Why does Firefox trash my profile at least twice a year - it is infuriating!
Firefox frequently trashes my profile - at least two or three times a year - leaving me with no book marks, no remembered logins / passwords. It is infuriating. Every time this happens I have to relearn how to recover. I don't know the "right way" to recover, so I delete everything in the current profile and then one by one I copy each of the old profiles into the current one until I find one that has my information - usually the largest of the recent profiles. Fortunately this time I remembered what to do and it only took me 30 minutes to recover, but in the past I have spent hours searching the Internet and my computer - there are at least two places where this info can be found - in %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ and on my desktop in a folder called "Old Firefox Data". It really ticks me off and wastes my time.
All Replies (4)
I don't know why this happens. You say it happens 2 or 3 times a year? Did anything happen at that time? Updates?
I use an add-on that makes backups of my user profile, Just In Case. Unfortunately, it is not compatible with the current Firefox.
Every now and then, open the profile folder and create a copy of the current profile as is to another location on your hard drive. This way you will have a backup.
If you do this each day, you will not lose much data. This should be done with Firefox Closed.
Note: In case you need to restore from these backups, you may need to overwrite old or corrupted files.
I cannot believe that I am the only person in the world who has this problem on a regular basis. One needs only to google "missing Foxfire profile" to see thousands of hits on this matter. It always happens after a Firefox update which happens when I first turn on my computer.
In spite of checking the option to not update automatically, but to inform me and ask permission to update, (an option that I would assume should reside in the profile), I often get the Firefox welcome screen after a stealthy update occurs and my home page(s) is nowhere to be found. My bookmarks are gone, and most important my saved login / password list is gone. This should not happen - a well-behaved program should never delete personal data without asking first.
"Note: In case you need to restore from these backups, you may need to overwrite old or corrupted files."
No, I have to overwrite the new unwanted generic profile. The first thing Firefox should do when it discovers an older version is present is that it should automatically make a backup of the profile for safekeeping and then not overwrite it as if it were a first-time installation.
I think Windows 10 users, who have been receiving much more significant system updates than other Windows users, have reported this problem more often than anyone else. Here's an example of my usual suggestion:
robertgreenhouse said
No, I have to overwrite the new unwanted generic profile.
That is a corrupt file because it does not have the proper data in it.