At the suggestion of Firefox's help: I did a Firefox REFRESH which was supposed to fix things. It destroyed my Firefox profile
I have spent years with Firefox capturing and using Bookmarks and I ALWAYS have the system remember the passwords.
After the "REFRESH" my bookmarks and passwords ARE GONE!!!!
Is there anyway to get these back??? I cannot believe that this happened after years of use; now Firefox is virtually USELESS and the "fix" was supposed to help not DESTROY.
Can someone help?
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Hi CHILDERS, sorry to hear that the Refresh did not work correctly for you. It is supposed to:
- move your old profile folder to the desktop inside an Old Firefox Data folder, and
- create a new profile with selected data from your old profile including bookmarks and passwords
Did the first part work? If so, two options:
(1) Manually recover specific settings files from your old profile to your current one. This article describes some of the things you'll be looking for: Recover important data from an old profile.
(2) Manually "roll back" the Refresh by creating a new profile with all the data from your old one. Details below.
If the old profile folder is NOT in the Old Firefox Data folder, let us know and we can provide suggestions on how to search for it.
For #2 above:
Refresh moves your old profile (settings) folder to your desktop inside an Old Firefox Data folder. You can use that to "roll back" the Refresh, but it does involve several steps. This takes 5 minutes, but that may be faster than recovering individual files and loading those into your new profile manually.
Check inside the "Old Firefox Data" folder that Refresh adds to your desktop for a folder with a semi-randomized name. If there's only one, that probably has your old settings and add-ons. If there's more than one, you'll want to work with the one that was updated most recently.
Once you have identified the profile folder you want to restore, here is my suggested "old profile resurrection procedure":
Overview
These are the steps described in more detail below:
- Create a new Firefox profile
- Remove everything from that new profile folder
- Copy in everything from the old profile folder
Create a new Firefox profile (Windows)
Exit Firefox completely, and then start up in the Profile Manager by pasting the following into the Windows search box, or the Run dialog, and pressing Enter:
firefox.exe -P
Note: Any time you want to switch profiles, exit Firefox and return to this dialog.
Click the Create Profile button, assign a name like OldSettings, and skip the option to change the folder location. Then select that new profile in the dialog and start Firefox.
Open the New Profile folder in Windows Explorer
Firefox in the new profile should look like a factory fresh installation. Open the Troubleshooting Information page using either:
- "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
- Help menu > Troubleshooting Information
- type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter
In the first table, click the "Show Folder" button. Firefox will launch your brand new profile folder in Windows Explorer.
Leaving that folder open, switch back to Firefox, and Exit using either:
- "3-bar" menu button > "power" button
- (menu bar) File > Exit
When Firefox closes, the profile folder should be front and center, or you can activate it using the Task bar.
Copy Old Data in Place of New
In that new profile folder you just popped open -- NOT the one on your desktop -- select all the contents (you can use Ctrl+a) and delete (you can press the Delete key on the keyboard).
Leaving that window open, open or switch over to your Old Firefox Data folder. Drill down into your old profile folder. At this level you should see a folder named bookmarkbackups among other things.
Select everything (Ctrl+a) and Copy (either right-click > Copy or Ctrl+c).
Switch to the empty new profile folder in other window and Paste (either right-click > Paste or Ctrl+v). This may take a minute since some of the files are large.
Start Firefox
Firefox should start up in that "new" profile with the resurrected old profile data. Success?