Extensions wiped out, homepages n passwords gone - why does this keep happening?
3 times now I open FF as normal, maybe I stepped away to eat and closed FF & Chrome. Suddenly it's a new installation, none of my passwords/usernames are remembered, homepages gone as well as all extenstions like ghostery, vid dl etc have to reinstalled and configured.
I try to log in to the forum and 6 times FF say a pw reminder was sent over 30 minutes - not one came.
I followed some advice and FF suggested to "refresh" which just removed the add-ons I'd re-added since the first wipe-out!
What on earth is going on??
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That seems quite extreme, particularly since you are exiting Firefox normally and not crashing out.
Is there any pattern as to when this happens? For example, 3pm daily, every Monday at 9am, after Windows updates, etc.?
There are cases in which Firefox cannot access your existing settings and starts you up in a new profile, which looks like a first-time installation of Firefox. (Firefox then may retrieve some old settings by importing them from other browsers on your system, or at least offering to do so.)
If you haven't already, before doing any file moves/deletes/reinstalls, you may want to do a normal system shutdown and startup to release any file locks and complete any pending updates. One user reported it took three shutdown/restarts to sort out his issues.
If your data does not magically reappear, the most likely scenarios for complete data loss are:
(1) A Refresh started but the migration of data from your old profile to your new profile was incomplete (UNLIKELY), or
(2) Your old profile was locked, so Firefox ignored it and created a new one (MORE LIKELY).
Here's how to investigate those two possibilities:
Did Firefox perform a Refresh?
Unless it was interrupted in progress, you should find a folder on your desktop named Old Firefox Data. Inside would be a semi-randomly-named folder with freshly updated files. Do you see anything like that?
If so, we'll suggest how to rescue key files or completely restore the earlier profile folder.
If not...
Does the Profile Manager list your immediately previous profile folder?
To check on that, inside Firefox, type or paste about:profiles in the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it.
This page should list all the profiles Firefox is currently aware of. If you see a profile that is not currently set as default that looks promising, scroll down to it and click the Set as default profile button below that profile, then scroll back up and click the Restart normally button. (There are some other buttons, but I think those are still "under construction" so please ignore them.)
Firefox should exit and then start up using the other profile. Is that the right one?
If it's not there...
Did Firefox orphan your old profile folder?
Here's how to check whether there are additional profile folders in the standard location in addition to the one you're using. Start by opening your current Firefox profile folder using either:
* "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
* (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
* type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter/Return
In the first table on the page, click:
* Windows: the "Open Folder" button, to launch a new window listing various files and folders in Windows Explorer.
* Mac: the "Show in Finder" button, to launch a new window listing various files and folders in Finder.
In the Windows Explorer address bar, click the capitalized word Profiles to move up one level in the folder hierarchy. More than one folder here by any chance? Do the files in those folders look like they were last updated around the time of the update?
(Mac users: please do what you need to do in Finder to check up one level...)
If you've got any promising looking folders, we can discuss next steps to recover use of them.