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Lost password manager

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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My firefox site was running slow and a warning came up suggesting I re-install. I checked and it said all passwords would be saved. Having done this I can not even find the password manager on the site nor do any of my saved sites respond with email address or password when required to sign-in. I seem to have lost everything! Help!

My firefox site was running slow and a warning came up suggesting I re-install. I checked and it said all passwords would be saved. Having done this I can not even find the password manager on the site nor do any of my saved sites respond with email address or password when required to sign-in. I seem to have lost everything! Help!

Chosen solution

Did you reset Firefox and create a new profile?

When you reset Firefox then a new profile is created and some personal data (bookmarks, history, cookies, passwords, form data) is automatically imported and the current profile folder will be moved to the desktop to an "Old Firefox Data" folder. Installed extensions and other customizations (toolbars, prefs) that you have made are lost and need to be redone.

It is possible to recover data from the old profile, but be cautious not to copy corrupted files to avoid carrying over problems.

You would have to copy the signons.sqlite and key3.db files from the "Old Firefox Data" folder to the current Firefox profile folder. Note that Firefox 32 and later will use logins.json instead of signons.sqlite.

If you use the Time Machine then you can also try to recover files via that application.

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Chosen Solution

Did you reset Firefox and create a new profile?

When you reset Firefox then a new profile is created and some personal data (bookmarks, history, cookies, passwords, form data) is automatically imported and the current profile folder will be moved to the desktop to an "Old Firefox Data" folder. Installed extensions and other customizations (toolbars, prefs) that you have made are lost and need to be redone.

It is possible to recover data from the old profile, but be cautious not to copy corrupted files to avoid carrying over problems.

You would have to copy the signons.sqlite and key3.db files from the "Old Firefox Data" folder to the current Firefox profile folder. Note that Firefox 32 and later will use logins.json instead of signons.sqlite.

If you use the Time Machine then you can also try to recover files via that application.