Lost account data after reinitialisation my password
Hello everyone,
Thanks for taking the time to help me!
Today my Firefox's update to 78 bugged and forced me to reinstall it. After completing the new installation, I was asked to connect on my Firefox's account. Unfortunatly, I couldn't remember at all my password which I didn't type for years and was forced to reinitialize it, leading to a total erase of my account's datas : saved password, markbooks etc.
I would like to know if, in the case the erased datas are temporary saved (for emergencies maybe), if it would be possible to restore my old ones or download and import them, as I terribly need them.
I'm looking forward a happy ending, hopefully.
Yours
Chosen solution
The reason that your data gets erased on Firefox Sync when you change your Firefox Account password has to do with how encryption works. To ensure that your data is not stored on the Firefox Sync servers in a format that anyone can see (which would be bad for storing passwords), Firefox Sync encrypts the data so that you can't see it. For that, the system uses your Firefox Account password.
When Firefox Sync sends data to your device, it uses your account password to decrypt the data that it has on the servers. If you change your account password, the password will not longer match the one that the data was encrypted with, you can't view the data that's on there anymore.
Because your plain password isn't stored on Firefox Sync and the system has no way of knowing what your old password was (without you entering it), there's no way for Firefox Sync to encrypt the data with your new password.
The only other alternative would have been to reset your Firefox Account using the provided recovery keys, but it wouldn't have helped if, like many users, you hadn't actually activated your recovery keys. I'd recommend you do that in the future, so that you don't run into the same issue. See Reset your Mozilla account password with Recovery Keys for more information.
The TL;DR version of the story is, no your data can't be recovered from Firefox Sync.
That said, all hope may not be lost. If you only reinstalled Firefox, it's incredibly likely that your Firefox profile (the folder your data is stored in) is actually still on your computer, since that wouldn't be removed unless you specifically deleted it or your reinstalled Windows.
Although the page title may be misleading, the Recover user data missing after Firefox update page might actually have the steps you need to recover your old profile folder. If you just reinstalled Firefox, it likely just created a new blank profile for you and set it as the default. The steps in that page will explain how to see if the old profile is still there and change that the new default profile.
Hope this helps.
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Chosen Solution
The reason that your data gets erased on Firefox Sync when you change your Firefox Account password has to do with how encryption works. To ensure that your data is not stored on the Firefox Sync servers in a format that anyone can see (which would be bad for storing passwords), Firefox Sync encrypts the data so that you can't see it. For that, the system uses your Firefox Account password.
When Firefox Sync sends data to your device, it uses your account password to decrypt the data that it has on the servers. If you change your account password, the password will not longer match the one that the data was encrypted with, you can't view the data that's on there anymore.
Because your plain password isn't stored on Firefox Sync and the system has no way of knowing what your old password was (without you entering it), there's no way for Firefox Sync to encrypt the data with your new password.
The only other alternative would have been to reset your Firefox Account using the provided recovery keys, but it wouldn't have helped if, like many users, you hadn't actually activated your recovery keys. I'd recommend you do that in the future, so that you don't run into the same issue. See Reset your Mozilla account password with Recovery Keys for more information.
The TL;DR version of the story is, no your data can't be recovered from Firefox Sync.
That said, all hope may not be lost. If you only reinstalled Firefox, it's incredibly likely that your Firefox profile (the folder your data is stored in) is actually still on your computer, since that wouldn't be removed unless you specifically deleted it or your reinstalled Windows.
Although the page title may be misleading, the Recover user data missing after Firefox update page might actually have the steps you need to recover your old profile folder. If you just reinstalled Firefox, it likely just created a new blank profile for you and set it as the default. The steps in that page will explain how to see if the old profile is still there and change that the new default profile.
Hope this helps.
No, that data becomes inaccessible and is removed when you change or reset the password for this Firefox Account and you can no longer access it. This is because only the original password can decrypt this data. You should have gotten a warning when you did the password reset.
Reinstalling Firefox wouldn't affect data stored in the profile folder, so unless you removed the profile folder then you should still have your personal data.
Is there only one profile folder ?
If you lost personal data then it is possible that a new default-release profile folder has been created.
See "Determine if Firefox has created a new profile":
Thanks both of you, I didn't know anything about the profile folder and this solution perfectly worked!
I can't express enough my gratitude for your solution.
Take care both of you!