topic New profiles feature ignores existing profiles functionality in Discussions

New profiles feature ignores existing profiles functionality

jcoles — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 15:25:28 GMT

Profiles are not actually a new feature in Firefox, but they were not as easily accessible before v150.0. The only way to see profiles back then was to start from the command line: firefox -P. Evidently, the developers who created and promoted the "new" profiles feature were unaware of the existing profiles functionality. The result is that the new profiles feature knows nothing about pre-existing profiles except for the default one and the old profiles functionality knows nothing about profiles created with the new profiles feature. Can this confusing redundancy be resolved?

Re: New profiles feature ignores existing profiles functionality

wsm — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 17:43:39 GMT

> Evidently, the developers who created and promoted the "new" profiles feature were unaware of the existing profiles functionality

Quite improbable. Anyway, please use https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new/firefox for support issues. From there, bugs can be reported if it is confirmed to be a flaw.

Re: New profiles feature ignores existing profiles functionality

PhredE — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 08:45:49 GMT

That borders on absurdity, wsm. That the new profile developers were aware of the old profiles yet chose to ignore them and create their own subsystem without reference to the old way of doing it.

I'd say that's unlikely and that they just decide to add a new function; project management at Mozilla couldn't be half as ridiculous as it would seem in ignoring what already existed. Surely?

And it speak a lot about the project manager who let the new development go through. It's almost inconceivable that two profile systems were allowed to co-exist without thought of relating the two.

As the Bard would say, something is rotten in the state of Mozmark.

Re: New profiles feature ignores existing profiles functionality

wsm — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 13:54:59 GMT

@PhredE

I think you misunderstand my meaning of "Quite improbable". What I mean is the developers who wrote about:profiles are well aware of the old profile system and the old profile manager. It is not an implication that there are no bugs.

I have used both extensively and have never found a problem. But I have not said there can't be bugs in the code - possible examples have been posted. Another possibility is something strange happening in the user's environment.

Still, the best place to get help is a place designed for user problems at https://support.mozilla.org/questions/new/firefox, not here in a discussion forum.