What about the rest of your data? History, settings . . . . .

No history, lost my homepage, some options seem okay, others missing or changed

Also much longer than normal to load webpages, to 5 or 6 seconds just to post previous reply

Sorry to hear that your Firefox appears totally uncustomized.

If you haven't already, before doing any file moves/deletes/reinstalls, you may want to do a normal system shutdown and startup to release any file locks and complete any pending updates. One user reported it took three shutdown/restarts to sort out his issues.

If your data does not magically reappear, the most likely scenarios for complete data loss are:

(1) A Refresh started but the migration of data from your old profile to your new profile was incomplete, or
(2) Your old profile was locked, so Firefox ignored it and created a new one.

Here's how to investigate those two possibilities:

Did Firefox perform a Refresh?

Unless it was interrupted in progress, you should find a folder on your desktop named Old Firefox Data. Inside would be a semi-randomly-named folder with freshly updated files. Do you see anything like that?

If so, we'll suggest how to rescue key files or completely restore the earlier profile folder.

If not...

Does the Profile Manager list your immediately previous profile folder?

To check on that, inside Firefox, type or paste about:profiles in the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it.

This page should list all the profiles Firefox is currently aware of. If you see a profile that is not currently set as default that looks promising, scroll down to it and click the Set as default profile button below that profile, then scroll back up and click the Restart normally button. (There are some other buttons, but I think those are still "under construction" so please ignore them.)

Firefox should exit and then start up using the other profile. Is that the right one?

If it's not there...

Did Firefox orphan your old profile folder?

Here's how to check whether there are additional profile folders in the standard location in addition to the one you're using. Start by opening your current Firefox profile folder using either:

* "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
* (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
* type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter/Return

In the first table on the page, click:

* Windows: the "Open Folder" button, to launch a new window listing various files and folders in Windows Explorer.
* Mac: the "Show in Finder" button, to launch a new window listing various files and folders in Finder.

In the Windows Explorer address bar, click the capitalized word Profiles to move up one level in the folder hierarchy. More than one folder here by any chance? Do the files in those folders look like they were last updated around the time of the update?

(Mac users: please do what you need to do in Finder to check up one level...)

If you've got any promising looking folders, we can discuss next steps to recover use of them.

no to all, only one profile (default) which is empty.

how to go back to 54?

Downgrading

Firefox 55 profiles are reportedly not downwards compatible with Firefox 54, but I don't know what parts are incompatible.

You can download the previous version of Firefox using a link in this article: Install an older version of Firefox.

After installing Firefox instead of starting it straight up, start up in the Profile Manager and create a new profile (don't delete anything -- keep the old profile to allow for possible recovery): Profile Manager - Create, remove or switch Firefox profiles.

Data Recovery

Here's another thing to try. You can use a third party utility to check for a snapshot of your profile folder in a Windows restore point:

(1) Turn on viewing of hidden files and folders: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14201/windows-show-hidden-files

(2) System Restore Explorer: http://nicbedford.co.uk/software/systemrestoreexplorer/

Look along the same path as your live profile folder:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

I suggest copying out any potentially useful files to a neutral location and only then try to replace files in your profile folder. See: Recovering important data from an old profile.

Look on your desktop. Do you see a folder called; Old Firefox?

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-run-firefox-when-profile-missing-inaccessible

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-older-version-of-firefox?cache=no Be sure to read everything here.

If you still want to downgrade, look under; I still want to downgrade. Click the Directory of other versions and languages link. Look for the directory of the version that you want. But, remember that old versions may have security issues.

You should also check out Firefox; Extended Support Release https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/notes/

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/system-requirements/

Thanks for the help. Sadly, after reviewing the above, I have now downloaded Chrome and this browser seems to work. After the "upgrade" to version 54 and now this "upgrade" to 55, my faith in Firefox is gone. Too many changes for no good reason, finally resulting in the deletion by Firefox of essential data have made me decide to move on. Wish it wasn't so, been with Firefox since Netscape days.

If you think there's even a 10% chance of returning to Firefox, I suggest using System Restore Explorer to extract a backup of your old profile folder before it is cycled out and the data is gone forever.

Luckily it was only my laptop, I stopped my main computer before it updated. And interestingly enough, when I installed Chrome on my laptop it was able to import all my old Firefox bookmarks. Funny the new and "improved" Firefox couldn't do the same.

So your data is still on your system in a well-known location, but we were unsuccessful in helping you connect your Firefox to it. Sorry about that.

I've told you everything I know and I have to trust that you followed my suggestions in detail.

Maybe in another thread we'll learn something new and we can cross-post a new suggestion here.

It is possible that your firewall or other security software blocks or restricts Firefox or the plugin-container process without informing you, possibly after detecting changes (update) to the Firefox program. Remove all rules for Firefox and the plugin-container from the permissions list in the firewall and let your firewall ask again for permission to get full, unrestricted, access to install for Firefox and the plugin-container process and the updater process. See:

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/server-not-found-connection-problem
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/Firewalls
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fix-problems-connecting-websites-after-updating

You can check for problems with the places.sqlite database (bookmarks and history) in the Firefox profile folder.

• https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/places-maintenance/

See also:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Locked_or_damaged_places.sqlite
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/Bookmarks+not+saved#w_fix-the-bookmarks-file

one more question: when you type "about:profiles" into your firefox address bar what is the full path of your profile shown in the root folder column?