Firefox is not reading my restored profile after Windows reinstall
I needed to reinstall Windows (again!). Before doing so I saved my profile on to an external drive.
I followed the restore instructions (created a new profile and copy/pasted the saved files to the new profile folder) and can see that all the saved files now reside in the new profile folder but when I start Firefox it doesn't seem to be reading them at all. None of my bookmarks are available at all. It still looks just like a fresh install.
I must have made a mistake somewhere but I can't work out what.
Any insights would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Chosen solution
How did you create the new profile folder: did you use Firefox's profile manager?
If yes:
Try starting up using the profile manager again and test other profiles in case it is currently defaulted to the wrong one.
If no:
Firefox might not see that folder because of its semi-random name. If you navigate up one level from the Profiles folder to the Firefox folder, you should find a file named profiles.ini. If you open that file in a text editor, it likely does not have the path to your migrated folder. You can edit the path to match, then start Firefox up again to see whether Firefox connects with the migrated folder.
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Chosen Solution
How did you create the new profile folder: did you use Firefox's profile manager?
If yes:
Try starting up using the profile manager again and test other profiles in case it is currently defaulted to the wrong one.
If no:
Firefox might not see that folder because of its semi-random name. If you navigate up one level from the Profiles folder to the Firefox folder, you should find a file named profiles.ini. If you open that file in a text editor, it likely does not have the path to your migrated folder. You can edit the path to match, then start Firefox up again to see whether Firefox connects with the migrated folder.
Occasionally the problem is that instead of replacing all the files/folder in the new profile folder, the old profile folder becomes nested in the new folder in its entirety. Make sure that settings files such as places.sqlite are at the top level of the profile folder and not in a subfolder.
Thank all.
The problem was that I copied the saved data into the wrong place.
I copied to Users > %UserName% > AppData > Local > Mozilla etc.
When it should have been AppData >ROAMING >Mozilla etc.
When I fixed it, everything was restored as expected.
Sorry for my lack of brain cells and thank you for taking the trouble to try and help.