reset the signon.importedFromSqlite pref on the about:config page to the default value via the right-click context menu
   delete the logins.json file in the Firefox profile folder with Firefox closed 

It turns out the copied logins-backupjson file i had pasted on my desktop screen was already overwritten by an added or removed login, thus writing over when it did have the saved login removed that i was trying to recover is there any other way to recover the removed login? i saw this response by Cor-el for another user with a similar situation If you still have the signons.sqlite that was used in a previous Firefox version then you can try to restore passwords saved in that file. Firefox 32 and later builds store the passwords in the logins.json file in the profile folder and no longer use the signons.sqlite file that has been used before (the matching key3.db file is still needed). If you still have the signons.sqlite file used in previous Firefox versions then you can try to force Firefox to migrate the passwords saved in that file (you will lose passwords saved in Firefox 32+ versions). You can force Firefox to reimport the passwords from the signons.sqlite file and rebuild the logins.json file with these steps: reset the signon.importedFromSqlite pref on the about:config page to the default value via the right-click context menu delete the logins.json file in the Firefox profile folder with Firefox closed When you restart Firefox then you should have the signon.importedFromSqlite pref with the value set to true and you should have the passwords imported in the Password Manager unless there may have been errors.