firefox just automatically "updated"...and now ALL my bookmarks, passwords, etc are GONE
am extremely techno-incompetent. --- computer just automatically updated firefox (have NO idea what version it is), and now all my bookmarks, passwords, etc., are gone. took me awhile to find 'refresh firefox' suggestion among all the techno-babble responses, but that didn't work. --- will take me HOURS to re-enter all the gotta-haves (banking; ebay; paypal; etc. ---- the nice-to-haves [recipes; how-tos; specialty sites; radio stations; tv/movies; etc. will probably be lost forever). -- and WHAT HAPPENS IF MY OTHER COMPUTER ALSO AUTOMATICALLY UPDATES AND REMOVES ALL THAT GOTTA-HAVE INFO???? --- any way to prevent that?
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Let me start here:
KathleenGifford said
WHAT HAPPENS IF MY OTHER COMPUTER ALSO AUTOMATICALLY UPDATES AND REMOVES ALL THAT GOTTA-HAVE INFO???? --- any way to prevent that?
Don't connect your broken Firefox to your Sync account if you do not want any spill-over effects.
computer just automatically updated firefox (have NO idea what version it is), and now all my bookmarks, passwords, etc., are gone.
Sorry to hear about that. If you lost all of your customizations, Firefox may have created a new profile.
If you haven't already, you may want to do a normal system shutdown and startup to release any file locks and complete any pending updates.
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, or
(2) Your old profile was locked, so Firefox ignored it and created a new one.
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 two folders here? One probably is from just a little bit ago when you tried Refresh to fix this problem. Can you find a second, older folder?
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 the "Open Folder" button, to launch a new window listing various files and folders in Windows Explorer.
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?
If you've got any promising looking folders, we can discuss next steps to recover use of them.