Master password function won't work, even after reset.
After several unsuccessful attempts entering my master password in both Thunderbird and Firefox, I restarted Win 7 professional computer twice. No luck. So I reset master password. After successful reset, tried to enter new password. Would not accept it. Can someone offer advise to remedy? Don't think I'm hacked. Maybe a file is corrupt?
I'm running Webroot and Malware bytes in background, but have never had issues until this morning.
All Replies (2)
Hello,
Certain Firefox problems can be solved by performing a Clean reinstall. This means you remove Firefox program files and then reinstall Firefox. Please follow these steps:
Note: You might want to print these steps or view them in another browser.
- Download the latest Desktop version of Firefox from mozilla.org (or choose the download for your operating system and language from this page) and save the setup file to your computer.
- After the download finishes, close all Firefox windows (or open the Firefox menu
and click the close button 
).
- Delete the Firefox installation folder, which is located in one of these locations, by default:
- Windows:
- C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox
- Mac: Delete Firefox from the Applications folder.
- Linux: If you installed Firefox with the distro-based package manager, you should use the same way to uninstall it - see Install Firefox on Linux. If you downloaded and installed the binary package from the Firefox download page, simply remove the folder firefox in your home directory.
- Windows:
- Now, go ahead and reinstall Firefox:
- Double-click the downloaded installation file and go through the steps of the installation wizard.
- Once the wizard is finished, choose to directly open Firefox after clicking the Finish button.
More information about reinstalling Firefox can be found here.
WARNING: Do not use a third party uninstaller as part of this process. Doing so could permanently delete your Firefox profile data, including but not limited to, extensions, cache, cookies, bookmarks, personal settings and saved passwords. These cannot be easily recovered unless they have been backed up to an external device! See Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles.
Please report back to say if this helped you!
Thank you.
It is possible that there is a problem with the key3.db file (encryption key) and the logins.json file (encrypted names and passwords) in Firefox. You can rename the key3.db file (key3.db.old) and logins.json file (logins.json.old) and rename a possible signons.sqlite file (signons.sqlite.old) or move them to another folder to make it possible to undo the action. You need to set a new Master Password after renaming or deleting key3.db and all currently saved passwords are lost. If that has worked then you can remove the renamed files that are no longer needed. Otherwise you can rename the files to their previous names (key3.db and logins.json).
If you see passwords in the Password Manager (Tools > Options > Security: Passwords > "Saved Passwords") then you can save the existing passwords with the Password Exporter extension before removing/renaming files and re-import them afterward.
- Password Exporter: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/password-exporter/
Check that the exported (xml) file has all the names and passwords.