Recover Original Profile after ESR Install
Ok, I screwed up.
I was trying to solve a problem I've been having with regular releases of Firefox and it occurred to me try the ESR release so I downloaded and installed it. The good news is that it solved my problem, the bad news is that I just barrelled into it without thinking, assuming that my logins and bookmarks would just transfer over like with regular releases. They did not. It turns out I should have made a backup of those things first and I can't open the old regular release of Firefox to properly back-up those things now. Oops.
I've been reading lots of forum posts here and elsewhere trying to get those files into ESR and I haven't been successful. From the profile manager I've located the profile that still contains that info and I've tried:
Copying and pasting the "logins.json" and "key4.db" files from the "default-release" profile into the ESR profile which didn't work.
From "about:profiles" I also tried to "launch profile in a new browser" of the default-release profile so I can open that profile and properly back-up bookmarks and logins but I get a prompt to create a new profile which I tried several times and only resulted in several profiles of the ESR release.
Then it occurred to me that If I could just delete all instances of ESR and open the old default-profile then I could back-up the logins and bookmarks, THEN download and install ESR again and import those files but before diving into that I need to make sure that won't loose my original default-release profile info.
So experts, does that sound reasonable? Delete all instances of ESR so I can open the regular Firefox? What's the best way of going about that?
Thank you.
All Replies (6)
Bump...
BradBox82, if you have found the profilr folder that contains the original passwords and bookmarks etc. on the hardrive, then the absolute first thing to do is to fully close all running instances of Firefox then copy this folder to a safe backup location.
That way if anything goes wrong, you will at least be able to restore the data into standard Firefox.
Sory, I can't help with ESR specifically.
But you can certainly install a fresh copy of standard Firefox, and if it doesn't pick up the original profile then you can manually copy the files places.sqlite, favicons.sqlite, logins.json and key4.db from the backup to the new profile folder, then within standard Firefox export bookmarks and passwords to files.
And later install ESR and try to import those files from within it.
Hopefully someone who knows more about ESR can answer more specifically.
TechHorse, thanks very much for the reply.
Yes, I copied those files to a folder on my desktop early on while trying to resolve this so they should be safe. Why the logins didn't transfer when I copied/pasted them into the ESR profile I don't know. I would think it would be the same as a regular release.
I'm still wondering if an easy fix would be to delete the ESR releases leaving the regular release with profile intact but I'm not sure how to go about that the best way. Hopefully someone can help with that.
Thanks
BradBox82, a few releases ago Firefox changed the encryption method it uses for the passwords to AES. That might explain why the files can't be read if they are directly copied over to ESR, as it might still be using the old 3DES system?
Attempting to directly use profile files from a newer profile in an older version of Firefox is generally not recommended, and ESR is, of course, essentially a partially downdated version of standard.
An gyara daga TechHorse
TechHorse - Ahhh, I'll bet you're on to something there. So I will need to be able to open the newest regular release I have then I could save the logins to a firefox account or another alternative and be able to import those into ESR.
I just need to know how to delete ESR while keeping the regular release.
Thanks
BradBox82, are you able to open the standard release at all, even if with a different profile?
If you can, then you could copy the four original places.sqlite, favicons.sqlite, logins.json and key4.db files into the new standard profile folder (with Firefox closed), then start standard Firefox and export the bookmarks and passwords to csv, html or json files. These files might import into ESR Firefox without issue.
If you decide to try this, here are some guides that might help with the exporting and importing steps. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/export-login-data-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/restore-bookmarks-from-backup-or-move-them
An gyara daga TechHorse
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