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passwords lost after every update since firefox 74.0

  • 6 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by FredMcD

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after the ubuntu 18.04.4 firefox update to 74.0 my passwords seams totally lost. No ask for my master password as I visited a login site. Going to menue passwords, I was asked for my master password, and after entering, my password storage was empty. After a very long time, it seamed as my passwords are back again, but they where not complete, only 271 where back. On an very old system, from which I had transferred the firefox profile to the system now in use, I had had 413 passwords and I had had to create a lot more since this clone. After update to 74.0.1 again, at first passwords where completely lost and now again, lots of them where missing. What was astonishing was, on the old system key4.db is 294912 Byte (and no logins.json), now key4.db is 720896 B (logins.json 141519 B) but for sure lacking lot of information!

after the ubuntu 18.04.4 firefox update to 74.0 my passwords seams totally lost. No ask for my master password as I visited a login site. Going to menue passwords, I was asked for my master password, and after entering, my password storage was empty. After a very long time, it seamed as my passwords are back again, but they where not complete, only 271 where back. On an very old system, from which I had transferred the firefox profile to the system now in use, I had had 413 passwords and I had had to create a lot more since this clone. After update to 74.0.1 again, at first passwords where completely lost and now again, lots of them where missing. What was astonishing was, on the old system key4.db is 294912 Byte (and no logins.json), now key4.db is 720896 B (logins.json 141519 B) but for sure lacking lot of information!

All Replies (6)

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If I'm not mistaken, logins.json stores your logins & passwords. The key4.db file stores your encryption key (Master Password).

Don't Delete or Move any files until someone more familiar with Linux can help.

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Are you using a password add-on/program other than Firefox?


In the event that the passwords information is lost, you should record all information in a separate text file somewhere else on your hard drive, or written down. You can easily copy and paste if you need to do so. If you are concerned about someone else looking at that file, you can compress it using a password.

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Chosen Solution

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Thank you for your response.

I think I could guess what is wrong with firefox74. Though I never actively agreed in comparing my browser logins database with Firefox Monitor, after every firefox Update, at least since 74.0, my approximately 500 logins (more than three decades since Netscape) where compared over the internet, which took more then 10 minutes and while this is done, the local browser password manager isn't functional. The real problem with firefox74 is, that no warning is shown to the user, that browsers password manager is temporarily unavailable. Therefore I got panic and started activities to recover may passwords with suggestions from long time ago. I tried recovery by resetting my firefox profile. Had a crash (my logins.json.corrupt is 0 B in the profile folder on my desktop), it is very astonishing, that after long time 271 of the passwords reappeared, obviously after the comparison with Monitor was done.

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