stephen11962 said

...I do not remember ever enrolling into a FF account...

I see you have Bitwarden - Free Password Manager FF Extension.

~Pj

Yes, I do, but do not understand how that might affect saved log-ins or disconnect me from the sync. I have had Bitwarden installed for about 3 weeks. I have been modifying passwords to sites that have sensitive personal info after being notified that some sites were hacked. For those 3 weeks I have had access to saved FF log-ins - till yesterday when 'something' happened.

Ooh. I'll let someone else jump in here. Hope ya get it fixed.

Regards,

~Pj

Check to see if you did / do have a Firefox Account. That's really the only reason to get the request to "reconnect to Sync".

Open the Logins Manager in Firefox Options. ( thru about:preferences#privacy under Logins & Passwords )

Do you show a listing for chrome://FirefoxAccounts (Firefox Accounts credentials) ? Firefox Accounts is used by Sync.

So, My present "Logins & Passwords" has only a couple of entries one of which is " chrome://FirefoxAccounts (Firefox Accounts credentials)." The date for that is 4/25/2019. I misspoke earlier. Sorry. So what do I do with this?

Stephen

Use the 3-Bar button (labeled 'Open menu' on cursor hover) and at the top use the Sign in to Sync at the top of that menu.

See also: Options/Preferences -> Firefox Account

One last attempt at finding a way out: I back up my computer occasionally, not as often as I should and I am not sure I remember what folders/files I have excluded. Does FF store any account info on my computer? And what folder/file should I look for? I am looking for my password for my FF account (if I actually created it ! ?)

An one further question: On the FF options page/FF account there is an option, just after "Sign in," there is "Remove Account." I hesitate going there without knowing exactly what that does?

Stephen

Here again. Went back to try to 'reconnect to sync' and went through my usual passwords and finally connected, installed FF on another device and went back to see if the remembered long-ons and passwords were there. NOT!!! So I still am very much in the dark about what happened. I guess I am forced to recreate a new password for every site requiring logging on. Not interesting, but the good news is that this will cull my system of old sites I no longer visit. I think this is goodbye.

Stephen

Did you check the hard drive and the Firefox profile folder with the chkdsk.exe utility for possible corrupted files.

You can check in Windows Explorer if there is a previous version of the logins.json and key4.db files available.

• right-click: Properties -> Previous Versions
• https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17119/windows-7-recover-lost-delete-files

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:preferences page.

• Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> Profile Directory:
  Windows: Show Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile

Yes, you did create a Firefox Account, hence the appearance of chrome://FirefoxAccounts (Firefox Accounts credentials). being saved in Firefox AND your Firefox installation prompting you to "sign in to Sync". Those "credentials" only appear in Firefox when the user signs up for a Firefox Account and uses that Account for Sync.

As far as the chrome:// URI in the Logins manager, in the Firefox the "chrome" is any visible aspect aside from the webpages themselves (e.g., toolbars, menu bar, tabs) - the User Interface / UI. Firefox uses the "chrome://" URI protocol to access internal files and uses "chrome" in other cases like userChrome.css and userContent.css files which can be used to modify the UI.

Not to be confused with the Google Chrome web browser. Google hired a few Mozilla developers early on in their development of the open-source Chromium project for use as their new web browser and they decided to use "Chrome" for the Google branded version of Chromium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_%28web_browser%29

You do have a few logins & passwords saved in Firefox - the vast majority are probably saved in that Bit Warden extension which has its own "encrypted vault that syncs across all of your devices". So I would expect that your Logins data is saved by Bit Warden, and their "sync" should make that data available when Bit Warden sync's.

See the 4th paragraph here under About this extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bitwarden-password-manager/ Bit Warden help is over here: https://help.bitwarden.com/

Overall, my guess is that you were using Firefox Sync AND then installed Bit Warden which "took over" the saving of your logins & passwords before you had very many saved in Firefox.

@the-edmeister I am a slow learner and you have presented enough info for me to begin to sort things out. I never thought of looking at the BitWarden vault and did find what I think are most of the FF saved log-ins - even with passwords not generated by Bit Warden. Maybe I missed it but I did not know that FF saved passwords would be saved to BitWarden and delete them from FF, I guess to protect even those from being hacked. The most confusing thing was that the FF passwords were not deleted immediately, I think. Enough and thank you! Stephen