Firefox has wiped my saved passwords!
For no obvious reason, when I logged on a few days I found all my saved passwords gone - Firefox has wiped them all (about 100, including banking passwords). As most of these were not written down, this has left a big problem. The logins file mentioned in some solutions is only the new version which is being built by contacting every website and asking for password reminders. For some sites this will be impossible. Where has my database gone. This seems a common problem with Firefox now - please fix it! I have never had this happen in 10 years of sing Firefox. Thank you for your help.
Toate răspunsurile (11)
Are/did you use any password add-ons?
Look on your desktop. Do you see a folder called; Old Firefox?
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-run-firefox-when-profile-missing-inaccessible
Type about:profiles<enter> in the address bar. How many profiles are listed? How many should be there?
In the event that the passwords information is lost, you should record all information in a separate text file somewhere else on your hard drive, or written down. You can easily copy and paste if you need to do so. If you are concerned about someone else looking at that file, you can compress it using a password.
Hi Fred, There's no Old Firefox folder on the desktop, and only 1 profile appears when I follow the command you suggested. Any more ideas? Thanks, Andrew
Do you have a C:\Windows.old folder?
If there only one profile folder if you check this in about:profiles and on the hard drive if you go up one level?
- C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\
"AppData" (XP: Application Data; Mac: ~/Library; Linux: ~/.mozilla) is a hidden folder.
Thanks - I'll look at that. Just looked in the single profile and noticed that the older version of the logins.json file says it's corrupt (logins.json.corrupt) Presumably this is the problem.
Did you possibly use the profile with a newer or older Firefox version?
You can check the logins.json.corrupt file in a text editor to see if there are only ASCII characters i the file.
Just checked the file in Notepad. Only letters, numbers and occasional punctuation marks in the file. Is this file recoverable or will I have to reset passwords manually for every site?
If logins,json looks valid then the problem might be with the key3.db file that stores the encryption key needed to decrypt the usernames and passwords.
You can crate a backup copy of the two files and see if there is an older version available of the two files.
- System Restore Explorer: http://nicbedford.co.uk/software/systemrestoreexplorer/
Thank you - I will try this later on. Never had to do any of this before so it's all new learning! Thank you so much for your help - I'll let you know how I get on. Best wishes, Andrew
Thanks for the link - I have installed the software and created two backup points. When I browse the Program Files x86 folder for Firefox, the key3 and logins.json files aren't there at all. Am I looking in the wrong place?
Yes, you are in the wrong place. The Firefox profile folder is not in the Firefox program folder, but is in a hidden location in AppData\Roaming.
You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.
- Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> Profile Directory:
Windows: Show Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder - http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox
Thanks - that's great. I found the files in the profiles page. The only think is that the files there are the up-to-date ones (including the corrupted logins.json file). How do I find any older versions of these files using the System Restore Tool?