Mozilla re-install has lost all my settings
Firefox would not load onto the screen, even though it appeared it was running in the background. After several checks, anti-virus etc, I reinstalled, and in the process have lost the ability to sync to my account.
I appear now to have a new account, registered to the same email address, and no sync and no way to contact you about security on all the log-ins stored in my old account that I cannot access.
And I have a Firefox sync key that I cannot use.
This is a big security problem for me: 1. I have no idea where this message is going, and how others might access my details 2. I have no idea where my log-in details are, or how secure they are - have they been deleted, and if so how securely?
I am very concerned but have no idea how you might respond, or who I'm even talking to. Plus:
3. I have lost all my bookmarks
Alle Antworten (8)
The good news, you've come to the right place.
The people who answer questions here, for the most part, are other Firefox users volunteering their time (like me), not Mozilla employees or Firefox developers.
If you want to leave feedback for Firefox developers, you can go to the Firefox Help menu and select Submit Feedback... or use this link. Your feedback gets collected by a team of people who read it and gather data about the most common issues.
lemm said
3. I have lost all my bookmarks
Look on your desktop. Do you see a folder called; Old Firefox? Look inside. Look for the folder with the latest creation date.
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
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-run-firefox-when-profile-missing-inaccessible
lemm said
I appear now to have a new account, registered to the same email address, and no sync and no way to contact you about security on all the log-ins stored in my old account that I cannot access.
Assuming your sync account was reset, only the data on the servers was lost. The data in your profiles would not be affected.
If for whatever reason you can't access the sync, the best thing to do is to close the old account and create a new one.
lemm said
Firefox would not load onto the screen, even though it appeared it was running in the background
This can happen if the browser window opens outside the area you can see. Is this still a problem?
Right-click on the Firefox icon and select Open New Window. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sometimes this works. If it opens, close it by Menu > File > Exit.
Hi FredMcD, your advice is much appreciated, thank you, but sadly in this case it didn't work. I think I reinstalled and then deleted my account, so the server info was lost, and then reinstalled again. I tried copying over the relevant files from 'Old Firefox Data' but nothing there.
Are there any security issues with my old profile data on the servers which, although deleted, may remain somewhere as a back-up?
Thanks again for your help.
On the servers, no one has access to deleted data.
lemm said
I tried copying over the relevant files from 'Old Firefox Data' but nothing there.
Just to confirm, you do not have an Old Firefox Data folder, or the files you copied over didn't change anything?
Could you check for any other profiles, in case Firefox created a new one?
Inside Firefox, type or paste about:profiles in the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it. You may see one or more profiles on this page, each of which has two associated folders (the "Root" folders have the good stuff in them).
The currently active profile has the line "This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted."
Do you see others? If so, you can check each one to see what bookmarks it has:
Click the Launch profile in new browser button for one profile. Firefox should open a new window that may look different from your current windows due to different toolbar layout or theme.
If you pop up the Library window (CommandCtrl+Shift+b) in the other profile, does it have the missing bookmarks when you click the various categories on the left side?
If no: You can close the Library window and the regular window for this profile, then return to your about:profiles page and try any others.
If yes: Do you want to switch to using this profile as your default, or just extract its bookmarks?
To switch your default profile: return to the about:profiles page you left open and use the Set as default profile button for this profile. Then you can close all the windows. The next time you start Firefox, it should start up in the profile you designated as default. If you accidentally got the wrong one, you can use the about:profiles page to change again.
To extract bookmarks: Use the Export feature to export these bookmarks to a file on your Desktop for easy access. See: Export Firefox bookmarks to an HTML file to back up or transfer bookmarks. Then close this Library window and the regular window for this profile. In a Library window in your normal profile, use the Import feature. See: Import Bookmarks from an HTML file.
Any progress so far?
Geändert am von jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
If you still had a Sync key then this was likely from a long time ago when the previous Sync version was still in use. Current Firefox releases use a Firefox Account with a email address and a password.
See also: