Windows Start Menu, it doesn't take me to the profile manager. Instead, the left click launches Pale Moon everytime. I must be doing something wrong because I can't get to the Pale Moon Profile Manager.

Re: HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2015-09-13, 15:06
by Night Wing
It is Hell getting old. :(

I figured it out. I did NOT have Windows Pale Moon shut down.

Re: HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2015-09-14, 13:05
by squarefractal
If you want to use the profile manager while using Pale Moon, use:

Code: Select all

palemoon -p -no-remote
Note that the profile currently in use will be locked, and you can't delete or rename it.

Re: HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2015-09-14, 14:58
by dark_moon
Thanks for that tip, squarefractal!

Can a mod merge the two post from Night Wing?

Re: HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2016-06-08, 22:07
by J_R_S
A fantastic tutorial, Dark Moon! Thanks. If only they were all this well done. I did have one tiny glitch (once I also realized Pale Moon has to be closed when you run "palemoon -p" from the command line). I tried to create a shortcut to get to the Profile Manager more easily. I changed the shortcut's Properties line to include the -p outside of the double quotes as instructed, but the shortcut still just opened the browser, not the profile manager. After noodling about, I found that at least in my installation of Windows 7, I needed to go to the same place where I changed the Properties line, drop down and click the "Advanced" button and then check the box that says "run as Administrator". After I applied that change the shortcut to the Profile Manger works perfectly.

Now all I need to do is figure out how to migrate *all* the custom settings from an existing Profile to a newly-created Profile. :coffee:

Re: HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2016-10-08, 19:48
by LimboSlam
Question: How do I start up a new profile when using the beta? I'm testing certain add-ons out and would love to have a secure and clean environment.

Re: HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2016-10-08, 21:44
by dark_moon
@ LimboSlam: You just need to start Pale Moon with the profilemanager (-p).

Re: HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2016-10-08, 23:37
by LimboSlam
dark_moon wrote:@ LimboSlam: You just need to start Pale Moon with the profilemanager (-p).

Yes that of course works, but not what I mean. I'm trying to open up a clean profile of the beta version for Pale Moon. Is it possible?

Re: HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2016-10-09, 00:00
by dark_moon
Sure why not.
All Pale Moon version can create a clean profile with the profilemanager.

Or did i misunderstand your question? :wtf:

Re: HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2016-10-09, 03:48
by LimboSlam
It's all good. The portable seems to offer what I need.

Re: HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2016-11-30, 17:38
by 1210_bex
dark_moon wrote:When you get problems with Pale Moon, the first step is to test if the Pale Moon Safe Mode/ a new Pale Moon profile helps.
-------------------------
But may just disabling addons doesn't help because an addon creates a bad setting or your Pale Moon profile is corrupted. Then you have 2 methods to fix it (only works if you have Pale Moon installed):
First the easist and fastest way. Open Troubleshooting:
After clicking on it, you come to this site (can be opened with about:support in urlbar, too):
Then just click on Reset Pale Moon.. which opens this window:
Pale Moon now trys to reset your profile and in most cases this simple method fixes your problems.

If this didn't help/ or you want to test shortly a clean Pale Moon config, without the whole reset, then firstly you need to open the Pale Moon Profile Manager.
You can open it by typing palemoon -p in your Windows startmenu (only works if you have Pale Moon installed).
If you now open it, you get this window:
Here you can easy create a new Pale Moon profile, without loosing any data. Just press Create Profile and start it.
A great, and very clear post. Wish more were like that.

But what is not clear to me with either the Reset Pale Moon or a clean Pale Moon config choices, is what happens to all the addons (extensions, user styles, plugins, etc.) that I already have installed? It is easy to reinstall the extensions, but recreating all the settings for the extensions and user styles is a real pain. Is there some way to save from recreating all this information?


I also have some Portable versions installed on a USB stick. The 'Reset Pale Moon' option is not available on the Portable Troubleshooting Information screen. Also, is there a way to get a clean Pale Moon config without the whole reset on a Portable version?

Harry

Re: HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2016-12-01, 15:29
by dark_moon
A new profile doesn't have any addons or plugins. Reset Pale Moon give you the default state, so the same result.
The simplest way is to create a new profile or save your prefs.js and then copy the extensions.* settings to the new profil and you have all addons settings. (You neet to install the addons before that)

As i wrote in the HowTo the Reset feature is only avaiable on the desktop version. This is by design.

Re: HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2016-12-01, 18:06
by 1210_bex
dark_moon wrote:The simplest way is to create a new profile or save your prefs.js and then copy the extensions.* settings to the new profil and you have all addons settings. (You neet to install the addons before that)
Thanks for the clarifications.

One item is not clear. When I create a new Profile, am I copying over the old prefs.js file, or am I just copying the lines from that file which begin with {user_pref("extension.}, or is it something else?


Harry

Re: HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2016-12-01, 18:30
by dark_moon
I would only copy the user_pref extension stuff because if you replace the whole prefs.js with your old ones, the risk is very high to get another corrupt profile.

Re: HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2016-12-02, 00:23
by 1210_bex
dark_moon wrote:I would only copy the user_pref extension stuff because if you replace the whole prefs.js with your old ones, the risk is very high to get another corrupt profile.
Thanks for all your help and guidance. When I get to doing this, I'll let you know how it goes.

Harry

Re: HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2016-12-02, 04:43
by 1210_bex
dark_moon wrote:I would only copy the user_pref extension stuff because if you replace the whole prefs.js with your old ones, the risk is very high to get another corrupt profile.
A couple of more questions I just thought of. I have two computers on my network. Both the desktop and laptop run Windows 7 Pro (64 bit). Both run Pale Moon 26.5.0 (x86). The laptop has about 98% of the addons that are on my desktop.
Pale Moon on the laptop functions fine. It is the desktop that is having what might be a corrupt profile.
1. Can I test this by replacing the pref.js on my desktop with a copy of that file from my laptop? (Assuming I remove the addons that appear only on my desktop first.)
2. If the answer to #1 is yes, then instead could I do a comparison of the .pref.js files from both the desktop and the laptop, and only replace the user_pref extensions that are different?


Harry

Re: HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2016-12-02, 10:03
by dark_moon
You can always replace the prefs.js with another if you close Pale Moon before and make a backup.
The way how you do this, is your choice ;)

I would just create a new profile and revert any changes to the new profil. Maybe more work, but its more clean.

Re: HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2016-12-03, 05:47
by 1210_bex
dark_moon wrote:You can always replace the prefs.js with another if you close Pale Moon before and make a backup.
The way how you do this, is your choice ;)

I would just create a new profile and revert any changes to the new profil. Maybe more work, but its more clean.
Thanks for these tips. I 'think' I have found the problem. Since my laptop doesn't have the problem, I backed up it's profile, and began adding in each addin that is on my desktop, but not on my laptop. After each addin I added, if it was successful, I created a backup. And if there were lots of Options on any of the addins, I would only set a few like on the desktop, make another backup, etc. I finally got to settings on an addin which caused the problem. Then I compared the pref.js files, found the differences, and by trial and error found one specific setting that causes my problem.

At this point everything is backed up to the latest succesfull version. I will run things for a few days to make sure I have it. If so, then I will attempt a new profile.

Harry

Re: HowTo create a new Pale Moon Profile & use the Safemode

Posted: 2017-05-03, 00:49
by Thoron
Where did the reset option go? There is now a refresh and restart with addons disable.