Unable to sync passwords and logins after computer reset
Hi there!
I recently had the misfortune of Windows crashing on me and my PC needing a repair shop to reboot it. In the process, I've been needing to download all my programs again, but thankfully I made a firefox account and was hopeful all my years of login info would be easy to boop back onto my PC.
However, when I attempt to access my logins, it bars me access and I can't sync it with my phone, an Android who has the firefox app. It keeps asking for a Primary Password, something I had before my PC was reset, but I only just put that back in and it won't allow me to input it or change it. I can't even transfer my information over from Chrome. It's really frustrating since while I know a variety of my logins, some of them I used firefox secure generated passwords on and I have to squint at my phone to tap them in.
Any help would be immensely appreciated, and I'm hoping if I reboot after my downloads are done that this might fix my issues. But if it doesn't, I wanted to type this up to be safe!
All Replies (3)
Hi
Thank you for your question about the Firefox Sync service.
It appears from your question, that you are using Firefox Sync as a back up service. This is not what Sync is designed to do. The Firefox Sync service takes a copy of the data you wish to include and transfers it to a second device (typically a mobile device such as a tablet or a telephone) running a copy of Firefox. The storage in between all attached devices is both temporary and fragile and is not stable enough to be (and is not designed as) a reliable backup service.
If you have a copy of your Firefox profile for desktop Firefox, you may be able to recover your bookmarks and other data. Please have a read of this article.
If you have a copy of your data on a mobile version of Firefox, please follow these instructions to connect it to Firefox Sync to copy your data.
Paul said
Hi Thank you for your question about the Firefox Sync service. It appears from your question, that you are using Firefox Sync as a back up service. This is not what Sync is designed to do. The Firefox Sync service takes a copy of the data you wish to include and transfers it to a second device (typically a mobile device such as a tablet or a telephone) running a copy of Firefox. The storage in between all attached devices is both temporary and fragile and is not stable enough to be (and is not designed as) a reliable backup service. If you have a copy of your Firefox profile for desktop Firefox, you may be able to recover your bookmarks and other data. Please have a read of this article. If you have a copy of your data on a mobile version of Firefox, please follow these instructions to connect it to Firefox Sync to copy your data.
So this isn't what I was using Sync for but after I did a reboot of the user profile and relaunched Firefox after I put a password back on my computer, this solved my issue. My logins are all stored on my profile and accessible from any computer that has firefox that I am logged into. The profile just hiccupped from the reset; I could access everything including my bookmarks. And now I have everything back! So uh. Thank you but this didn't relate to my issue whatsoever.
The issue was that Sync itself wasn't taking the data on the phone, which had everything, and unlocking the security on the desktop that was barring me from seeing everything. Once I had a password again it worked.
You can try to create a new profile and connect that profile to the Sync account.
See "Creating a profile":