Upgrade Firefox to latest version - stored passwords no longer available
I have configured my version of Firefox (32 bit, Windows 7) to use a master password for the pasword manager. I also hardened firefox to FIPS 140: it's a company laptop and I don't know where backups of the password database will go, so encrypting it sounds like a good idea.
I recently upgraded to the latest version of Firefox, from version 52. The master-password prompt no longer shows up when starting firefox, and all stored passwords seem gone. Uninstalling the latest version and reinstalling a previous one solves the problem quite quickly: all settings kept and passwords are back. However, the maintenance service will update firefox eventually and the problem reappears.
Is there something I can tweak, change or update to make sure my stored passwords are kept even after upgrading?
Gekose oplossing
Unfortunately this is a new bug introduced in Firefox 53. They are working on a fix for this in the bug below: Bug 1337950 - Cannot enable FIPS in Firefox 53.0a2
Comment 16 in that bug appears to have a workaround where deleting or renaming the secmod.db file in the Firefox profile folder solves the issue. Personally I would just rename the file and also backup the entire Firefox profile folder to a location you deem safe if loosing those passwords would be disastrous to you or hard to recover/reset. I always err on the side of caution and take steps to minimize data loss.
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Gekose oplossing
Unfortunately this is a new bug introduced in Firefox 53. They are working on a fix for this in the bug below: Bug 1337950 - Cannot enable FIPS in Firefox 53.0a2
Comment 16 in that bug appears to have a workaround where deleting or renaming the secmod.db file in the Firefox profile folder solves the issue. Personally I would just rename the file and also backup the entire Firefox profile folder to a location you deem safe if loosing those passwords would be disastrous to you or hard to recover/reset. I always err on the side of caution and take steps to minimize data loss.
That worked for me.
I closed Firefox, zipped the entire profile folder as backup, renamed the secmod.db file to secmod.db.fips as suggested and downloaded the latest version of Firefox. After the installation my passwords are still stored and a mast password protects them. I am happy :-)
Very happy to hear that worked for you! Looks like they fixed the bug today and it will be included in a future release of Firefox. :)