Folder that my "profiles.ini" points to doesn't exist
My computer (Windows 11) crashed while I was using Firefox--for the first time that I've seen, it did a full disk check. When booting back up, I was unable to use Firefox, since it said that my profiles.ini file was lost/corrupted.
After renaming the old file, I went back to the folder. It was easy enough to reinstall the add-ons that I needed, but I'm trying to get my bookmarks back. However, I can't seem to find them--the "bookmarkbackups" folders that come up are too new, and only one (the current one) has a file in it.
Any help will be appreciated! I'm not sure what I can do.
Isisombulu esikhethiweyo
Sync works--it did not delete either the slightly newer bookmarks I'd made or any of the old ones. If this happens to you (and you've logged in elsewhere), syncing is fine. It's not something you need to worry about.
Funda le mpendulo kwimeko leyo 👍 0All Replies (7)
I see four profiles listed with a 06-20-2024 date and two profiles from 03-18-2023 that are apparently from earlier use of Firefox. The profiles.ini you showed points to 2023 profiles where the l33 profile got created due to a refresh, so those profile probably have old data.
You can check compatibility.ini in a profile to see what Firefox version last used a profile. The times.json file has the profile creation date. Did you recently create the four 2024 profiles as they have an increasing date modified ?
You can check if you have an "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop in case the Refresh feature in Firefox has been used and a new profile has been created.
Both of the 3/18/23 folders only have a single file in them; 92 has times.json (firstUse=NULL), and 343 parent.lock. The date is around when I first got this computer as well, so there's no refresh.
I have no "Old Firefox Data" folder. ti release folder has an empty bookmarksbackups folder.
Is my data just lost?
If none of the profiles have backups in the bookmarkbackups folder and also no data in places.sqlite then you likely have lost your personal data. Do none of the profiles have data with a timestamp from before the crash?
I double-checked--none of the profiles have a date between the initial setup of my computer and the crash; there's also no results on my C:\\ for the l33pj string, or alternate results for a places.sqlite file.
I'm still frustrated, but at this point I'm more confused. How did my computer seem to only lose a single folder from a crash?
If relevant, I also had to log back into OneDrive--nothing else lasting appears to have been affected. Given that I don't understand how the Mozilla Sync functionality works, I'd also appreciate any suggestions for things I can do in the future to prevent this from happening again.
Okay, happy amendment--they're synced on my phone, though now I'm concerned about accidentally overwriting them on the way to get them back on desktop. (Glad I checked!)
Hopefully attempting to sync to a "new" session on my computer will work? I'm reluctant to do this because I know that I don't have any backups on my computer. I will update if this works.
I want to ensure that a sync doesn't wipe out my bookmarks from the mobile version--I appear to be logged out on mobile because I changed (forgot) my password.
Is there a way I can port my bookmarks and history to desktop? Under Android/data/org.mozilla.firefox/files, there's only a single empty folder: "Download". I can't tell if this is a root-access issue or not. Alternatively, can I at least back up my information on mobile to ensure that a sync doesn't overwrite anything?
Other option--is there a way that I can ensure that a sync doesn't wipe out my information? Sync would be great, but I'm concerned that it'd see the "new" (empty) bookmarks as the "updated" version.
Isisombululo esiKhethiweyo
Sync works--it did not delete either the slightly newer bookmarks I'd made or any of the old ones. If this happens to you (and you've logged in elsewhere), syncing is fine. It's not something you need to worry about.