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Bookmarks and passwords not loading on new computer after logging in

  • 3 replies
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  • Last reply by cor-el

luke36
luke36
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I logged in to Firefox on my new computer and I know I had everything accept credit cards checked off to sync and have been logged in. I double checked everything and made sure to sync just in case. After logging in to Firefox on my new computer, it still shows everything that i had checked off to sync but it's not syncing anything and looks like a fresh install of Firefox with no account, even though I'm logged in and have synced. What am i doing wrong? I consider myself to be pretty competent when it comes to this stuff and I don't see what is wrong.

I logged in to Firefox on my new computer and I know I had everything accept credit cards checked off to sync and have been logged in. I double checked everything and made sure to sync just in case. After logging in to Firefox on my new computer, it still shows everything that i had checked off to sync but it's not syncing anything and looks like a fresh install of Firefox with no account, even though I'm logged in and have synced. What am i doing wrong? I consider myself to be pretty competent when it comes to this stuff and I don't see what is wrong.

All Replies (3)

Paul
Paul
  • Top 25 Contributor
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Hi

Thank you for your question about the Firefox Sync service.

It appears from your question, that you are using Firefox Sync as a back up service. This is not what Sync is designed to do. The Firefox Sync service takes a copy of the data you wish to include and transfers it to a second device (typically a mobile device such as a tablet or a telephone) running a copy of Firefox. The storage in between all attached devices is both temporary and fragile and is not stable enough to be (and is not designed as) a reliable backup service.

If you have a copy of your Firefox profile for desktop Firefox, you may be able to recover your bookmarks and other data. Please have a read of this article.

If you have a copy of your data on a mobile version of Firefox, please follow these instructions to connect it to Firefox Sync to copy your data.

luke36
luke36 Question owner
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I see, but regardless, i had everything checked off to be attached to my account across browsers I'm logged in to so why are the bookmarks and passwords not syncing?

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Do you still have that old device s you can also use an USB drive to transfer personal data ?

Did you possibly reset the password of the Sync account because you forgot the password?

Resetting the password for the Firefox Account because you do not remember the password will remove all data stored on the Sync server because this password is used to encrypt your data before it is uploaded to the Sync server and only this password or a possible recovery key can decrypt this data.

You can install the About Sync extension in Firefox 72 and newer on desktop to check what data is stored on the Sync server via the about:sync page provided by this extension.

Close and restart Firefox to access the about:sync page added by this extension (see the about:about page for possible about pages).