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Upgraded to 49. Firefox, lost all bookmarks, toolbar and addons. How do I recover this data??

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Upgraded Firefox fifteen minutes ago, lost all of the aforementioned data. The new 49. version did not migrate any of my old data. An "Old Firefox data" was created on my desktop during the upgrade, but none of the info contained in the old data folder appears to be useful. I cant be the only person this has happened to. The loss of bookmarks and addons are no big deal, but the tool bar included password protected links that are very important. Please advise. Thank you. I am using Windows XP.

Upgraded Firefox fifteen minutes ago, lost all of the aforementioned data. The new 49. version did not migrate any of my old data. An "Old Firefox data" was created on my desktop during the upgrade, but none of the info contained in the old data folder appears to be useful. I cant be the only person this has happened to. The loss of bookmarks and addons are no big deal, but the tool bar included password protected links that are very important. Please advise. Thank you. I am using Windows XP.

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Sorry to hear about that. Usually a Refresh preserves important information.

When you say --

An "Old Firefox data" was created on my desktop during the upgrade, but none of the info contained in the old data folder appears to be useful.

-- is that based on studying the support articles on how to recover information, or just the general fact of its indecipherability? If you aren't familiar enough with how Firefox data files work to confidently state that it's useless, let's try to use that folder anyway.

There is a rather involved way to roll back a Refresh... deep breath:

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:

  1. Create a new Firefox profile (Firefox 47+)
  2. Remove everything from that new profile folder
  3. Copy in everything from the old profile folder

Create a new Firefox profile (Windows)

In Firefox, type or paste about:profiles in the address bar and press Enter/Return to load that page.

Click the "Create New Profile" button and assign a name like OldSettings. Ignore the button for changing the folder location and click Finish.

Next, scroll down and below the Profile: OldSettings box, click the "Set as default profile" button.

Then scroll back to the top of the page and click the "Restart normally" button. This should exit Firefox and start Firefox up in that new profile.

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 many 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?