Saved Password Don't Transfer between update

[tuaris]

I have Firefox profile with a few saved passwords that was moved to a new computer. The Firefox version was originally something old from 2019, I didn't check the version unfortunately. On the new system the latest version of Firefox was installed and the profile was moved into place, then I launched the browser.

The passwords were not there. Downgrading to an older version of Firefox (I tried 39) shows the saved passwords once again.

I decided to try and track this down using a clean environment and new Firefox profile. Specifically in a freshly spun up Windows 7 64-bit SP1 virtual machine. I copy these three files to a newly created Firefox profile:

• key3.db

• key4.db

• logins.json

After trying several different versions of Firefox I manage to narrow down moment the 'breakage" occurs. Saved passwords are present in Firefox 57.0.4, and disappear in 58.0.2.

I think there is some migration process that's failing to kick off. How can I "force" it?

Things I already tried:

• the suggestion to reset "signon.importedFromSqlite"

• removing "pkcs11.txt"

• removing "key4.db"

[tnffuser]

Also, FF Lockwise will not/dies not sync logins between updates, apparently deleted when FF updated.
Happened with me with latest and a prior update, so forgot about Lockwise, could be a decent toy if ever perfected.

[dickvl]

Firefox 58 and newer use key4.db (SQLite) for the key file and no longer use key3.db (DBM), but can use key3.db as a fallback when key4.db is missing.

So it is likely that you have a valid logins.json and key3.db but also have a leftover key4.db file.
If you remove the key4.db file then Firefox 58 should migrate key3.db to key4.db.

Note that support for key3.db ended with Firefox 73 and newer (i.e. 72.0.2 is the last version you can use to do the migration).