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"Refresh Firefox" ruined my profile with no backup

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  • Last reply by cor-el

Anonymous
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I just want to express my frustration.

Today during removal of Firefox (due to bug in Windows "winget" upgrader I got two versions of FF - 122.0 and 122.0.1 so wanted to remove one) I accidentally clicked "Refresh Firefox instead" without knowing what's going to happen in a few seconds.

Soon I was presented with a nice and clean Firefox window with no open tabs, no history and no addons.

I quickly went to my profile folder (%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles) only to discover that no full backup was made prior to "refreshing". There were some files preserved - places.sqlite, cookies.sqlite, but no addons, and no sessionstore.jsonlz4. From what I can see, some of the carefully tweaked settings in about:config are also lost.

Fortunately I made my own backup on 10th of October 2023, so I recovered most addons and some of the open tabs. I'm now in the process of restoring other tabs from history. But I like to have them open for weeks or even months, so it's going to take me a lot of time.

The Refresh Firefox thing should be removed because it only destroys data. OR MAKE THE DAMN FULL BACKUP OF THE ENTIRE ***UNTOUCHED*** USER PROFILE ***BEFORE*** REFRESHING IT!!!!!!!!!

You never cease to disappoint, Firefox. Now I'll waste a lot of time to restore what I had before clicking that damn button. And I need to set up a regular profile backup because I cannot trust the software I tried to trust the most... No wonder you're losing users. That is totally unacceptable.

Any clues on how to restore my profile to the state before the "refresh" disaster?

I just want to express my frustration. Today during removal of Firefox (due to bug in Windows "winget" upgrader I got two versions of FF - 122.0 and 122.0.1 so wanted to remove one) I accidentally clicked "Refresh Firefox instead" without knowing what's going to happen in a few seconds. Soon I was presented with a nice and clean Firefox window with no open tabs, no history and no addons. I quickly went to my profile folder (%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles) only to discover that no full backup was made prior to "refreshing". There were some files preserved - places.sqlite, cookies.sqlite, but no addons, and no sessionstore.jsonlz4. From what I can see, some of the carefully tweaked settings in about:config are also lost. Fortunately I made my own backup on 10th of October 2023, so I recovered most addons and some of the open tabs. I'm now in the process of restoring other tabs from history. But I like to have them open for weeks or even months, so it's going to take me a lot of time. '''The Refresh Firefox thing should be removed''' because it only destroys data. '''OR MAKE THE DAMN FULL BACKUP OF THE ENTIRE ***UNTOUCHED*** USER PROFILE ***BEFORE*** REFRESHING IT!!!!!!!!!''' You never cease to disappoint, Firefox. Now I'll waste a lot of time to restore what I had before clicking that damn button. And I need to set up a regular profile backup because I cannot trust the software I tried to trust the most... No wonder you're losing users. That is totally unacceptable. Any clues on how to restore my profile to the state before the "refresh" disaster?

All Replies (1)

cor-el
cor-el
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You can check if you have an "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop created as the result of using the Refresh feature in Firefox and a new profile has been created.

When you use the Firefox refresh feature, a new profile is created and some personal data (bookmarks and history, Form Data, tabs) is automatically imported. The current Firefox profile folder will be moved to an "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop. Installed extensions and other customization (toolbars, prefs) that you have made are lost and need to be redone.

It is possible to recover data from the "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop, but be careful not to copy corrupted files to avoid carrying over problems.

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