Re: repairing config files

nospam wrote:

> Through a wonderful (not really) snafu, my linux machine (Redhat 7.3,
> Mozilla 1.2b) was shut down improperly. After a fsck, there were a few
> "repaired" inodes on the filesystem. This left a couple of altered files
> in my ~/.mozilla/ directory. As a result, this one user account cannot
> see *any* menus under the "Edit/Preferences..." menu choice (no other
> user accounts are failing, just this one). The left half of the menu
> should be a tree type list of configurable categories, and the right
> side the actual adjustments available under that category. When opening
> that menu, the right side shows the "When Navigator starts up, display"
> default menu, but the left side tree is completely missing. The mail and
> newsgroup settings are fine. I can send/receive email fine. My prefs.js
> file is there, and if I change the home page startup in mozilla, the
> changes propagate to the prefs.js file...nothing seems to be missing in
> prefs.js. Which file holds the information that the left side of the
> browser window (the tree of configurable categories) uses to decide what
> to display?
>
> The first of two "repaired" inodes contains what looks like a series of
> mailbox://some.url and hashed username or password values (sort of like
> "remembered" passwords for various web sites). The second of two
> "repaired" inodes contains what looks like address book preferences for
> individual persons, with several entries such as "business.jobtitle",
> "business.companyname", and "home.city", as well as the hashed
> password-like fields. BOTH of the dangling inode files start with a top
> line of "#2c", and have what looks like a line with only a "." in it to
> separate records.
>
> How can I find out which file contains the list of editable preferences
> for the browser (the left half tree view in mozilla web browser
> preferences)?
>
> D. Stimits, stimits AT attbi.com
>

An update on this. By brute force duplication of the ~/.mozilla/ user 
directory, and copy of files from a working user to this copied 
directory, I determined that the offending failure was in file 
XUL.mfasl. By removing this file and letting mozilla regenerate a new 
one, I can now see the tree of browser options again. Can anyone tell me 
what I in terms of old data by deleting this file? Is it just a settings 
file that does not contain actual data of importance? E.G., does it 
contain anything important other than the settings structure list?

D. Stimits, stimits AT attbi.com