multiple logins.json.corrupt files -- can I delete them?
Background
I tried to log in to a website that I use often and discovered that all of my saved logins had disappeared. After some looking around here, I was able to restore the passwords by replacing logins.json with a "previous version" of the file (about a day old).
about:profiles shows only one profile, the default. There are, however, 4 other "default" profiles in the "profiles" folder, including one from 2017. I ignored all of these older "default" profiles.
Although using the "previous version" seems to have solved the problem, there are a number of files in my default profile, including
- logins.json.corrupt
- 14 more files named login.json.corrupt-1 through login.json.corrupt-14, and
- logins-backup.json
I didn't notice logins-backup.json until after I had replaced the bad file with the "previous version" file, so I don't know if this was created before the problem started (I doubt it) or afterwards.
Questions
- If this happens again and there exists a logins-backup.json file, is that a possible file that can be used to replace a bad logins.json?
- Can I delete all those logins.json.corrupt files? Is there any way to use them? Is there any reason to keep them?
Wót Luminary99 změnjony
Wšykne wótegrona (2)
Firefox creates login.json.corrupt files when there is a problem updating the actual logins.json file. If you have that many numbered login.json.corrupt files then you may have security software that is causing problems with keeping an handle on logins.json, so you may have a look at your security (A/V) software and set an exception for the Firefox profile folder. You can check their file dates to see when they got created and if they are recent or older. You only need one logins.json, so you can remove the others or move them to a safe location. If you recently made changes then you can check the most recent login.json.corrupt file(s) for possible logins you would want to try to recover by renaming login.json.corrupt-xx to logins.json with Firefox closed.
You can use the button on the "Help -> More Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page (Root directory).
- Help -> More Troubleshooting Information -> Profile Folder/Directory:
Windows: Open Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data
All 14 of the numbered logins-n.json.corrupt files were created at exactly the same time. See the first screenshot. In the screenshot, "logins.json.BAD" was the operative logins.json file (the one with no saved logins) until I renamed it before copying the "previous version" into the profile folder.
For some reason, the first (unnumbered) logins.json.corrupt file seems to have been created 6 minutes later.
As you can see in the first screenshot, logins-backup.json was created this afternoon, as I was discovering and fixing the problem.
My a/v software, ESET Nod32, detected and deleted some malware attempting to access something in the profile, but that was 2 days before the CORRUPT files were created. See second screenshot.
For what it's worth, I looked at all of the CORRUPT files using Notepad++ with the JSON Viewer plugin. All of them are indeed corrupt -- just a string of "NUL"s. The logins-backup.json file appears to be a good backup of the file I used to replace the bad one.
