Had to reload operating system and apps data, now can't get firefox to recognize profile data
My C drive (solid state drive) which held my operating system and app data crashed. I had it replaced, upgraded from Win 7 to Win 10, and have downloaded Firefox. I was able to restore my profile data from a Mozy backup, and copied it into the Firefox folder. But Firefox resolutely refuses to recognize it. I have tried using the Recovering Data from an old profile help page, but to no benefit. Tried using the Profile Manager, but without success. When I go to Troubleshooting Information and click on Profile Folder/Show Profile, it comes up with the complete list of the files (folders starting with bookmarkbackups, which however is empty, down to webapps, which has the file webapps.json in it), then the files starting with addons.json down through xulstore.json, and the places.sqlite file is 10,240 KB, so clearly there's something in there, but Firefox resolutely refuses to recognize my profile, bookmarks, etc.
I'm out of options and tearing my hair out trying to get all my bookmarks, in which I have lots of information stored such as sign-on data for many of the bookmarked sites. It's frustrating that all the information seems to be there, but Firefox just ignores it.
Can anybody help?
Chosen solution
Such a backup is possibly a ZIP archive that has all the files in it if it isn't a real folder but only one file.
Note that is you replace places.sqlite file with a copy from the backup that you have to make sure to remove existing places.sqlite-shm and places.sqlite-wal SQLite temp files. The same for other SQLite files that you restore.
Did you check the application.ini file in the backup?
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Do you have (compressed .jsonlz4) JSON backups in the bookmarkbackups folder of the backup?
From what Firefox version was that Mozy backup created? applications.ini could tell you that.
If places.sqlite is corrupt or not compatible with the current release then your best bet would be restoring a JSON backup.
These aren't doing it. I've tried everything I can to try to get the profile to restore. It may be, i suppose, that Mozy didn't properly back up all the files I need. That would be a major bummer.
But I do have a downloaded copy of the Mozy backup on my Desktop which seems to have my old profile with all the files in it, but I can't figure out how to get Firefox to use that profile information.
How do I tell it to use that profile?????
I tried working with Profile Manager, but couldn't figure out a way to get it to recognize that profile.
I'm wondering whether I should just delete Firefox from my computer, move that profile into the app data Firefox folder, and then download a fresh copy of Firefox. Would that be likely to do it?
Or is there some other way to get Firefox to use the profile information that is in the folder on my desktop???
Chosen Solution
Such a backup is possibly a ZIP archive that has all the files in it if it isn't a real folder but only one file.
Note that is you replace places.sqlite file with a copy from the backup that you have to make sure to remove existing places.sqlite-shm and places.sqlite-wal SQLite temp files. The same for other SQLite files that you restore.
Did you check the application.ini file in the backup?
Finally got a pro in to deal with it, and after about an hour of trying we finally succeeded. Whew. Years of data in my bookmarks folders are now back. Thanks for the help in trying to solve it.