problem importing profile to a laptop Topic is solved

[Lucio Chiappetti]

Operating system: Ubuntu 24.04.2 (origin) Ubuntu 24.04.1 (target)
Browser version: 34.3.1 GTK2
32-bit or 64-bit browser?: 64

I am preparing my laptop (target) for vacations. This machine is a "scratch machine" onto which I overwrite stuff from my usual desktop machine (origin).
The procedure (which so far always ran OK, last time in March) is:

1. I first update unconditionally Pale Moon to the latest version on the target machine
2. close the browser on the target machine
3. then I rsync my profile (the entire directory .moonchild\ productions/pale\ moon/w5zr0qvy.default (origin->target)

Step 1 was OK, the browser was restarted apparently without any problems.
When I restarted the browser after step 3 (from a terminal) I get the following message

Code: Select all

Gtk-Message: 21:36:42.266: Failed to load module "atk-bridge": 'gtk_module_displ
ay_init': /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gtk-2.0/modules/libgail.so: undefined symbol
: gtk_module_display_init

and the browser comes up with a blank profile, not my imported profile !!

[Goodydino]

If the new target is not the same as the older computer, the profile from the older one might not fit with the structure of the new machine. That could be why Pale Moon refused to use it.
You could back up bookmarks, prefs.js (or user.js if you have it), passwords and add them after Pale Moon on the new machine has made a profile.

[Lucio Chiappetti]

So far I have always been able to import an entire profile between the two machines (and in the past even between opensuse and ubuntu). It would be rather a pain to import piecewise a complex bookmark structure with lots of subdirectories, lots of extensions, ublock filters etc. etc.

I thought it could be a problem in a library, whatever it is libgail.so, so I did at system level
apt update ; apt upgrade (now the new machine is 24.04.4) ,,, but still I get the same message

Incidentally if I run palemoon -P $WWW_HOME and select explicitly a profile, it ignores the profile and even the URL and starts with a start.me page

EDIT: another attempt. I thought the update of palemoon to 34.3.1 has somewhat failed, so I renamed the directory where it is installed, and installed afrresh the original tar of the first installation before all the periodic automatic installations (some version 29). Well, it gives the same gtk error.

EDIT: further attempts. Fresh installation from tarball 34.3.1 GTK2, same error message and same behaviour. Fresh installation from tarball 34.3.1 GTK3 ... no GTK error but still ignores completely my profile ! So it might be there are two independent problems ?

[Lucio Chiappetti]

Well, I solved it in a drastic way ... I cleared my profile, and copied it afresh not using rsync but using a tar file. I verified with kdiff3 that the copy was identical (before rsync had dobe ab half cooked job !).
Now the GTK2 version (the one from the automatic update) works nearly perfectly (it still gives the ATK bridge error message ... maybe it gave it even before and I did not notice when starting at login and not from a terminal) ... but loads my profile perfectly !

[Veit Kannegieser]

ibgail / ATK interface is for accessibility, should be unrelated.
Please try using --new-instance --profile (path).

[adoxa]

Off-topic:

Please try using --new-instance --profile (path).

Speaking of which, --new-instance doesn't do what I would expect (in Windows, at least).

Code: Select all

C:\Internet\Pale Moon>palemoon.exe

C:\Internet\Pale Moon>tasklist /fi "imagename eq palemoon.exe"

Image Name                     PID Session Name        Session#    Mem Usage
========================= ======== ================ =========== ============
palemoon.exe                  6280 Console                    1    292,568 K

C:\Internet\Pale Moon>palemoon --new-instance

C:\Internet\Pale Moon>tasklist /fi "imagename eq palemoon.exe"

Image Name                     PID Session Name        Session#    Mem Usage
========================= ======== ================ =========== ============
palemoon.exe                  6280 Console                    1    302,660 K

C:\Internet\Pale Moon>

Still one instance, not two.

[Veit Kannegieser]

Off-topic:

Speaking of which, --new-instance doesn't do what I would expect (in Windows, at least).

In Debian, this works. Running just palemoon opens a new window, and returns to the shell; with --new-instance it opens the new instance, and the shell waits.
Also when having Pale Moon already open palemoon --profileManager just opens another window. Combining the options make them work reliable here.

[adoxa]

Off-topic:

In Debian, this works.

Huh, looking at the code it only appears to be enabled for X (MOZ_ENABLE_XREMOTE). I'm sure it used to work with Firefox, way back when; trying now it tells me it has to close the current one to open a new one.