Are you going to take the offer from rnewman which was made in this thread - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1003829 - to look into "your" problem with the new Sync?

"Gateway Timeout is a server-side or network issue. If you email me your error log, and let me know what your Firefox Account email address is, I'll take a look and see what we can find."

I am sure it was thought about long and hard. It does now sync to a server, and may be used by a single device. We do not discuss design and development issues here, we are just fellow users of Firefox trying to help one another with technical issues. You may like to add a short comment to feedback

• https://input.mozilla.org/feedback

Statistical analysis and aggregated results are made available to developers. There is also an interactive view that anyone may use to see all comments

• https://input.mozilla.org

You may find previous discussions or even a moderated mailing list where this may be discussed

• http://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/#general-development

And if you are interested in the technical background of some of the changes see these two blogs

1. https://blog.mozilla.org/warner/2014/04/02/pairing-problems/
2. https://blog.mozilla.org/warner/2014/05/23/the-new-sync-protocol/

• Or a simpler announcement https://blog.mozilla.org/services/2014/02/07/a-better-firefox-sync/

I think I am correct in saying you will not be able to choose direction of sync and whether to merge or not. You now sync everything to the server and each device will aim to be identical for those options chosen to be synced.

So to me that does seem like a change but I understand that to be intentional. I personally would not say

Sync itself is exactly the same in 29, the only difference is the way you log into it. 

No hijacking. If you have a support issue, please make a new thread at /questions/new. Thank you ~m

the-edmeister - you and rnewman are not addressing the issue I am raising. I need someone willing to address the issue. Please stop replying if you are unwilling to be helpful.

John, thank you. It is nice to have someone FINALLY actually read my post and give a serious response that tries to help rather than troll. YES, the issue I am raising is the removal in Firefox 29 of the ability to choose the direction of sync. You are right, Sync is NOT exactly the same in 29, it is very different in how it functions and it has removed a very important piece of that functionality, I would say the whole of its functionality. The ability to indicate how you want the data synced, specifically, which direction, is vital to the whole purpose of Sync.

That is the issue I am trying to raise and have discussed. I never doubted that there is a reason behind this change and I am trying to get that discussion out from behind the curtain and also let the developers know that multiple people out here are inconvenienced by this change in functionality. A Support Forum is the logical place to start that discussion. I will also forward this to Feedback and hope they are more helpful.

Yes the support forum may seem a logical place but as I say it is not the place because we are nearly all merely volunteers and fellow Firefox users not those making the decisions.

No one is trying to troll, just to point you at resources or options that may help.

Tyler (The Admin badge almost always indicates paid staff) by the way is Staff. In fact the project manager of the User Advocacy team, and I would imagine is involved with studying the input feedback comments.

Thanks, John. You are the only one who took my issue seriously and tried to help.

WorldFusionRadio - someone censored your reply to me. Please repost.

I simply said I had the same problem that Sync doesn't work to pair devices in the new version.

Hi WorldFusionRadio

I will not edit or censor your last post but if the problem is the change of design in Sync it is not something we can discuss here.

However if you need workarounds see my post in the related thread

• How do I use sync to replace the tabs and bookmarks on one device with tabs and bookmarks from another device?
  /questions/997824#answer-586597

Note you can register devices with Firefox 29s new Sync as long as all the devices are Firefox 29. The old Sync is then no longer needed.

Re: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/997824#answer-586597

That fallback works for bookmarks - though we are back to the ornery method we had to use before Sync was created - but it still won't transfer tabs or passwords. Still, better than nothing until Mozilla comes to its senses and returns actual syncing to Sync.

I will try to restate the issue: I could move my whole Firefox workspace (tabs, history, bookmarks, passwords, everything) from one computer to another. Now I can't. This isn't about passwords, or keys, or sign in - it is about the functionality of Sync being taken away.

I just spent a few hours playing with Sync with two different Sync accounts, and I am seeing a few problems, but Tabs Sync and Bookmarks Sync is working for me. I suspect the few problems I had were due to the upgrade of one Sync account that had one device connected that had been running the original Weave extension in Firefox 3.5. I have no need for Sync myself, but I have followed "Sync" almost since the day the first Weave extension became available, and I have been through all the changes and updates since.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you don't have a real problem, but I think your problems may not be 100% with Sync but rather your Firefox installations. But we'll never know unless you are willing to "work with us" to try to solve your problems with Sync.

Overall, my suggestion is to either take rnewman up on his offer to help you determine what went wrong for you, or for you to create a new Sync account and go from there.

the-edmeister - you are NOT listening. I am NOT having a connection problem. I am NOT having an upgrade or installation problem. Firefox changed Sync functionality. I have explained that three times, three different ways. John and others understand what issue I am referring to. I ask you again, please do not reply, you are not being helpful.

I will tag this as escalate. HelpDesk was finding the Developer was willing to try to help out users with problems. That may even extend to explaining the changes and saying whether what is seen is expected behaviour or a problem.

It is unusual to have Developers get involved in the forum and we should take full advantage of that assistance when they are available.

Thank you John for listening and responding to my issue.

I see that multiple people are also posting about the exact same issue both here in the forum and in Feedback. I am happy that developers are noticing.

Hi profiggles, Thank you for your question. I understand that you are asking about the choice to choose the direction of sync. At this time, this is not a feature as per your question.

Choosing the direction of syncing your main device A to B is by default merge. However if there are differences from one to the other, they will be integrated or merged.

Please also read about the current security model of Firefox Sync 1.5 https://blog.mozilla.org/services/201.../firefox-syncs-new-security-model/ The security of pairs is now different.

Perhaps this is a feature request or interest expressed in exposing these options https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=966530 This feature does not have a large demand as far as I understand, but I did ask about this and hope to hear back.