All my bookmarks and passwords vanished
Since I quit Firefox last night, my bookmarks and my saved passwords are all gone. I searched how to delete all the bookmarks and it's way too commplicated to say I did it on purpose.
Of course I could restore the only bookmarks file saved in my "profiles" folder but it seems it was created at the same time I closed Firefox. So it's empty..
I don't understand what happened but all my saved password have vanished too!
All Replies (16)
It's possible your Firefox did a refresh, removing all your data.
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?
That's what I thought too but there is no folder called Old Firefox.
To be precise, I tried a few things before posting my question, including a refresh, after copying my profile folder in a safe place, and it created this folder with the exact same files that I saved before. But the saved files are empty.. created last night, at the time I quit Firefox.
Did you try about:profiles ?
Yes, I can see that my profile works.
The 1st link "root" shows me the same folder I saved earlier. The 2nd link "local" shows an empty folder that weights 316 Mo, but I can't see anything in it.
It's weird because it looks like it did refresh by itself but nothing has been saved before. The only thing that stay are my pinned pages.
Unless someone else comes up with something, the data is lost.
Firefox automatically makes backups of the bookmarks. These are stored in the bookmarkbackups folder.
Open the Bookmarks Manager; Press the Alt or F10 key to bring up the toolbar, and select Bookmarks. Hot key is <Control> (Mac=<Command>) <Shift> B.
Once the window is open, at the top of the page, press the button labeled Import and Backup. Select Restore. From the list, pick the file you want and click it.
The backups are stored in a jsonlz4 file named something like this; bookmarks-2016-06-29_1424_enD1GTH ya0JmicnYWg4V4g==.jsonlz4
In this example; 2016-06-29 = date created, 1424 = number of entries.
These can't get your data back, but will help in the future.
These add-ons can be a great help by backing up and restoring Firefox
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/febe/ FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup Extension)
FEBE allows you to quickly and easily backup your Firefox extensions, history, passwords, and more. In fact, it goes beyond just backing up -- It will actually rebuild your saved files individually into installable .xpi files. It will also make backups of files that you choose.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/opie/ OPIE
Import/Export extension preferences
That’s too bad. I’be been using FF for years and nothing like that ever happened. How can it start over without even asking?!
I found the bookmarkbackup file and it’s dated from today. Sadly it only contains the bookmark you have when you use FF for the first time.
I’m trying to get in touch with IT services at my work to check if they save our laptop. I guess this is my last hope.
Can you confirm all of this can’t happen if I crest a FF account?
There should be more than one backup file.
It is possible that there has been a problem with the profiles.ini file that registers profiles and that a new default profile got created.
You can check if you have an orphaned profile that isn't registered in profiles.ini and that does not show in the Firefox Profile Manager. You can check that by opening the current profile folder via the about:profiles page and go up one level to see if there is only one profile listed.
If you have found an orphaned profile then you may want to recover some personal data.
You can copy files like these with Firefox closed to the current profile folder to recover specific data. Note that you should be cautious with copying SQLite database files if you previously had problems.
- bookmarks and history: places.sqlite
- bookmark backups: compressed .jsonlz4 backups in the bookmarkbackups folder
- cookies.sqlite for the cookies
- formhistory.sqlite for saved form data
- logins.json and key3.db (decryption key) for Passwords saved in the Password Manager
- cert8.db and possibly cert_override.txt for (intermediate) certificates stored in the Certificate Manager
- persdict.dat for words you added to the spelling checker dictionary
- permissions.sqlite for Permissions and possibly content-prefs.sqlite for other Site Preferences
- sessionstore.js for open tabs and pinned tabs
FredMcD a écrit
There should be more than one backup file.
Sadly there's only one bookmarks backup file, created when I quit FF. Same goes for the profile, there's only one profile listed, it's the default one, and it was created at the same time.
I hope my IT services at work will have a back up of something. If not, I will lose 3 years of tiding articles and websites I care about.
Did you check on the hard drive if there are profiles present that aren't listed in the Profile Manager (profiles.ini)?
If you use the Time Machine or other backup then try to restore file(s) from this backup.
Modified by cor-el
This is what I find in the profile.ini file :
[General] StartWithLastProfile=1
[Profile0] Name=Anthony IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/08m3ayir.default Default=1
I used EasyFind to search for file or folder with the same name or another bookmarksbackups. But there's only one folder (same as above).
I'm still waiting for an answer from the IT services. For now, I started over with a FF account this time.
These can't get your data back, but will help in the future.
These add-ons can be a great help by backing up and restoring Firefox
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/febe/ FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup Extension)
FEBE allows you to quickly and easily backup your Firefox extensions, history, passwords, and more. In fact, it goes beyond just backing up -- It will actually rebuild your saved files individually into installable .xpi files. It will also make backups of files that you choose.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/opie/ OPIE
Import/Export extension preferences
Hi erveryone, it did it again! FF just crashed and when it restarted, everything was gone. Since the last time, I created an account to make sure I wouldn't lose anything again but even though it restarted with my account logged, everything is gone, historic, bookmarks...
What just happen again? Is it because of the last update?
Thanks for your help
Did you try to reboot the computer?
See also:
Yes I did.
The only things that were saved by my account are my passwords. So it's not as bad as the last time but I'd like my bookmarks to come back.