Firefox Community Forum

When I want to view passwords Firefox is asking windows credentials which I don't have. Now I can't get access. It used to ask for my Firefox password what happened.

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.

After the last system update, I now am being asked to enter my "Primary password", every time I open a new page. When I try entering a password , it is not recognized and I have to click on cancel in order to proceed. I have used what I recall was my password but it is recognized, but I don't get a message telling me it is the wrong password. How can I get back to the previous version that did not ask for my Password. Is that an option?

As stated above, recently everytime I want to go to a sign in page on Firefox, a pop up asks me for my Mozilla password. I have to close the box and continue. Pls help!!!

Is the Primary (formerly called "Master") password shared or Firefox synchronised between different devices?

The reason that I ask this is that I am a decrepit and ignorant old bugger in his 8th decade that has been using Firefox for nearly 25 years. Consequently I have a lot of passwords stored in Firefox's password manager that I REALLY do not want to lose.

Unfortunately, on my main desktop machine, becoming more paranoid after a suspected identity theft attack, I decide to change the Master Password (recently re-named to Primary Password) to something longer and harder to guess or break.

Unfortunately I have forgotten what I changed it to ! (I can remember the first 15 characters but then not the ending sequence...)

However, I discovered that on an old laptop (that had not been connected to the internet for a long time - and I've disconnected it from the local Wi-Fi now) that my old password still worked and I could still see many of the old passwords (since it had not been synchronised).

I am worried that if I try and restore my passwords by now connecting to the internet and synchronising, I will then be locked out of this remaining treasury of my passwords if Firefox synchronisation then disastrously changes the old password (that I still remember) to the new password that I have forgotten - hence my question...

PS: I still have a paper record of something called an "Account Recovery Key" consisting of 8 groups of 4 alphanumeric characters (each group only contains capital letters and numerals - although one 4 character group does not contain any numerals at all, but all groups have at least one capital letter). Could I use this to recover the misremembered new password?

PPS: Don't you think it is always a bad idea to include both zeroes and letter Oh for Oscars in this account recovery key as capital letters rather than lower case letters, since they look so similar?

ie z00 or zoo is less prone to confusion that Z00 or ZOO

I will be purchasing a new desktop PC so that I can change to Windows 11 soon. My concern is that I use firefox to store all my passwords. I will need to use a 3rd party to transfer all my data from my old PC, I do not want them to have access to all of my many passwords. What should I do before I hand over my old PC to them for the upgrade to new PC ? I am old and not a tech savvy bloke, so do not get too technical please.

After liking what I heard about using a master password, esp. when using a dated OS like W7, I created a MP. I then stepped over to my W10 machine and did the same. A few days later I tired of the MP popup, and decided to remove passwords for financial sites, etc., and just leave the saved passwords in my browser. A week later I went to my W10 machine and the MP query popped up. I couldn't, and can't remember, the last 3 characters of my MP.

Is it possible to reset the MP without the MP? I don't care about losing the stored passwords that are on the W10 machine. I'll deal with them individually. Help? Thanks.

I do not have a password to use Firefox, and of course Amazon.com does not require a password unless I sign into my account. However, whenever I go to Amazon, a popup asks me for a password, saying that the request comes from Firefox. If I dismiss the popup, I can continue undisturbed with Amazon. I do not find this behavior with other Web sites, so I'm skeptical it's an overall Firefox setting or anything to do with my devices. Not that I can think of my mouse and backup drive as caring about security. Any thoughts?

It has been some time since I've used my Mozilla browser and cannot recall what I would have set my master password as. I have tried every password I would have used to no avail. I tried the account recovery with my gmail.com email, but the error message that I keep reaching says that I need the account I would've signed up with? If I enter a completely not related email, I get the proper message that there is no account associated. Being how long it has been, it's not a serious issue to even have access to old credentials, I definitely just want to access my account.

Thank you!

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.

Until the last couple of days, I could go to any website without having to put in my Primary Code, now Firefox is asking for the code on EVERY website and I am reluctant to put it in because it would then leave all of my accounts exposed if I leave my computer.

I'm happy using Password Manager, but I want to choose when I put in the Primary Password and not be dictated to by an algorithm, particularly if it doesn't involve membership and I am just looking for information.

How can i stop it from happeniing?

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 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.