Everything is gone: Settings, Add-ons, passwords....vanished. Why do they do this when they update?
Who wants to hunt down their cryptically named profile? Who knows where it is? Why put us through this? Do they enjoy aggravating their users or are they just mentally deranged? Why, why, why? Who else does this kind of idiotic behavior? I can't think of a single other program that would elect to erase all of the setup we've painstakingly done for nothing.
All I did was go to the original location to check something and clicked firefox.exe. Then Poof. Did they just do a major update recently? Like today? When it checks for updates it says its up to date but it said that a few days ago I think. Version 113.0.1. I can't even find the previous profile. I see only one file under Firefox\App\bin that says "sqlite3.exe" which I think is how they name themselves. A rational person would name it PROFILE of course. But we're in the realm of the insane.
I do see "profile" in Firefox\Data though but its filled with dozens of files. And there's no indication of any other profiles there. There are several extensions there and as mine were wiped out maybe this is the old profile?
A sensible mind would simply tell us when there's a major update and how to recover everything.
All Replies (8)
Yes. This link may help.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recover-user-data-missing-after-firefox-update
Does this article help with recovery? https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recover-user-data-missing-after-firefox-update
EDIT I see that the link was just posted by Terry, so please ignore this message.
Modified by TechHorse
Note that Firefox uses two locations for the Firefox profile folder. One location for your personal data (e.g. bookmarks) and another location for temporary files like the disk cache, so make sure to look in the correct location. Both are in the hidden "AppData\Roaming" location.
Location used for the main profile that keeps your personal data (Root Directory on about:profiles).
- C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>
So I opened my profiles list at about:profiles but there is no date where each was created. Is the oldest one at the top? One would presume that as the newest one is at the bottom. They forgot to mention that on the page.
I just wanted to thank you all for the tips. about:profiles was great. What was strange is the one I used before the present one was at the top. So people have to check. Its pretty easy to know when you're on the right one. Just look at your Add-ons. They will be gone on the new version. Also it seems prudent to delete any other profiles that aren't what you want in there so you only ever have 2 max. Next time Mozilla updates Firefox in their bizarre way you can go to about:profile, switch to the other one and delete the one you were just using. Very easy and logical. 2 words seemingly unknown to many software developers.
Now why Mozilla does this is beyond comprehension. They must be absolutely nuts. What program does this? "Hey, let's wipe out all the settings and add-ons that all the users have spent so much time dialing in!". Great idea for alienating and pissing off your customers. When people see this they wonder what else are they going to do?
I just noticed my bookmarks are all gone. I thought they would come back with the other profile. Do I have to load the bookmarks manually?
One more reason its far smarter to keep your bookmarks for all browsers outside of all browsers! Its just not so convenient to access them. I'll have to figure that one out. I've been compiling them in a word processor that deals with hyperlinks and it's not bad. Still needs a lot of work though. I'm not good with expanding and collapsing bullets which is crucial for this to work.
I backup my Mozilla folder containing the profile. These links may help.
https://support.mozilla.org/kb/forum-response-recover-bookmarks-after-update https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data#w_what-information-is-stored-in-my-profile https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles