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I'm trying to setup Firefox on my new tablet. It's installed but when I try to login to my Firefox account, I discovered that I have forgotten my Firefox password.

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  • Last reply by Tom Gordon

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I'm trying to setup Firefox on my new tablet. It's installed but when I try to login to my Firefox account, I discovered that I have forgotten my Firefox password. When I access my Firefox account on one of my older PCs, I can see that the password was changed on 2021. What do I need to do in order to sign in on the new tablet without losing all my synced data? I THINK all I need to do is to sign on to my Firefox profile on one of my older PC's and say that I forgot the password which will result in a password reset. But I thinks that's OK because a new sync account will be created and then I just have to signon from all my other devices using the new password. Is that correct?

I'm trying to setup Firefox on my new tablet. It's installed but when I try to login to my Firefox account, I discovered that I have forgotten my Firefox password. When I access my Firefox account on one of my older PCs, I can see that the password was changed on 2021. What do I need to do in order to sign in on the new tablet without losing all my synced data? I THINK all I need to do is to sign on to my Firefox profile on one of my older PC's and say that I forgot the password which will result in a password reset. But I thinks that's OK because a new sync account will be created and then I just have to signon from all my other devices using the new password. Is that correct?

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Dropa: Thanks for your reply. However there is at least one point that I must bring to your attention. The email address that is in my Firefox profile is an email address that I still have access to. In fact, I have emails from 2021 when I last changed my Firefox password: 1. The email I got based on my request to reset my password. I used that email to actually reset my Firefox password. 2. The subsequent email informing me that my password had been changed. Here is some text from that email:

   Your account password was changed

You will need to enter your new password on other devices to resume syncing.

Mind you, I don't clearly remember actually doing that password reset; it was a couple of years ago. And I compounded the error by not writing down the new password, which is why I'm in my current predicament trying to set up sync on my new tablet. So I'm thinking that all I need to do is what I must have done in 2021, which is to: 1. Request a password setup from one of my 2 old computers. 2. When I get the email allowing me to reset my password, I will sign on to activate syncing on that old computer. Then, all I should need to do is to request syncing on my other old computer and my new tablet and then all 3 devices should be sharing the same sync profile. Am I missing something? It seemed from your reply that the thing that was going to prevent me from doing this was my not having access to the email account.

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Resetting the password for the Firefox Account because you do not remember the password will remove all data stored on the Sync server because this password is used to encrypt your data locally for security reasons before it is uploaded to the Sync server and only this password or a possible recovery key can decrypt this data.

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Cor-el (and Dropa), I am grateful for both of your responses, but I think we're talking past each other. both of you are correctly stating that when I reset my Firefox account password, the encrypted data on the Sync server will be removed (or I won't be able to decrypt it, which is basically the same thing).

Where we seem to be disagreeing is what happens when I create a new password. According to what I have read, a new entry on the Sync server will be created using the Firefox data on the computer from which I am creating the new password. As far as I can tell, this no different from what happened the first time I set up syncing many years ago. As a result, the Firefox data from my old PC (the one that has the most complete set of my bookmarks, passwords, etc. Then, as I login to my Firefox account on eaxh of my other computers and tablets, they will be able to access the newly created Sync server data and will then download all the bookmarks that were encrypted from my oldest PC.

Please explain how my logic above is wrong.

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Cor-el (and Dropa): I just wanted to let both of you that I decided to go ahead and test my theory about resetting my Firefox Account Password. Here are the steps I took to verify if it worked:

  1. I looked at a couple of the existing Bookmark folders on my 2 computers which were setup for Syncing and verified that the contents were identical and noted how many Bookmarks were in each folder.

I then added a new bookmark in one of those folders on my oldest computer (the one that I was going to initiate the password reset from. Next, I went to the Firefox Account web page on my oldest computer, and said I wanted to change my password. When it asked me to put in the current and new passwords, I indicated that I had forgotten my old password. It then said it would send a link to the email address listed in my Firefox Account profile. I signed on to my email account and there was a 'Reset your password" email. I opened it and clicked on the link. It took me to a page where I was asked to enter my new password. I did and next I was asked to sign in to my Firefox Account using the new password. When I did, it asked me if I wanted to initiate sync. I did and it indicated the syncing process was complete. I then went to my other computer and on the Firefox Account page, I clicked on signin. I then entered the new password and was asked if I wanted to sync that computer. I said yes and it began syncing. I then looked at the bookmarks on the second computer and specifically at the folder to which I had added a new bookmark on my oldest computer earlier. The new bookmark was there, proving that the sync process had worked. Last, I went to my new tablet and signed into my Firefox account using the new password. It then asked me if I wanted to initiate sync, and I said yes. Once it finished, all my Bookmarks, including the new one were in the Bookmarks folder on my tablet.

So my theory was correct. Unfortunately, my understanding as to how to use the bulleted list on this forum was not.

Modified by Tom Gordon