Firefox not keeping settings – solved

(Like many of my technology postings, this is really here for my own notes on problems I run into, the solutions I try and what works when. They are updated as I learn.)

EDIT:  5.25.18:  Yeah, it was CASSIE all along.

EDIT 6.27.17:   This solution does not work.  Onward…

 

Once upon a time, at my job we were encouraged to use a program called Update Freezer for the public use computers.  The program was simple enough, install it and turn it on and you could disable the updates for all the major programs (Adobe, Chrome, Firefox, Apple, Windows) .  It worked well enough but honestly I didn’t find it any quicker or easier than manually updating the computers.

As Windows 10 came along, we abandoned Update Freezer but not entirely it seems.  Enough of the remnants of the program remained to cause future updating problems.

The biggest problem was Firefox.  Every time a patron tried to open Firefox, they were asked if they want to import settings from another browser.  The Search Engine, Home page and History rules would never stay.  Now re-installing Update Freezer, enabling all the updates and uninstalling Update Freezer, sometimes more than once, fixed everything else. Firefox would not play nice.  I tried uninstalling Firefox with Revo Uninstaller and re-installing it but the same problems occured.

Turns out there is a Javascript in the Firefox installation that needed to be gotten rid of.  One would think that a Revo Uninstallation would take care of that.  So after re-installing, click on the menu icon and then Help.  In the first section, click Open Folder.  Find any Javascripts with the words perfs in it.  Delete them.  Restart Firefox.  Firefox will rebuild that perfs script and you can customize away.