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My passwords disappeared

  • 20 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by aditya81028

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I've woken up to discover that my passwords have all vanished. My bookmarks are available. My usernames are suggested, but my passwords have all disappeared. I checked "saved passwords", and it's totally empty. I really hope it's fixable. I've always proceeded with auto-fill. There are passwords I haven't manually typed in over three years.

I've woken up to discover that my passwords have all vanished. My bookmarks are available. My usernames are suggested, but my passwords have all disappeared. I checked "saved passwords", and it's totally empty. I really hope it's fixable. I've always proceeded with auto-fill. There are passwords I haven't manually typed in over three years.

All Replies (20)

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Look on your desktop. Do you see a folder called; Old Firefox? Look inside.
Look for the folder with the latest creation date.

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

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https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-run-firefox-when-profile-missing-inaccessible

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox#Navigating_to_the_profile_folder

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles


Type about:profiles<enter> in the address bar.
How many profiles are listed?
How many should be there?
Also, open the profile folder in your file explorer.

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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.


Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles {web link}
I use an add-on that makes backups of my user profile, Just In Case.
Unfortunately, it is not compatible with the current Firefox.

Every now and then, open the profile folder and create a copy of the current profile as is to another location on your hard drive. This way you will have a backup.

If you do this each day, you will not lose much data. This should be done with Firefox Closed.

Note: In case you need to restore from these backups, you may need to overwrite old or corrupted files.

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Brandonheatu said

I've woken up to discover that my passwords have all vanished. My bookmarks are available. My usernames are suggested, but my passwords have all disappeared. I checked "saved passwords", and it's totally empty. I really hope it's fixable. I've always proceeded with auto-fill. There are passwords I haven't manually typed in over three years.

FredMcD said

Look on your desktop. Do you see a folder called; Old Firefox? Look inside.
Look for the folder with the latest creation date. 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

I've looked for any new file on my desktop, but it's nowhere to be found.

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FredMcD said

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-run-firefox-when-profile-missing-inaccessible http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox#Navigating_to_the_profile_folder https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles Type about:profiles<enter> in the address bar.
How many profiles are listed?
How many should be there?
Also, open the profile folder in your file explorer.

There is only one profile. I also have access to my bookmarks. I get my user names suggested, too. The only problem is that I'm asked to provide rds while they used to be auto-filled for years.

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Brandonheatu said

I've looked for any new file on my desktop, but it's nowhere to be found.

FredMcD said

Look on your desktop. Do you see a folder called; Old Firefox? Look inside.
Look for the folder with the latest creation date.
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We may need to move on to backups.

What kind of system is it (Windows, Mac, Linux) ?

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jscher2000 said

We may need to move on to backups. What kind of system is it (Windows, Mac, Linux) ?

jscher2000 said

We may need to move on to backups. What kind of system is it (Windows, Mac, Linux) ?

Windows, when I open Firefox, I still get thumbnails of the websites I frequently log on to. I still get my usernanes suggested. The issue seems to be only with the passwords. And when I check "logins and passwords", there's northing. It's all empty.

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Do you have a backup of your Firefox data from recent days or recent weeks?

As a fallback, you can check for "shadow copies" that Windows may have made when doing updates. You can use a utility program to search inside restore points to try to locate an old file that's usable. (Please do NOT try to use the built-in Windows System Restore for this because you probably would lose data.)

Download and run one of these two programs:

Within the most recent restore point shown in the program, you can explore along this path to see whether you can find a shadow copy of your profile:

\Users\your-user-name\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\

You can export both of these files to a convenient location such as your currently live desktop:

  • logins.json
  • key4.db

To see what is in a logins.json file, you can drag and drop it onto a Firefox tab. After a few moments, Firefox should display a structured view of the file. Although the passwords are not readable (encrypted using something in key4.db) you can at least see what accounts are saved in that file and make sure it looks reasonably coherent.

Any luck so far? Then we can discuss next steps.

Modified by jscher2000 - Support Volunteer

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jscher2000 said

Do you have a backup of your Firefox data from recent days or recent weeks? As a fallback, you can check for "shadow copies" that Windows may have made when doing updates. You can use a utility program to search inside restore points to try to locate an old file that's usable. (Please do NOT try to use the built-in Windows System Restore for this because you probably would lose data.) Download and run one of these two programs: Within the most recent restore point shown in the program, you can explore along this path to see whether you can find a shadow copy of your profile: \Users\your-user-name\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ You can export both of these files to a convenient location such as your currently live desktop:
  • logins.json
  • key4.db
To see what is in a logins.json file, you can drag and drop it onto a Firefox tab. After a few moments, Firefox should display a structured view of the file. Although the passwords are not readable (encrypted using something in key4.db) you can at least see what accounts are saved in that file and make sure it looks reasonably coherent. Any luck so far? Then we can discuss next steps.

I've tried both programmes, ShadowExplorer and Nic Bedrof, they don't show any entries. I checked the Max Usage for back-ups on my laptop. And it was set to zero percent. This might be why I don't get any entries in ShadowExplorer. I hope there's something else I can do.

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Could you try these programs that know how to read Firefox saved logins (assuming no Master Password was set) to see whether they can recover data from the existing files:

That won't necessarily make the files useful again, but at least you would have the extracted data.

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jscher2000 said

Could you try these programs that know how to read Firefox saved logins (assuming no Master Password was set) to see whether they can recover data from the existing files: That won't necessarily make the files useful again, but at least you would have the extracted data.

I used both programmes, but they only show the passwords that I entered after my older passwords had disappeared.

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This thread is 'tagged' for Firefox Sync.

Are you using Sync?
And if so, what other devices are connected to that Firefox Account?
Perhaps a "mobile device" that runs Firefox for iOS or Firefox for Android?

Also, what about a Security Suite that uses an Add-on for Firefox?
If so, is that Add-on enabled in the Add-ons Manager?

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the-edmeister said

This thread is 'tagged' for Firefox Sync. Are you using Sync?
And if so, what other devices are connected to that Firefox Account?
Perhaps a "mobile device" that runs Firefox for iOS or Firefox for Android? Also, what about a Security Suite that uses an Add-on for Firefox?
If so, is that Add-on enabled in the Add-ons Manager?

No, I specifically didn't use Sync for security reasons. I thought it wouldn't be a good idea to have my logins and passwords accessible in many devices. I devoted a laptop entirely to important information transfer. I should have written down the logins and passwords in a notebook. I'm in a pretty desperate situation now.

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Did you look for a possible logins.json.corrupt file in the profile folder ?

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.

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the-edmeister said

This thread is 'tagged' for Firefox Sync. Are you using Sync?
And if so, what other devices are connected to that Firefox Account?
Perhaps a "mobile device" that runs Firefox for iOS or Firefox for Android? Also, what about a Security Suite that uses an Add-on for Firefox?
If so, is that Add-on enabled in the Add-ons Manager?

No, I specifically didn't use Sync for security reasons. I thought it wouldn't be a good idea to have my logins and passwords accessible in many devices. I devoted a laptop entirely to important information transfer. I should have written down the logins and passwords in a notebook. I'm in a pretty desperate situation now.

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cor-el said

Did you look for a possible logins.json.corrupt file in the profile folder ? 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.

The file is not ".corrupt". It's plain "logins.jason. And it contains only the logins that I've used today.

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What I was referring to is this:

In some cases when Firefox can't access or process logins.json then Firefox will add .corrupt to the filename making it logins.json.corrupt and create a new logins.json file.

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cor-el said

Did you look for a possible logins.json.corrupt file in the profile folder ? 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.
The file is not ".corrupt". It's plain "logins.jason. And it contains only the logins that I've used today.

cor-el said

What I was referring to is this: In some cases when Firefox can't access or process logins.json then Firefox will add .corrupt to the filename making it logins.json.corrupt and create a new logins.json file.

I wish that were the case. Then, I would just rename it as I've seen suggested in other threads. There's isn't any "logins.json.corrupt" file. There's only the regular "logins.json" file.

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Bro you store password on browser so that you can log in easily but bro I recommend you not to save password on your browsers as if you get hacked your passwords can be stolen and if you want to save password use password manager like keepass,Lastpass or Dashlane to encrypt your password and protect yourself.