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Peter Creasey
February 16th, 2006, 10:49 AM
Judy etal, I had to reinstall SeaMonkey from scratch.

Please give me exact instructions on how to create a profile using the PRIOR profile I had saved as a backup file.

I tried just replacing the *.slt file but this didn't work.

Please give me exact instructions

Thanks!

Judy G. Russell
February 16th, 2006, 11:53 AM
I'm not sure if there are any differences between SeaMonkey and the earlier Mozillas in terms of file structure. But these steps should work:

1. Start the Program and set up Mail and Newsgroup Accounts in the same order that they exist in your old Profile.

2. CLOSE SEAMONKEY!!!

3. Copy (what you wish to recover of) the following from your old BACKUP Profile over existing entries in your new one:

a. To recover bookmarks: bookmarks.html
b. To recover address book: abook.mab
c. To recover junk mail controls: training.dat
d. To recover cookies: cookies.txt, cookperm.txt, and hostperm.1
e. To recover personal dictionary: persdict.dat (on MAC this may be cust.dic)
f. To recover extensions and themes: the chrome folder. In Thunderbird the extensions and themes folders
g. There are other files, such as *.rdf that you may wish to copy.
h. The NEWS folder
i. From the MAIL folder: for each mail account: all files except those with extension ".msf"
j. Password files are of the form 12345678.s (where the digits are random) on Mozilla (and Netscape 6 and above). In order to use an old password file in a new Mozilla Profile, you must copy the 12345678.s file and the file key3.db (if it exists) from the old Profile to the new one. Then use any text editor to edit the file prefs.js in the new Profile and find the line (near the bottom of the file) that looks like: user_pref("signon.SignonFileName", "nnnnnnnn.s"); Change the "nnnnnnnn" to the random number of your old password file.

Peter Creasey
February 16th, 2006, 12:06 PM
Judy, I appreciate very much your providing this. Please don't think I am ungrateful when I say that I remember trying all of that before with Mozilla Suite and it wouldn't work.

I guess I was hoping that there was some general folder/file handling that would be more global.

Thanks!

Judy G. Russell
February 16th, 2006, 02:08 PM
The problem is with the SLT'ing system. That's what makes it impossible to simply drop one profile into another and expect it to work. With Seamonkey, I read that it's even more complex because a critical XUL file isn't even in the same place as the other files. So you're going to have to do your best with these directions. There isn't any easier way that will work.

Peter Creasey
February 16th, 2006, 02:54 PM
There isn't any easier way that will work.

Judy, thanks for keeping me advised.

Perhaps I'll be able to glean some useful data (*.csv files, etc.) from the backup profile.

Should there be any problem with just copying the contents of my backup Plugins folder into the new SeaMonkey Plugins folder or would it be safer to reinstall each plugin?

I had to reinstall Windows so this has not been a good week.

Judy G. Russell
February 16th, 2006, 04:57 PM
I would never ever copy over plugins, myself. My practice is always to reinstall.

Lindsey
February 16th, 2006, 11:09 PM
OK, I admit to having a seriously warped mind; when I saw "SM profile" in the thread title, "Sea Monkey" was not the first thing that came to mind (and I was wondering if it would need to be moved to Section 8) . . .

--Lindsey

Judy G. Russell
February 16th, 2006, 11:12 PM
OK, I admit to having a seriously warped mind; when I saw "SM profile" in the thread title, "Sea Monkey" was not the first thing that came to mind (and I was wondering if it would need to be moved to Section 8) . . .ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!

Peter Creasey
February 17th, 2006, 09:47 AM
I would never ever copy over plugins, myself. My practice is always to reinstall.

Judy, Thanks! That is pretty much what I was thinking also. Of course, this makes me wonder why I ever backed up up the Plugins folder!?!

I just figured out how to rescue my latest address books from the guts of my backup profile, tweak them into *.csv files, and import them into SeaMonkey. It will probably be easier (and perhaps more foolproof) than trying to import a whole profile.

Judy G. Russell
February 17th, 2006, 10:26 AM
I suspect that the address book backup could have been directly copied over the way I suggested. I don't think that's been changed that much in Sea Monkey.

Peter Creasey
February 17th, 2006, 10:31 AM
I suspect that the address book backup could have been directly copied over the way I suggested. I don't think that's been changed that much in Sea Monkey.

Judy, One change, I believe, is that in the *.csv file Sea Monkey needs a comma for each slot in the address book not filled. I don't recall that being the format with Mozilla Suite importing.

It might not matter, though, doing it the way you suggest (which I recall I was not able to get to work).

Rebuilding my whole PC system from scratch has been a huge job, but actually not as onerous as I expected...thanks to diligent backing up procedures which ended up often being utilized MUCH differently than intended. Creativity rules!

Dan in Saint Louis
February 17th, 2006, 11:41 AM
Judy, One change, I believe, is that in the *.csv file Sea Monkey needs a comma for each slot in the address book not filled. I don't recall that being the format with Mozilla Suite importing.
That's pretty much the standard for CSV files. Otherwise there is no delimiter for the empty fields, and information will wind up shifted one column to the left for each field left empty.

Hence Comma Separated Variables.

Judy G. Russell
February 17th, 2006, 12:03 PM
There's an old old joke about Jesus and Satan being in a coding contest. They code and code and code and, all of a sudden, the power goes out. Both of them swear a bit and, when the power comes back on, they both frantically start coding again. Very shortly thereafter, Jesus announces that he's finished. Satan can't believe it. "How could you possibly be finished?" he demands. "We lost everything when the power went out!"

And the moral of the story, of course, is that Jesus saves...

Peter Creasey
February 17th, 2006, 03:38 PM
That's pretty much the standard for CSV files. Otherwise there is no delimiter for the empty fields, and information will wind up shifted one column to the left for each field left empty.

Hence Comma Separated Variables.

Dan, I'm fairly certain that only ONE comma was needed in Mozilla Suite to separate the variables provided. I used this facility quite often with Mozilla Suite. MOZ then allowed me to define the variable positions before formatting the final address book.

SeaMonkey, on the other hand, requires ONE comma for EVERY variable whether provided or not. It just takes the data without allowing me to define the variable positions. Thus, oftentimes two or more commas are needed between variables provided. Also, the way I use the address books, SeaMonkey requires thirty-two (32) commas at the end of every one of my entries in every address book (to account for the 32 variables in each entry which I don't use).

Dan in Saint Louis
February 17th, 2006, 05:53 PM
MOZ then allowed me to define the variable positions before formatting the final address book.
I would suppose that they were no longer officially CSV if their position was defined by other than the commas themselves.

I really haven't messed around much inside the Thunderbird address book, but I can tell that it is a data base rather than CSV.

Peter Creasey
February 17th, 2006, 07:47 PM
I would suppose that they were no longer officially CSV if their position was defined by other than the commas themselves.


Dan, The idea that a user should have to enter 32 (and only 32) commas for every entry in the address book with the *.csv address book importing is laughable. And a big step back from Mozilla Suite. (And I say the foregoing as former experienced programmer/analyst.)

Even so, the SeaMonkey product appears to be very good product which I hope to keep on using. I hope that it continues to be a big success. I have found it to be reliable, stable, nimble, and fast.

Mike
February 18th, 2006, 12:57 AM
And you always act so innocent!

earler
February 18th, 2006, 04:51 AM
Since firefox seems fine to me why consider seamonkey?

-er

Peter Creasey
February 18th, 2006, 09:04 AM
Since firefox seems fine to me why consider seamonkey?

E, There are lots of answers and differences of opinions pro and con.

For me, I like both the browser and email capabilities; thus, SeaMonkey makes sense for me because it has a smaller footprint than the combination of Firefox and Thunderbird. Also, a lot of people are convinced that SeaMonkey is faster than Firefox.

Also, it makes sense to me to have one suite, SeaMonkey, rather than two parts to maintain and keep track of.

And so on!

Dan in Saint Louis
February 18th, 2006, 09:10 AM
Dan, The idea that a user should have to enter 32 (and only 32) commas for every entry in the address book with the *.csv address book importing is laughable.
That's the cost of CSVs. Very simple format, and the bad news is that for that simplicity one must put up with a few extra keystrokes. Obviously it is not a true data base.

In practice, few users actually try to build a CSV file manually. It is of most use as an export/import format between otherwise incompatible data files.

Peter Creasey
February 18th, 2006, 10:15 AM
In practice, few users actually try to build a CSV file manually. It is of most use as an export/import format between otherwise incompatible data files.

Dan, Not being argumentative or tedious, but how else would users go about getting a LARGE bunch of unexportable names and email addresses into a format and then import it into SeaMonkey (or Thunderbird)?

I am definitely ready to be enlightened to another (more palatable) strategy!

earler
February 18th, 2006, 10:52 AM
I know that I can plop the mozilla folder onto another computer and open firefox with everything just as it is on the first computer. I use this when I head down to the country. I put the folder on my laptop, then from there onto my desktop there. Same stuff: same history, same extensions, same cookies, same bookmarks. That's very convenient.

-er

Dan in Saint Louis
February 18th, 2006, 02:17 PM
how else would users go about getting a LARGE bunch of unexportable names and email addresses into a format

You just said it: unexportable. That implies that there was no meaningful format to deal with; in which case manual manipulation of the data, as unwelcome as it may be, is all that is left.

That in itself surprises me, because I would not imagine there to be so much difference between the Mozilla and SeaMonkey address books. Did they actually change the format? BIG OUCH!

Peter Creasey
February 18th, 2006, 06:38 PM
You just said it: unexportable. That implies that there was no meaningful format to deal with; in which case manual manipulation of the data, as unwelcome as it may be, is all that is left.


Dan, Yeah, you are confirming that is what I was left with.

In many respects, my backup procedures were admirable and have saved me lots of extra work. However, in retrospect, knowing what I know now, I should have occasionally exported my address books for backup purposes. I had no idea that it would not be sufficient to just save backups of my profile folder.

Fortunately, saving a backup of my profile folder has been helpful...just not as useful as I expected.

Dan in Saint Louis
February 18th, 2006, 07:48 PM
Fortunately, saving a backup of my profile folder has been helpful...just not as useful as I expected.

Have you tried just copying the saved "abook.mab" file to your new profile, as Judy suggested earlier? (You may have and I just missed your answer.)

Peter Creasey
February 18th, 2006, 08:12 PM
Have you tried just copying the saved "abook.mab" file to your new profile, as Judy suggested earlier? (You may have and I just missed your answer.)

Dan, I tried various of those things when transitioning from PC to PC with Mozilla Suite. I could not (with Judy's help) get Mozilla Suite to incorporate the numerous address books. They were not being recognized plus there were other problems (as I recall). We could not figure out the difficulty.

Given prior experiences, I am loath to interject those problems into a current environment.

Lindsey
February 18th, 2006, 10:12 PM
And you always act so innocent!
;-)

Judy G. Russell
February 18th, 2006, 11:40 PM
But you have nothing to lose by trying: if it doesn't work, you can trash the newly created profile and start over. Instead, you're taking the hard road on the possibility that the easy road won't work.

Peter Creasey
February 19th, 2006, 10:01 AM
But you have nothing to lose by trying: if it doesn't work, you can trash the newly created profile and start over. Instead, you're taking the hard road on the possibility that the easy road won't work.

Judy, I understand your point.

I tried it before, it didn't work, then I had trouble re-establishing a good profile. I'm not in any hurry with the address books so I've decided to take the safe route.

If I had your level of experience with the Mozilla programs, I would probably take the route you mentioned.

Judy G. Russell
February 19th, 2006, 10:46 AM
I understand your concern, but I assure you of this: if you have trouble and then completely nuke the troubled profile, you will have lost nothing by trying.