Firefox Community Forum

Dear Firefox China Team, After reinstalling Windows on 2025-07-22 and installing I signed in with the same Firefox Account (this one). Unfortunately: • No bookmarks, passwords, history or extensions were restored. • I believe “Sync” was enabled before the reinstall with all data types selected. • The UI only shows “Syncing…” but no data appears. Please help:

   Check whether any sync data exists for this UID.
   • If yes, explain why it is not downloading and provide recovery steps.
   • If no, supply official evidence (e.g., server-side log) showing zero data.
   If my data (bookmarks, logins.json/key4.db, form history, add-ons) is on your servers, kindly export it to me in an encrypted archive or provide a temporary secure download link.
   Advise how to prevent this “appears-to-be-synced but actually not” scenario in the future (mandatory manual backup, verification methods, etc.).

Troubleshooting already done: – Confirmed same account, same email. – Reset services.sync.* prefs to default. – Manually triggered sync; about:sync-log shows no error codes. – Created a fresh profile; still empty. Please reply at your earliest convenience so I can continue using Firefox with confidence. I am ready to provide Sync ID or any logs you need. Best regards,

I sent another help request on this subject but that too seems to have gone AWOL so I am trying again.

My passwords are being randomly wiped from my PC yet again but this time, although they are still on my Google Pixel 7 phone, Sync is not working for passwords. Strangely however, tabs are being synced.

I have tried every suggestion that I have found but syncing is just not happening.

To re-cap:- Passwords are not being synced from phone to PC Tabs are being synced between phone and PC.

Any suggestions?

Moderator note: This question has been edited to add a link to the previous question.

Recently I had to install a new windows, and I signed in to my Firefox account and found all the data from the previous windows including the open tabs, I could find them from "Tabs from other devices".

But now can't find them any more, although that device name is still there in my account page, under " connected services", please advise.

When following the instruction to sync bookmarks on Android phone it leads me to items that are not there. Open Firefox mobile on phone. Ok. Hit the 3 dots drop down. Ok. Choose sync and save. Not there? I click my email and it shows sync. I click that and it shows the last time I sync my phone. 0 minutes. Ok. It shows a QR code to scan from the Firefox app. It instructs to click ready to scan. That's not there either. If instructions lead you down paths that are not present, the instructions are useless. Anyone else having this experience? Thanks..........

Hello,

I have been using the same Firefox Account with Firefox Sync for several years.

I always reinstall Windows using a full disk format, and I have done this many times over the years. I have never signed out of my Firefox Account before reinstalling Windows, and Firefox Sync has always restored all my passwords, bookmarks, history and other synced data without any issues.

This time, after performing the same clean Windows installation and installing Firefox again, I signed into the same Firefox Account using the correct email address and two-factor authentication (Authenticator app).

I have verified that:

I am signed into the correct Firefox Account. Two-factor authentication works correctly. Firefox Sync is enabled for Passwords, Bookmarks, History, Tabs, Add-ons and Settings. Only the two new passwords I created after reinstalling Windows are present. All previously synced passwords, bookmarks, history, tabs and other data are missing. My Mozilla Account now shows only the new device. The previous computer is no longer listed.

I also checked the Firefox Sync log. It contains entries such as:

No metadata record Fresh start Wiping server data

Since I have successfully restored my Firefox data after many previous clean Windows installations using this same Firefox Account, this behavior is unexpected.

Could you please check whether my Firefox Sync storage still existed before this device connected, or whether it had already been reset or become empty?

Is there any possibility that my previous Sync data can still be recovered from the server?

Thank you for your time and assistance.

HI All Recently purchased a laptop and want to have FF sync with my desk top. I am signed in to both devices with the same account and have checked all settings on both and they are identical. Why are they not syncing?

For some reason after I restarted my laptop (firefox was opened) Mozilla was reset. I was logout from my acc and also firefox isn't my default browser (I didnt anything with it). Btw if I tried to open any link system will open it via firefox. But firefox still said that its not default browser in system. And if I open default apps in Windows I have 2 firefox there (and both recommend me to set is as default). Except FF I have only edge that also said that I can set is as default. After I login in my acc in firefox I haven't anything. No history, no passwords, extensions etc. What I can do here? I tried to use sync but as result I still have nothing.

Never cough smth like this before in same cases.

I wanted to synch my current settings in my browser to import them on my new laptop. When I tried to login to my account, I the message from the attached screenshot appeared. So I created a new profile, got my stuff back to what it should be and then deleted the "new" profile. But now every time I try to get into the correct profile and login into my account, I still get the message from the screenshot. I never ever synched with another profile before and never had an issue in the past. Right now I am rather pissed off, because I lost atleast some of my bookmarks during this whole ordeal.

I signed into my firefox account on my wife's computer and now ALL of her bookmarks, passwords are mixed in with my data. I've signed out of both accounts on that computer. I've signed out and relogged in on my computer. This is not a temporary issue. All of her data is somehow in my account. This seems like a MAJOR security flaw of the software. Were both using Windows 11 computers.

I have been trying to enable Firefox Sync on my Windows 11 PC (Firefox 145.02). I open the Firefox Sync window, I click on Log In, I enter my e-mail and click on "Sign up or Sign In" and then the view freezes and I never get any further. The attached screen capture never changes, no matter how long I wait.

I believe I got an automatic update to Version 154.0 yesterday on my Windows 11 laptop. When I opened Firefox after the update I got stuck

My Bookmarks appear to still be available, but my passwords are gone. The passwords are still available on my iPhone and iPad

I have tried syncing to no avail.

I need my passwords. How can I get them back?

Instructions everywhere say to open Firefox on mobile, select the options menu, and select "Sync and save your data." However, "Sync and save your data" does not exist. I cannot sync my passwords from mobile to my desktop.

使用系统：win11。我在之前的Firefox上已经登录了账号并开启了自动同步，前天我重新安装了系统并下载登录了账号。登录了账号之后并没有重新同步我的书签，我手动同步多次没有结果，并等待了一段时间自动同步，以及观察是否会同步书签到本地，结果仍没有。于是我尝试用我手机的Firefox登录电脑的Firefox，结果才同步了我手机的书签信息，但我手机的书签信息已经过时。而且电脑的Firefox显示可以和手机的Firefox互相同步信息及标签页等，但我观察后发现并没有完全同步，我电脑/手机的信息及标签页都是一天两天之前的，手动同步后仍然没有看到有更新。我希望同步回服务器的书签信息！

Subject: Firefox Sync appears to have erased all bookmarks after setting up a new Windows installation

Hello Mozilla Support,

I believe I have encountered a Firefox Sync issue that resulted in the loss of my entire bookmarks collection.

Here is exactly what happened:

I have been using Firefox Sync for several years without any issues. This was not my first Windows reinstallation. I have restored Firefox through Sync multiple times before. Firefox Sync had always synchronized bookmarks, passwords, history, extensions and open tabs correctly across my Windows PC and Android phone. I had approximately 350 bookmarks, organized into folders. Timeline Yesterday I performed a clean installation of Windows 11. I installed Firefox 152.0.5 (64-bit). I signed into my existing Firefox Account. I did not immediately enable Sync, so nothing was synchronized at that point. Today I enabled Sync and waited for the synchronization to complete. Passwords synchronized successfully. Browsing history synchronized successfully (it took a little longer). Extensions were restored successfully. Bookmarks never appeared.

Immediately after noticing this, I checked Firefox on my Android phone.

At first, one of the bookmark folders still showed that it contained more than 300 items (I saw the item count), but when I opened the folder it was completely empty. After synchronization finished, all bookmarks disappeared from both devices.

Additional information Browsing history is still present. Saved passwords are still present. Extensions are still present. Open tabs synchronization continues to work. Bookmark synchronization is enabled. I am signed into the correct Firefox Account. The second local Firefox profile is empty. The automatic bookmark backup now contains only the current state (7 items), indicating that the original backup has already been overwritten. The current profile contains both places.sqlite and places.sqlite-wal. The only Sync error log is related to a temporary DNS lookup failure (NS_ERROR_UNKNOWN_HOST) and contains no bookmark synchronization errors.

Because history, passwords and extensions synchronized correctly, this does not appear to be an account or authentication problem.

What concerns me most is that I briefly saw the bookmark folder still reporting over 300 items on Android before it became empty. This makes me suspect that something went wrong during bookmark synchronization rather than the bookmarks simply never existing on the server.

Could you please advise:

Is there any server-side recovery or investigation that can be performed for Firefox Sync bookmark data? Are there any diagnostic logs that I can provide? Is this a known issue with Firefox Sync after connecting a newly installed device?

I would greatly appreciate any assistance, as this bookmark collection had been accumulated over many years.

I have a Sync error log available: error-sync-1783454370913.txt

It only contains a DNS error related to tabs synchronization: NS_ERROR_UNKNOWN_HOST

There are no bookmark-related errors in the log.

Thank you.

Yesterday I only change the photo in my Firefox profile. Today I can't log-in to synchronize my account. When I click on "Anmelden" (German for "log-in") at the top right corner, a new tab opens, I can enter my e-mail adress, klick onto the button "Anmelden oder registrieren" (German for "log-in or register") it fades out and nothing else happens. I can access my account here as I logged in to send this message. What is the issue? How can I start synchronizing my account again? My Firefox version is 146.0 Thanks in advance, Chris

In the settings of Firefox there is a search bar you click it to type things in to search settings but I cant search settings? I type "Favorite" and there's no settings for favorites bar behavior? No, I don't want the favorites bar to delete itself after I click on anything. I want my favorites bar to be a favorites bar and stay there and not go away anytime I click on anything. It shouldnt just be there only when I click a new tab.

1) Why does searching the settings for "favorite" not display any favorites bar settings? 2) Why are my Firefox browser settings not persistent between multiple computers when I have enabled "Sync"?