There are some cases when Firefox initiates a restart:
1. Updating Fx prompts to restart it
2. Installing non-jetpack add-ons requires browser restart to run them
3. There are some add-ons like "restart button" that add a button that restart firefox upon clicking it.
4. Crash causes crash reporter to pop-up. Crash reporter always fails to submit a report and suggests to choose 1 of 2 actions: either close Firefox or restart it. User may choose to restart it.
In all the above cases firefox will restart without firefoxportable.exe, which will make it run in non-portable mode.
Could you do something to fix firefoxportable behavior for all (or at least some some of them) the mentioned above cases?
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In all instances except 4, it works fine here. The launcher is specifically written to check for Firefox restarts.
If Firefox updating itself doesn't start in portable mode, that's a Firefox bug as it is dropping its command line and environment variable as it updates which is a definitive bug in Firefox itself, one that did not used to occur.
We don't test for 4 as it is not a Firefox restart. Firefox crashes and the crash reporter runs. Then the crash reporter will offer to start Firefox. It's a bit moot as I've honestly never seen modern Firefox crash.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
As for 1-3: I experience different behavior:
firefox gets restarted, but firefoxportable.exe process dies, thus I suppose firefox.exe runs not in the portable mode. How can I help you investigate that issue? I've downloaded firefox portable from portableapps.com just yesterday and all I did is made it use my own profile and Nightly builds of Fx.
As for 4:
For test purposes you may install this restartless add-on:
Crash Me Now! Advanced that lets you trigger a crash whenever you like.
Nighlty builds are very buggy, completely untested and unsupported. We do not take bug reports based on them.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I've just switched back to 'release' channel and tested cases #1 and #2. Surprisingly, you were right: process firefoxportable.exe didn't die.
I didn't know there's any difference between the updates or restarts of Firefox from different update-channels, I thought they all use the same mechanism.
And so you're not going to add support for non-release channels, right? That's a pity.
As for case #4 - switching crash reporter completely off is better than having it running if it's completely broken, but if you could write a patch for Firefox - that'd be way more correct, since mozillians gather crash stats, and if they get completely zero data from portable Fx users - those users might experience some problems which mozillians might never get know of. And the users will be the ones who'll suffer from those problems most.
Writing a Firefox patch is outside my expertise.
As for nightlies, you're free to use them, but it sounds like they currently have a bug where they aren't properly passing their environment on restarts. As nightlies, these aren't intended for any sort of actual use and these types of huge bugs are completely expected. Nightlies aren't even up to alpha quality, so will often have major bugs like this including data-loss, security issues, environment loss on restart, etc.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Reopening this bug since that bug (which affects this one) also got reopened.
If user hits "restart firefox" in Mozilla Crash Reporter's window - the Firefox gets executed without firefoxportable.exe
Crash reporting being disabled is a separate bug and you already reported it, so no need to reopen this. As stated above, nightly is completely unsupported.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
OK, I just thought that you might have reconsidered about turning off Crash Reporter and thus this issue would need require a solution.