How to restore temporary Internet files?

[Beadmaster]

I'm in a very difficult situation and hope there's a solution. In order to get a certain piece of software working, tech support for a specific company not to be named said it would be "extremely important" to delete temporary Internet files. I went ahead and did this. I was working while tired (terrible thing to do) and was too out of it to think of the possible outcome.

Sadly, this "extremely important" step did absolutely nothing to fix the problem, so it was entirely unnecessary, and certainly not "extremely important" or even moderately so. Now my entire browser is completely messed up. It no longer remembers folders that it's been remembering for years. Any marked links on certain pages are gone. Links themselves that I used to use on a more or less daily basis are gone. Logins where the page has a checked "remember me" are gone. I've been logged out from every possible site where I've normally been logged in, including my own. Even my start-up page shows too many of the idiotic company's pages, rather than the ones I use consistently. It will take months, if not over a full year, to recover everything that was obliterated by this company's careless and poorly-thought-out advice. Had it worked, it still wouldn't have been worth it, so it's that much worse that it didn't, that this was all entirely unnecessary.

Please tell me there's a way to entirely recover my temporary Internet files, which were deleted about 24 hours ago.

Thanks in advance.

[therube]

Suppose you'll have to tell us just what it is that you did to "delete temporary Internet files"?

Deleting "TIF" typically means deleting your /cache/ files.
And doing that should not have caused any of the issues you've described.

So, just what did you do?


Sounds like might have done a (FF) Reset?
In which case you should have a backup of your Profile on your Desktop.

Or worse, like actually deleting important files from within your Profile (like places.sqlite...).
And if that, do you have backups?

[Brummelchen]

"temporary Internet files" as a folder which is not used by firefox, but IEview do while inserting the IE engine into firefox.
anyhow that is only IE cache and not usable for regular users - nor are downloads and similare saved at that place.

improve your description of the issue than we look further.

any impact of system crash before data lose? firefox wont lose data without reason. whats your installed security software?

[Beadmaster]

This is what their instructions said to do:
In Firefox
1. Windows: Press Ctrl + Shift + Del to open the "Clear Recent History" window.
2. Select Everything from the drop down box.
3: Click Clear Now to clear your temporary Internet files. Don't worry about which options to pick, just use the defaults.
(My note: those defaults were things like Browsing & Download History, Form & Search History, Cookies, Cache, Active Logins. In other words, everything I use and then some, which will take at least a year to restore, painstakingly, on a slow, slow elderly computer.)
4. Close and reopen Firefox for the changes to take effect.

My note: Yes, the changes have taken effect. Horrible, devastating effect. Like I'm on a brand new computer, but it's 8 years old and slower than slow.

So that's where I am. Firefox is now relegated to crap and my work will now take hours and hours longer every single day, because everything has been cleared out thanks to terrible advice from a company that doesn't know what they're doing and didn't solve any problems whatsoever.

[Brummelchen]

if some had finished this procedure the is only a really really small possibility to recover anything, but i wont give hope on that - windows already has overwritte free space on the hard disc. if there exist no backup or system restore point (windows feature) - to bad. any how some should not execute unknown functions if the result is not clear visible. and there is a warning when using ctrl+shift+del - that action cant be reverted. so at least users fault and not firefox. users can try Runtime Getdataback https://www.runtime.org/ but at least data recovery should be installed before impact, not after. i would try system restore first if that would not mean other data loss.

[Beadmaster]

That was what I'd thought. It wasn't my choice, it was a bad decision based on working while too tired and instructions that were supposed to clear up a problem caused by a software company. Ironically, the original problem wasn't even on my end (corrupted file), but their bad advice to allegedly fix it made it my problem (software itself no longer works, even with non-corrupted files), and then the procedure to clear that up only compounded the issues, until I ended up here. And the initial corrupted software problem still isn't fixed, likely won't be fixed for at least another week, and that will be after they can figure out how to get their own crap software working again for me. And I waited two weeks to get help in the first place, because nobody had bothered responding to my initial inquiries, plural. I had to go and speak to a tech in person just to get a response! Instead of fixing the corrupted file, the corrupted file is still out there, nothing has been done to fix my software problem and I'm stuck adding at least 3 hours per day more than I already spend when using Firefox, because I have to manually restore every login, every link (tens of thousands), every site/folder association, and those have to be done at least three times, because Firefox easily "forgets," and it's all on an 8 year old slow, slow computer that can't get out of its own way fast enough.

Lazy programmers, lazy software companies. If I ran my own businesses the way this particular company has, I would have been out of business years ago.

[kreemoweet]

One word: "Backup".

When all is said and done, it is YOU who clicked that button and wiped out your stuff. And if you had ^^^^ available, you could have been back in business in a few minutes.

So stop trying to blame everyone but yourself.

[billko]

One word: "Backup".

When all is said and done, it is YOU who clicked that button and wiped out your stuff. And if you had ^^^^ available, you could have been back in business in a few minutes.

So stop trying to blame everyone but yourself.

Following that line of thought, if a mechanic told you to switch around all your spark plug wires and you did it and you screwed up your engine, it's your fault?

I know what you are saying about backups, and you're right. It's a lesson learned. On the other hand, he was a victim of bad advice also, so let's not come down with the hammer too hard.

[the-edmeister]

On the other hand, he was a victim of bad advice also, so let's not come down with the hammer too hard.

On a third hand, user error and then blaming the software "gets old" real fast when we see it every week. And being a member here since Jun 2004, he oughta know that moillaZine ain't part of Mozilla. The people here are just other Firefox users.


.

[Brummelchen]

it is YOU who clicked that button

i dont think so - he is only the recovery dude for another user.

maybe CCK2 can help you/them out next time
https://mike.kaply.com/cck2/

you can customize (C) firefox for some needs, maybe that key combo can be prevented by default.
its an extension which offers several output methods that user cant change after installation.

HTH

[therube]

Well to me, at least part of the blame lies on Mozilla - IMO.

One of the very first things I do when I set up a new Profile, is to change the defaults that are cleared when you Clear Private Data.
What works for me, is to only default to Cache & Authenticated Session.
I uncheck all else, because usually all else (except for cookies) are generally important to me.
(I typically don't run into cookie related issues, but if I think I have, I can just go in & manually remove them.)


Anyhow... anytime one accumulates something they would rather not loose... back it up.

[dfoulkes]

How to restore temporary Internet files?

You are absolutely correct with respect to what that service company told you to do... in fact, the title (and some of the of the embedded dialog here) is basically incorrect. The basic thing here is that the specific question is not to restore temp. internet files (because those files would be associated to their own browser(s)) ... and in this case we are talking about Firefox 'data' files and not temp internet files... just want to make that clear.

So, that CTRL+ALT+DEL displayed all the data-categories that Firefox uses to maintain its data in various files ... and they are not specifically 'files'.... they can be split up... like bookmarks and browsing history are stored in the Places.sqlite file ... etc...

So... what Brummelchen posted about 'possible' data recovery might get you back some of that data... but I doubt it. ... and basically, about the only thing that I can think of would be the recovery of data (files) from prior backups.

And/but... depending on how long you have use Firefox 'since' the orig. clearing out of data... there are some files in your profile ... in a Bookmarks backup folder ... that 'may' contain bookmarks... again it depends on how long you ran Firefox before coming here... they are json type files and can be 'Restored' back into your Places.sqlite file... but what you need to do is backup your current profile first...
And I would create a Test profile and use that profile to Restore any of those json type files ....just to see what you get before you mess with your default profile...

Creating a new Firefox profile on Windows - MozillaZine Knowledge Base
And,.... DON'T TOUCH THAT "Choose Folder..." BUTTON! ... unless you fully know all about it.

Following that line of thought, if a mechanic told you to switch around all your spark plug wires and you did it and you screwed up your engine, it's your fault?

In my opinion... yes, it would be my fault... because ...welllll... I would check out the concept of cylinders/pistons/timing/ignition etc... before I did anything...if I didn't understand any of it... I would talk to another mechanic... just saying.

[billko]

THAT is pretty funny, dfoulkes.

[dfoulkes]

Let's just hope that the OP can get back some of his stuff... and starts doing backups....it's a real shame that a user puts so much effort in modifying Firefox and retaining so much important data in there ... and doesn't do backups... in fact, I do a system backup once a month... and if I used this system to say... run a business or have other stuff in it that was changing all the time... and was critical... I'd be doing backups daily....and of course, storing those backups off-system.

[billko]

Let's just hope that the OP can get back some of his stuff... and starts doing backups....it's a real shame that a user puts so much effort in modifying Firefox and retaining so much important data in there ... and doesn't do backups... in fact, I do a system backup once a month... and if I used this system to say... run a business or have other stuff in it that was changing all the time... and was critical... I'd be doing backups daily....and of course, storing those backups off-system.

Believe it or not, I actually use SVN to version my profile. Before I make any changes, I commit. And if somehow that fails, I always have my daily backups to fall back on. (My drive is mirrored also, to help protect against hardware failures. Am I paranoid, or what???)