Firefox Community Forum

Firefox abruptly factory reset itself after I turned my computer off and back on again. All of my themes, extensions, and bookmarks are gone. My phone, which was connected, is still normal and has my full search history+bookmarks.

How do I fix my computer?

My password is accepted to get into Firefox but not accepted to sync, I guess it is. It used to do so for years but now will not after the last update. Doing what the threads already suggested does not work in part because my Firefox does not even have the same places to activate what the suggestions offer.

(This is copied nearly directly from a post on r/firefox made a few hours ago—I decided it was best to spread it here for more exposure. The only change was the removal of the add-on names from the title due to character limits; these are Form History Control and Text Area Cache.)

I hope the title explains what I am looking for well. My main computer has had... spooky behavior with its file system recently, and I have been recommended to make a back-up, format my drive, and re-install my operating system (possibly upgrading from Windows 10 to 11 in the process). The biggest hold-up to me doing so is this, as I have no idea how to transfer the extension data between installs, or convert it into a human-readable form. The sheer number of writing drafts in those extensions both make losing them an unacceptable situation and copying the data manually into a document entirely impractical. So, can anyone help me with this? For context, I was on Firefox 138.0 when I stopped using my main computer due to those issues. (Note: It will certainly last long enough to do the Firefox Syncing and other back-up operations, just not for many more weeks or months.)

Hi I have used two computers for different purposes and places, but have had the same account with passwords synchronized on both machines. I would like to synchronize everything - especially bookmarks and payment methods - on the machines. My question is: what happens if I 'just' set synchronization active in all sections on both machines? Is one of the machines considered the 'master' machine, so its 'content' is synchronized to the other, so that content that was not on the 'master' machine is deleted? Or is everything preserved, so I have all content from both machines on both machines? Where can I possibly find more detailed information about this? Thanks in advance.

You used to be able to right-click a device in the sync tabs sidebar, and choose 'open all in tabs', but since the last update this has gone. So where's that option now? Thanks

Hello, I use Firefox on two desktop computers and one mobile device. Firefox is being slow on one desktop, so I want to "refresh" it. The [page] says that extensions and search engines will be removed... but will they be restored by Firefox Sync from the other desktop computer? Or will sync also remove extensions on the other computer? Thanks

The welcome addition of Tab Groups I just noticed on updating my Firefox, however looking through help and documentation, it's not clear to me if Tab Groups syncrhonise across devices (or at least desktop devices) as like recently added to Chrome. Wished to check if this is case

Hi, I've seen others ask this same question in archived posts with no proper answer.

How do I select all tabs to be imported from a synced machine? I have the list on my sidebar, I can import or close one tab at a time, but there is no menu available to select them all (there are many). Right-clicking on the device name etc. does nothing.

Windows 11, Firefox 141.0

Many thanks for any help!

How can I get my "Bookmarks" and "Extension" loaded on my new computer. I've loaded Firefox, signed-in, and completed the "Finish Setup"; but they haven't appeared.

Hi Y'all,

I have Firefox syncing to about 6 different systems (Windows, Mac, iOS) and have run into a situation where Firefox is wiping years of my synced data when I quit and restart Firefox. I sync all of items that can be synced and this has served me well for many years. What happened:

1. I logged on the admin account of a Mac where I previously logged in before and used Firefox with sync enabled. The machine had the initial Firefox short cuts: AP, Amazon, etc.
2. I enabled sync and did a 2FA but the my normal Firefox home page did not appear. So pressed the Sync now button to no effect.
3. When Firefox started, I did see the usual message that "It looks like you haven't started Firefox in a while. Would you like to refresh Firefox." I think that I closed that message but I could have accidentally refreshed Firefox for that account on that system.
4. I gave up and did what I needed to, closed Firefox, and logged out.
5. That evening when I was using Firefox on a Windows machine I could see that the sync information reduced to almost nothing from before the last day. The day I saw the saw the same and started to worry.
6. However, the Firefox on my main two Macs still had all the data. As a test, I deliberately closed Firefox on one of those two Macs. When I restarted, the synced data was wiped. This leads me to believe that somehow Mozilla's servers are holding the data based for the almost empty content of Firefox that I had on the administrative account that I synced.

So in other words rather than importing my data from Firefox when I connected sync, sync exported the settings of the Firefox account I was using in the admin account. I am writing this from my other main Mac which still has full information and I would like to force the synced information on this Mac to override or at least merge with what is on the Mozilla servers. Can this be done? I am 99% sure that if I close Firefox on this machine all my settings will be wiped. For now a I believe that I still have the correct sync data on at least this Mac, my iPhone, and few other Windows and Linux machines. I am in particular worried about losing the hundreds of passwords that I have saved. I forgot to check if the passwords were overwritten when I restarted the first Mac but I'll bet they were.

Thanks for any help...

Fred