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upgraded to the latest firefox and lost everything

  • 16 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 6 views
  • Last reply by ChaCha

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I upgraded to the latest firefox and lost everything. My toolbar on the top is gone, all my icons are gone, bookmarks are gone. What can I do to restore everything the way it was. I would of never upgraded if I would of known that this would happen. I do not even have a Print icon anymore. Please help!!!

I upgraded to the latest firefox and lost everything. My toolbar on the top is gone, all my icons are gone, bookmarks are gone. What can I do to restore everything the way it was. I would of never upgraded if I would of known that this would happen. I do not even have a Print icon anymore. Please help!!!

All Replies (16)

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Sorry to hear about that!

Do you recall using the Refresh feature during your update? This could occur when Firefox says it is starting slowly and you could speed it up by restoring some default settings. Then an Old Firefox Data folder appears on your desktop. Do you see anything like that? If so, please don't delete it, we'll use it to recover your old settings.

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Yes, I recall hitting a Refresh button, and yes, I see a yellow "old firefox data" icon on my desktop. What do I do now?

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Hi, here are some articles that should help -

You can restore the menu bar at the top by right click in the tab bar (but not on a tab) and tick/check Menu Bar.

If your question is resolved by this or another answer, please take a minute to let us know. Thank you.

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Sorry for the late reply! You have two options:

(1) Selective data restore, for example, restoring one of your bookmark backups, and then manually re-customizing the rest of Firefox.

(2) Old profile resurrection, which would return you to the settings at the time of the Refresh.

For #1:

Any newer bookmarks you have added since the Refresh will be lost. If you want to retain those, there are a few extra steps, basically, exporting your new set of bookmarks to an HTML-format file first, then doing the restore, then importing the HTML file.

For #2:

Please see this post: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1057756#answer-719277

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My Bookmarks are back again, and so is the toolbar on top (File, Edit, View, History, etc.). However, the "back arrow" is now located in the center of the page. How can I move it to the left edge of page where it was. Also, you asked (jscher2000) about an Old Firefox Data folder on my desktop; what shall I do with the folder? There are two names in that folder dated 5/18.

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Hmm, I don't understand about the Back button. Usually is it "connected" to the left end of the address bar. Is it still connected? Is there a blank area to the left of that? You might use the Customize feature to see whether there is anything to the left of the address bar that shouldn't be there. See: Customize Firefox controls, buttons and toolbars.

You can use the Old Firefox Data folder contents to find other old settings files that you might want, such as saved passwords. If after a week or two you are sure you are not missing anything important, then you can go ahead and delete it.

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Can you attach a screenshot to show how you see the back arrow?

  • Use a compressed image type like PNG or JPG to save the screenshot
  • Make sure that you do not exceed the maximum size of 1 MB
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Attaching a screenshot seems too complicated to try.

To the left of my address bar there is a "back arrow." To the left of the back arrow are the icons (print, home, etc.). I thought that the back arrow used to be on the left edge of my screen. In other words, can I move the icons closer to the middle so that the address bar and arrow will be on the left edge of my screen?

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Yes! If you call up Customize, you can drag those misplaced icons to new locations. This article describes the customize feature in more detail: Customize Firefox controls, buttons and toolbars.

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What will happen if I click on "customize" and then click on "restore default"? Will things return the way they were before I clicked on "Refresh the other day?

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The "Restore Defaults" button in Customize puts the toolbar items and the menu panel items back in their original locations for a fresh install of Firefox 38. Add-ons that modify toolbars can still put their buttons back if they do that automatically. Otherwise, you may need to add or move some buttons around while using the Customize mode (or going back into it later).

This is very different than Firefox's Refresh feature, which removes add-ons and changes you made to Options/Preferences as well as toolbar layout changes. If you want to "undo" the Refresh, you need to use the other technique I mentioned (#2: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1062699#answer-730364).

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What happens if I click on "Restore Default" and I do not like it. Will I be able to change it?

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Yes, if the standard layout is not to your liking, you can move the icons around by hand in Customize.

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If I click on "Restore Default," will the top of my screen look like it did before I did the "Refresh" a few days ago?

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Um, I have no idea because... I don't have a time machine to look at how your screen was before.

But seriously, is the Customize feature working? In other words, can you drag different icons to different parts of the main toolbar? If so, you might skip the restoring defaults and just keep customizing. But if things are lost and cannot be found anywhere, then using Restore Default will give you a fresh start.

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Yes, I am able to customize and move icons around. Thanks for all your help and support!