Lost everything
Hi! I forgot my password for my Firefox account and after - a lot - of times I decided to risk and restart my password. It said I MAY LOOSE SOME of my information, details, passwords, tabs etc. but it said about some of them.... I restarted my password and i lost absolutely everything :(((( My tabs, details, history, password. Everything. My account is whole clear! Why would they secure all details into password?!! if someone forgot password it is first thing to reset it, but in this case u reset ur password and u loosing everything, which make no sense.... what is the point of it ? :/ Is there any chance I can get back all my stuff??? If not... Will I also loose everything from my other computer? (I just tried to log in on another device. I cant loose it, there are too many important things I have ;((((( What can i do to not loose my all things on other device? shall i turn off sync here now, and when I turn on my other device it will stay? or it is too late bcoz I've pressed to sync it here (and nothing showed up) Help me please ;(((
All Replies (3)
Unfortunately, there's no way to recover data on the account after a password reset.
This is because of how the data is stored. To securely store the data so that no one else can read it, the data is encrypted using the password for you account. This means that the data can only be read again if you enter your password to decrypt it.
Contrary to popular belief, a properly designed login system actually has no idea what your password is because it's not stored on the system. Instead, a process called Password Hashing is used to make a Hash of your password which cannot be converted back into the password. When you log in, the system runs what you've entered through the same hashing process and compares the result.
Unfortunately, having the data encrypted with the password and having no way for the system to actually know what the password was originally is great security (it's actually the proper way to store the data safely), but it means you are out of luck if you don't remember your password.
The only thing that could have helped you is if you had saved your account recovery key and Reset your Mozilla account password with Recovery Keys. But, unfortunately, a lot of people overlook the recovery key and it often doesn't get saved by users.
Probably the only good news I can offer you is that the data that's already on your computer(s) should not be effected. This issue should only effect whatever data was still on the Firefox Sync servers waiting to be transferred to other devices.
You should be able to sign back into your Firefox Account on your devices using the new password and the data should be sent back to Firefox Sync.
That said, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND making a backup of your Firefox data BEFORE signing back into the account. That way, in the odd chance that something goes wrong, you will still have the data available to fallback to.
Hope this helps.
Hi,
Thank you for your answer. Does it mean I may not loose all my things if I'll copy my folder with profile and will log in with new password ? what If I'll press sync? will it send my all stuff to server and Ill be able to open it on new device? or it will "download" all stuff from new device as i sync it here? Im sorry, im not rlly sure how all this works :)
Making a backup (copy) of your current folder is a good idea, just in case things go wrong.
When you sync after logging in, your data should just be sent to the Firefox Sync service because there's not currently any data on the service.