Lost all container data after recent add-on signature failure bug
Hi. About a week or two ago when that signature bug with extensions happened, all of my extensions got disabled due to invalid signatures (including Firefox Containers) and now I have lost all of my data from container tabs, and container tabs is in same state if it was reinstalled.
Back when that bug happened, I read on Internet that I could fix this extension bug by enabling Mozilla Studies and that it'd automatically update Firefox with a patch which fixes this signature bug. It has restored all of my add-ons, however Firefox Containers has lost ALL of its data.
I have a full backup of firefox and all of data such as history, container tabs, bookmarks, etc. from 2 months ago (basically just a profile folder), but if it's possible, I would like to restore my container tabs from 2 weeks ago as it has newer tabs and everything.
If it is impossible to restore my container data from 2 weeks ago, please explain to me how can I pull only container data from a 2 month profile firefox backup.
Thanks for reading.
Chosen solution
Thanks for the info, though I have accidentally probably fixed the issue.
I have recreated most of container names/icons from my mind, however if I would have guessed icon, color and text correctly of such container, for some reason it would re-open all of the previously stored container tabs as soon as i did 'reopen tab in container ...'
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You can read in this bug report why this happened.
- Bug 1549204 - Consider a better approach to clearing data if container-using extensions get disabled/uninstalled
(please do not comment in bug reports
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html)
It appears that this data in remove when you disable or uninstall a container tab extension. In this case you didn't do this yourself, but experienced a side effect of the extension becoming disabled due to the certificate issue. I have no idea if you would be able to recover this data from a backup if you would link the current extension version to the old UUID and restore this specific data in IndexedDB (/storage/default). If you reinstall an extension then the extension gets a new UUID. If the extension is only disabled then I think it should keep its UUID and you would only have to restore its specific folder in /storage/default.
Current Firefox releases store extension data in indexedDB in the storage/default folder in the profile folder (moz-extension+++UUID). You can see the UUID of each extension in the about:debugging page and you can find these UUIDs in the extensions.webextensions.uuids pref on the about:config page. If the extension got a new UUID due to reinstalling or disabling then try to edit the extensions.webextensions.uuids pref and restore its previous UUID. Make sure to backup the current value of extensions.webextensions.uuids.
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
(EDIT: added missing bug report)
Modified by cor-el
Chosen Solution
Thanks for the info, though I have accidentally probably fixed the issue.
I have recreated most of container names/icons from my mind, however if I would have guessed icon, color and text correctly of such container, for some reason it would re-open all of the previously stored container tabs as soon as i did 'reopen tab in container ...'
You might have been more lucky with the Firefox 60 ESR version that might behave differently than the current Firefox release. This version might still be using the browser-extension-data folder and this folder uses the extension's GUID and not a random UUID.