Firefox Community Forum

Prior to today, I've entered my [correct] Firefox primary password several times and it has always been accepted. It worked consistently right up until now, so what gives? And why aren't we simply allowed to reset our primary passwords, since all our browser settings, data, and personal preferences depend on accessing it via the primary password?

In short either send me a reset link, or instructions on how to reset my primary password.

Thank you!

Hi,

I have in the passed month reinstalled my Linux PC. during that process I recently my Firefox account and set my master password.

Yesterday, I re-synced Firefox.

Today I found out that my Firefox master password has been reset and anyone who could access my desktop would have complete access to any of my websites not protected by two factor authentication.

Is the master password synced?

So I have immediately reset it to the old password. as an initial step to protect my passwords locally.

I will shortly create a new random password and apply that as a new master password.

None of my website accounts appear to be compromised, yet. I have checked the ones I am most concerned about all of which have two factor authentication. I have not checked all of them by a long way.

I have several questions:

What can cause this?

What is at risk when this happens?

What should I do once I have discovered that my master password has been reset?

Should I change all the passwords of all my accounts?

If someone got access to my Firefox account could they re-sync to a different machine and have access to all my personal website data?

How can I protect against such a total disaster. At the moment the protection on this account is a password and an Authenticator App second line of defense. Although I was not asked for 2FA when logging into your support.

Is there a setting where you can set a timeout for access to passwords so when the time limit it is up it forces you to re-enter your master password to gain access when on a page asking for credentials? Currently I login with my master password and every site I go to Firefox will have my passwords ready to use, even if I leave my computer on for a week. How about a four hour timeout. After four hours and I go to a site asking for my credentials, Firefox will prompt me for my master password before letting me access the vault?

Tried to go to Amazon (I have a Prime acct.) on my desktop. Mozilla asked for my PIN. I don't have my PIN. Mozilla said go to Settings and Accounts to add a new PIN. I went to Firefox/Mozilla settings and could not find Account in order to get a PIN. I tried searching in Settings on Account; nothing. I scrolled and clicked around and could not find what I needed.

I am old but far from tech illiterate. I've worked on computers since the mid-1980s. I've had this sort of layered problem with Firefox before. Firefox has been my preferred browser since the 1990s, I believe. I appreciate the concerns with privacy and safety in browsing. But I've run into this sort of problem a number of times. I need to know how to address the PIN issue. I'm happy to get a new PIN if I could only find a way in the browser's settings to do just that.

And, by the way, the password I had for Firefox/Mozilla would not work, though I have it written down, know my entry was correct, keep my passwords in a safe place. I had to open my account on Firefox/Mozilla with Google, which, of course, meant entering another password and doing verification via iPhone. And, of course, I ended up entering with Google and the entry was associated with my secondary email address. That, unfortunately, is not the email address my Firefox/Mozilla account is associated with. It is associated with my primary email address.

All of this takes way more of my time, the customer's time, than I intended when all I wanted to do was open Amazon and print a return label on a product I had ordered. The ridiculous process has left me pretty pissed off.

Frankly, I'd be happy to simply enter my Amazon password to complete the task I need to complete, but Firefox is in the way! Please make your security add-ons clearer and more easily worked with. And please let me know how I can get a new blasted PIN! Of course, I will evidently have to change my Firefox/Mozilla password, as well, since you will no longer accept my current password that, BTW, was made in the past 6 months.

Ugh! Just recognized that I have to wait for another user to volunteer some sort of advice on this. That just makes me madder. I excised my actual email addresses, primary and secondary, from this message because I initially didn't realize this just goes out to a generalized community to see if anyone has something to offer.

Getting closer to abandoning Firefox.

I have no other devices to "sync" to. This may or may not be why my "passwords" in Firefox have been locked down as I can not now log into my hotmail.com account. Passwords are visible in Firefox except for the passkey which I can't seem to delete. I need to either see it or delete it. Also, it won't do any good to send a response to the e-mail linked to Mozilla. I had to create a new temporary account to try to get MS to restore my hotmail.com account. The storing of Passwords by Firefox is not helpful to me & I do not want it & need to turn it off. Thanks for help in this multilayered mess of software I'm using.

Depuis la dernière mise à jour, Firefox me demande le mot de passe principal à chaque ouverture de Firefox. Je ferme ou j'annule et ça marche sans avoir à renseigner mon mot de passe principal. (c'est agaçant !!) La procédure préconisée par Firefox (menu-paramètres-vie privée et sécurité-identifiants et mots de passe-décocher la case à côté d'utiliser un mot de passe principal....... ) ne change rien. Merci

When I open Firefox, the master pw window opens with data showing. I can x out of the window & continue. So my data is exposed to anyone who hacks into my desktop PC. WIN 11 64-bit. Please help.

It is about Master Password. Before the updates, users need to enter the password before they can continue using Firefox. After several updates it turns into Primary Password which doesn't work the way before. It now allows user to close the password input box and they can continue using the browser. I found this out after my nephew uses my PC and he uses Firefox and I noticed he was able to gain access on my browser. Lots of opened Tabs has been closed out. How can I bring back the old Master Password function which allows you to basically lock your Firefox? The new function Primary Password is a downgrade security feature.

The master password really needs a timeout setting unknown to me my computer was hacked I fell asleep with my Firefox browser open and they logged into my bank account the only reason I caught it was because I got a email stating I had logged in my bank account I was lucky I caught it fast and changed my bank password and removed the virus. Yes I know I should of logged off but I got side tracked and fell asleep. The timeout option on password managers are universal except for the Firefox password manager.

I have forgotten my Primary Password for Firefox on my PC.

I found the solution to reset it at: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-your-primary-password-if-youve-forgotten-it It explains that the stored data will be lost, which is fine. I made a recent backup (~99%).

But it does not say what will happen to connected devices (phone) using sync on the same account.

Will the emptied local storage on PC repopulate the data from the phone? Or will the phone sync with the empty storage on the PAC with as a result an empty storage on the phone as well.