Hacker News Reader

Comment by daveFNbuck | Hacker News Reader

Every time I see one of these, I try to switch from the beta version to the stable version. I download the latest stable version, quit my browser, copy it to my applications folder, double-click, accept the warning that I'm running new software downloaded from the internet, and find myself in the next beta version.

Is there a way to switch from beta to stable without losing my profile?

View on HN

If you want to go back and forth between release and beta on a single profile, that’s not recommended. If you want to switch your current beta profile permanently to an installation of the stable release, you can do that from the terminal (command line) by running the Firefox executable with the -p parameter to select a profile. The documentation has instructions on where the profile is located and how to find which profile is used.

I just want to switch one time. I got on the beta like a year ago when the current version was unstable, and I've been trying to get back to release since that version was released. Where can I find this documentation? How do I install the stable release to port the profile to? Every attempt I've made results in me still having the beta version.

You need to create a new profile with the stable release.

How to create a new profile. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-...

Install the stable version but don't run it yet. Then follow the instructions to start the Profile Manager when Firefox is closed. If you need to recover data from your old profile, the link above has instructions too.

You could set up a Firefox Account and use Firefox Sync to synchronize your Beta and stable profiles (and then disable Sync or the account, if you like).

I'd do that, but sync misses things like container settings. Also, I'm unable to run stable at all. Whenever I install and run stable, I somehow end up with the beta version.

Container settings sync, and have done so for a while.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers#w_what-you-c.... (item #7)

That's great news. I have sync enabled already. The only remaining problem is that I can't seem to install the stable release. Whenever I download it and run the executable, it just starts up immediately in beta again.

Do make a backup if you attempt this as I'm talking from memory here, but I believe I managed to do this once by not updating the beta browser for a while and then copying it over once the release channel caught up with the beta. It might've involved modifying a version string in a profile file or something to trick it into accepting it, but it worked perfectly.

That's what I've tried to do every time there's a new release - update to the caught-up stable version before the beta upgrade. I haven't figured out the details of how to make that happen after a year or so of attempts now. I've turned off the automatic updates now, so at least I won't accidentally get upgraded past the stable release this time.

You shouldn't need to jump through hoops of you're not already running the _next_ beta.

I believe there's a beta switch in the general settings menu.

I'm not running the next beta. I've checked the general settings menu. I don't see the beta switch.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com