Lost all extremely improtant data after forced Update - Please help
Hi,
I was refraining myself to do any update of Firefox on Windows 10 PC for several months but yesterday I was so annoyed by pop up messages requesting me to update that I gave up and proceed with update... Then disaster happened: everything is lost. All my customized settings, all bookmarks that my life depend on, everything is lost. Please can someone help me survive...
I checked for FirefoxOLD folder if there is one (e.g. on Desktop) anywhere on hard drive of my PC but there isn't. All self done solutions I tried but failed produced around 15+ additional profiles because I had to delete ( * ) Profiles INI single file otherwise Firefox couldn't be opened due to error message. When I deleted INI, I was able to open firefox with LOST extremely important data. Every opening produced I believe 3 new profiles.
( * ) I still have them in Recycle bin.
I went to about:profiles and there are only two: the one being used (lost data) and one more. When I open "one more" profile in different browsers all my data is remaining to be gone.
Currently in total are 18 profiles in C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles folder. At least 15 of them are from failed solution attempts. The thing that worries me the most is the single profile, out of other 3, that should had my data available. I used it as the only folder in "Profiles" folder. Then I used to run Firefox and data is missing even there. This particular profile that brought me the most of hopes is NOT available via about:configs and the thing that worried me the most inside the folder of particular profile that I guess should have the data is the fact that the folder is almost entirely empty. Only two files inside: search-metadata.json and times.json
Can someone please help me get my data back?
Please I had really important data but cannot recover it on my own :'-( oh my god...
All Replies (6)
Look on your desktop. Do you see a folder
called; Old Firefox? Look inside.
Look for the folder with the latest creation date.
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/how-run-firefox-when-profile-missing-inaccessible
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox#Navigating_to_the_profile_folder
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles
Type about:profiles<enter> in the address bar.
How many profiles are listed?
How many should be there?
Also, open the profile folder in your file explorer.
Fred, thank you for your reply but as I have already stated in my first message, there is no "FirefoxOLD" or "Old Firefox" folder anywhere.
Not sure what do you mean with "Look for the folder with the latest creation date. "
Regarding about:profiles, as I said in my first message: I went to about:profiles and there are only two: the one being used (lost data) and one more. When I open "one more" profile in different browsers all my data is remaining to be gone.
Don't know how many should be there. Whatever is there, doesn't recover the data.
Additional image is attached.
I really need my data back please....
Okulungisiwe ngu Andrew
EDIT: I somehow managed to get bookmarks back but everything else is still gone and I still need your very urgent help please. So far everything else, except successfully recovered bookmarks, being gone, are:
passwords certificates icons near bookmarks (note: when you visit a bookmark, usually icon of the website occurs in the bookmark entry menu line) custom settings addons are lost.. All addons are lost, how do i get them back? etc.
Regarding passwords: I'm aware about key4.db and logins.json files. They are already in the same folder from where I partially (why partially? because of icons!) successfully found and restored bookmarks. So those files are already in said folder and are already being in:
C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profileFolderHere>
but I don't know how to use those two files and where. I found the following text:
"Looking for your saved logins? Set up Sync. If you saved your logins to Firefox on a different device, here’s how to get them here: Create or sign in to your Firefox Account on the device where your logins are saved. Make sure you’ve selected the Logins checkbox in Sync Settings. Visit Lockwise Support for more help. If your logins are saved in another browser, you can import them into Lockwise"
But can't help myself with it. I have zero knowledge about Sync and also I doubt any logins were saved to so called Firefox Account on the device. I don't think I have any officially registered account. I managed to come to Saved Logins window but there is no Import option of two files I mentioned either.
Regarding custom settings, addons, said icons, certificates: Don't know how to restore those. Could you please help with those too?
Okulungisiwe ngu Andrew
I'm not getting any replies here but could someone please help me? I'm unable to do anything without working Firefox. Everything was dependent on it. If not icons/settings then please at least help me with passwords (see my messages above) and certificates restoring... I can't even access online banking without certificate and passwords. Oh my god nothing works... please can anyone help to restore at least certificates + passwords.. I tried all logins and key4 files, nothing works. Nothing. :'-(
Did you check the profiles folder to see if there are other unknown profiles?
Firefox automatically creates backups of the bookmarks, but that's all.
Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles {web link}
I use an add-on that makes backups of my user profile, Just In Case.
Unfortunately, it is not compatible with the current Firefox.
Every now and then, open the profile folder and create a copy of the current profile as is to another location on your hard drive. This way you will have a backup.
If you do this each day, you will not lose much data. This should be done with Firefox Closed.
Note: In case you need to restore from these backups, you may need to overwrite old or corrupted files.