According to this support article, passwords are stored in 2 files: key3.db and logins.json.

These files are in directory C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Roaming\MozillaF\Firefox\Profiles\<profile_name>.default. If you do a system restore of Windows, these files are not concerned. So it sounds strange that your passwords reverted back to a previous state.

Can you check your profile folder is in the right directory?

Hi,

The profile folder is same directory. It was working till yesterday but slow. Today it became more slow and wasn't playing any videos at all from FB or Youtube so I restarted and noticed that all passowords are changed to old/invalid ones. My Firefox version is 38.0.1 ESR (cck - ibm)

hi, were you switching back and forward different firefox versions with the same profile in the past? (this isn't a usage pattern that is supported)

firefox 32 changed the storage format of passwords (logins.json + key3.db), the migration from the old format (signons.sqlite + key3.db) only happened at the first launch of firefox version 32 or upwards. if you have switched back to an older version after that, all passwords are still written to the old database that isn't getting used in current versions any more...

in order to resolve that you can try the following to trigger a database migration again, but make sure to create a backup of the contents of your current profile first before you proceed: Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles enter about:config into the firefox address bar (confirm the info message in case it shows up) & search for the preference named signon.importedFromSqlite - right-click and reset that entry to the default value and close the browser afterwards. then go into your profile folder and delete the logins.json file in there manually and start the browser again..

Hello Philipp,

Thanks for reply.

Not sure how much I can emphasize, there was no change at all on my system. I simply hibernated my machine yesterday, came to office today, started up the laptop and restarted Firefox and observed the issue :(

Not a single change.

Which is why I think there is major issue here. May be something related to flash ? because as I observed videos were not played by FF at all, it was kind of weird state where the mouse pointer had a 'wait circle' coming up and vanishing instantly and repeating the pattern while video was played. Like struggling to start the video ( facebook and youtube and other links) The only option was to close the video tab I had open and use Chrome for the same, so finally I gave up and restarted FF.

any chance that there was an upgrade from firefox 31 to firefox 38 esr? can you take a look into your profile folder - what's the filechange date of logins.json & signons.sqlite?

Hi,

logins.json has modify date as 22st July and the signons.sqlite has 21st July. But the problem observed was on 20th July Monday.

Thanks Nilesh

the recent filechange date of signons.sqlite would support my theory & proposed steps to recover from https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1073433#answer-757063 - there'd be no other way to explain that behaviour...

Do you only have the ESR version or did you ever used a release (32 and later)?

Are you using this profile with multiple Firefox versions?

Firefox 31 and older versions (e.g. the current 31.8.0 ESR) store the names and passwords in the signons.sqlite file. Firefox 32 and later versions use logins.json instead of signons.sqlite.

What does the update history show?

See the "Help > Troubleshooting Information" page.

Hi,

Nope, there is no multiple profile or firefox versions :( Always used ESR. Anyway, since this company specific, I had to raise a tkt internally but they also could not understand the issue. Plus the fact that one more guy observed the same exact issue after pushed update, I think there must be something in that update affecting two of us at least :)

Anyway, thanks for all prompt replies and help

I really appreciate it :)

Thanks Nilesh