primary password
after using firefox for many, many years, today i keep getting a request for a primary password. i have never had to have this before & do not know why is being asked now...when did this become a requirement & how do i get my password information back? i have never set up any kind of password for firefox. i have tried current passwords & old passwords i would have used & it will not accept anything.
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@sagenuage81...since neither file options would let me back up files, i chose the "set as default" but when it started back up i only had the default-release file to use...so now i am starting from scratch with sign-ins & passwords after using firefox for years...seems like a bug in the new release...doesn't do anything for me now but you might want to look into it...however, your info was helpful in getting me to understand what was going on & that is appreciated...thank you
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Can you check if it's your Mozilla account? Otherwise, you can click the "cancel" button.
yes it is my account...no username/password information is now available & when i try to open passwords from menu i get a box asking for primary password...it will not accept anything...i can cancel that and go ahead to login & manually enter info but now do not have access to any saved info...have tried going into settings & went through every option available but found nothing useful. everything worked yesterday,,,what happened & i still don't know what a primary password is....have never had this come up in the 15 or so years of using firefox
I don't know. Maybe someone else set the primary password for you? Do you share the computer with others?
no, never have...live by myself & no one else is ever close to my computer...this just popped up today & i spent several hours trying to figure out what was going on, got really aggravated, came back later & same thing & now here i am...i am usually good at fixing glitches but this one doesn't make sense... do i have to delete firefox & start over from scratch? seems wrong after all these years & if i have to do that i will have to think hard about which browser to start over with which will be a shame because i have always liked firefox and i still don't know what exactly a primary password is
Primary password: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-primary-password-protect-stored-logins
Have used other tools which may cause problem: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-keeps-asking-me-primary-password
i'll give them a try...thanks for answering me even though i'm basically still confused...feel free to contact me if you run across any other options
A Primary Password is local protection for Firefox’s saved logins. It is not your Mozilla account password, and if Firefox really has a Primary Password set, the saved passwords cannot be read without that password.
I would not uninstall Firefox yet. First, check whether Firefox accidentally opened a different profile: type about:profiles in the address bar and see if there is another profile that looks older. Also make a backup copy of your Firefox profile folder before using any reset/remove-primary-password steps, because those can make saved login data unrecoverable.
If no other profile exists and none of your likely passwords work, the realistic choice may be to reset/remove the Primary Password and then re-save the site passwords as you log in again.
@sagenuage81...thank you for your help...am attaching a screen hot of the about:profile page...i don't know what to do with the options...can you tell me what i should do now? says the default-release cannot be deleted but i think that may be the file causing the problem...???? things are starting to make sense if this what it looking like...
الحل المُختار
@sagenuage81...since neither file options would let me back up files, i chose the "set as default" but when it started back up i only had the default-release file to use...so now i am starting from scratch with sign-ins & passwords after using firefox for years...seems like a bug in the new release...doesn't do anything for me now but you might want to look into it...however, your info was helpful in getting me to understand what was going on & that is appreciated...thank you