Logging into Sync overwrites newer (local) passwords
Today i have decided to start using Sync again, after not using it for quite a while (i don't know how long exactly, over a year). I had, since then, updated several passwords and saved these with the Firefox password manager.
Now after logging into Sync, the passwords that the password manager filled in were not the ones i had updated, but the ones that were still saved in Sync. Checking the saved passwords showed that the PW-manager indeed only had the old passwords i had stored online with Sync. Logging out of Sync did not switch back to the local passwords. I have no backups of logins.json/key3.db.
Is there any way to recover the local passwords? Does Sync simply update and overwrite the local files, or does it do something else, that can be undone?
If there is no resolution for this issue, it might be a good idea for the future that Sync compares the dates of passwords for specific logins, and only keeps the newer ones (or asks which ones to keep).
Chosen solution
That can happen if you have previously used the Sync account with a computer. If you reconnect and have a different computer name then Firefox tries to merge existing passwords with the passwords stored on the Sync server. You could have avoid that by changing the password of the Sync account to reset all data stored on the Sync server. If you do not have a backup of this data or have it stored on another computer then it is likely that you have lost those passwords. You might have a copy of the logins.json stored by windows as part of a system restore point, so you can check that out. If you have changed the master password then you need key3.db as well. Do not restore Windows to an older version by restoring a system restore point because that causes more problems than you would solve.
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Chosen Solution
That can happen if you have previously used the Sync account with a computer. If you reconnect and have a different computer name then Firefox tries to merge existing passwords with the passwords stored on the Sync server. You could have avoid that by changing the password of the Sync account to reset all data stored on the Sync server. If you do not have a backup of this data or have it stored on another computer then it is likely that you have lost those passwords. You might have a copy of the logins.json stored by windows as part of a system restore point, so you can check that out. If you have changed the master password then you need key3.db as well. Do not restore Windows to an older version by restoring a system restore point because that causes more problems than you would solve.
See:
Oh well, thanks for the quick reply. luckily i stored all the important passwords externally, but some smaller accounts will remain locked forever.
This might be a bigger issue for some people though, especially since this is not an action you would expect to delete data, and it doesnt warn you about it either. Im gonna go fill out a feedback form about that.