I lost all my firefox data

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drawoh
Posts: 69
Joined: January 10th, 2005, 10:37 pm

I lost all my firefox data

Post by drawoh »

When I started firefox my option was refresh or safe mode. I clicked refresh. I restarted my computer and I lost everything I had saved for years in Firefox. I don't even have Google as my homepage. On the desktop is a yellow folder titled "Old Firefox Data."

Please help.
Sugoi
Posts: 29
Joined: June 21st, 2015, 7:28 pm

Re: I lost all my firefox data

Post by Sugoi »

Never encoutered such a situation as I make backups. However, my guess is that the "Old Firefox Data" folder contains all the files or rather your old Firefox profile before you did the refresh. Simply replace the current profile with the old one.

The Firefox profile is located in:
c:\Users\xxx\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox

xxx = Windows username
drawoh
Posts: 69
Joined: January 10th, 2005, 10:37 pm

Re: I lost all my firefox data

Post by drawoh »

Hi,

Thanks for responding to my query. When I tried to find c:\Users\xxx\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox after clicking Start-Run I got this message: "c:\Users\xxx\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox refers to a location that is unavailable. It could be on a hard drive on this computer or on a network...."

When I googled "Where is my firefox profile? it answered %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles. After clicking Start -Run, I found three folders in Mozilla-Firefox-Profiles.

One of the folders is dated 8-12-17 6:47 PM and another is dated 8-12-17 9:47 PM. (There is an earlier one from 2013.)

You say "simply replace the current profile with the old one." How exactly do I "replace?" What do I click to do this?

Please help.
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malliz
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Re: I lost all my firefox data

Post by malliz »

What sort of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.
"Terry Pratchett"
drawoh
Posts: 69
Joined: January 10th, 2005, 10:37 pm

Re: I lost all my firefox data

Post by drawoh »

That's not fair. Firefox erases all my profile information that I've accumulated for many years and I don't know how to get it back. And the best suggestion you have is to read this very complicated technical stuff that I can't follow. I ask for a lifeline and you throw me an anchor.

Wow. My Firefox browser is almost useless without my settings and things.
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malliz
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Re: I lost all my firefox data

Post by malliz »

It didn't erase all the information. It backed it up to that Old Firefox Data folder.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/re ... d-settings
Last edited by malliz on August 13th, 2017, 1:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
What sort of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.
"Terry Pratchett"
Sugoi
Posts: 29
Joined: June 21st, 2015, 7:28 pm

Re: I lost all my firefox data

Post by Sugoi »

drawoh wrote: You say "simply replace the current profile with the old one." How exactly do I "replace?" What do I click to do this?

Please help.
Just delete the content in the current profile's folder and copy all the "old stuff" into that one.

As you seem to have several profiles I suggest opening the "profiles.ini" to find out which profile (folder) is the default one or rather currently used one. You might as well use this opportunity and delete all the other profiles and make appropriate changes in the aforementioned "profiles.ini".
Ruth
Posts: 213
Joined: January 29th, 2004, 6:23 pm

Re: I lost all my firefox data

Post by Ruth »

I just wanted to say thank you for your posts on this subject. I have spent hours reading the directions [not from the forum - my mistake :oops: ] and following them and getting nowhere with replace the new refresh profile with the old one that the refresh pocess makes as backup [thankfully]. It took me all of 5 minutes after reading this post. Thank the Lord for this support forum! All you guys are terrifically helpful.

Ruth
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dfoulkes
Posts: 22525
Joined: June 28th, 2008, 10:31 pm
Location: Mesquite, Nevada

Re: I lost all my firefox data

Post by dfoulkes »

Added to all of this... and Ruth... glad you got it all back....

I've put a lot of time and work into this profile and would not want to lose anything...so...

I have a reminder on my system to back up my profile every Friday... I use the extension FEBE (not sure if it will work in future versions) ... and I backup 'always'.
FEBE :: Add-ons for Firefox

If you don't end up using that extension you should do that same backup by just using Windows 'Copy' and paste into a folder that you have created... BACKUPS or ?? ... but you need to always do it...just rememberto close Firefox when using the Windows tools.
As you can see she's (The CAT) always alert and on the prowl for Meoware !!
josegotme
Posts: 407
Joined: December 23rd, 2008, 11:43 am

Re: I lost all my firefox data

Post by josegotme »

Did you ever hear of a BACKUP! I use Mozbackup and it works well. Also, make sure your computer is image backuped.
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LIMPET235
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Joined: October 19th, 2007, 1:53 am
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Re: I lost all my firefox data

Post by LIMPET235 »

Just some further info on MozbackUp...
ref; > http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup
& read this bit that is contained therein...
While Mozbackup is extremely popular in the forums, it's no longer maintained. Its recommended that you verify that you can restore a backup it creates before relying upon it. Use Mozbackup 1.5.2 Beta 1 (there is a download link for it in the News section of the site) rather than the version available at the normal download link. Mozbackup 1.5.1 usually works fine but a few users have had problems where it doesn't backup everything it is supposed to. The beta doesn't seem to have that problem.
[Ancient Amateur Astronomer.]
Win-10-H/64 bit/500G SSD/16 Gig Ram/450Watt PSU/350WattUPS/Firefox-115.0.2/T-bird-115.3.2./SnagIt-v10.0.1/MWP-7.12.125.

(Always choose the "Custom" Install.)
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dfoulkes
Posts: 22525
Joined: June 28th, 2008, 10:31 pm
Location: Mesquite, Nevada

Re: I lost all my firefox data

Post by dfoulkes »

Yep... had problems with Moz a long time ago... after the author stopped updating... FEBE worked well but since I went back to ESR... not sure if it's going to work with future 'normal' Firefox versions... the old normal copy/paste in Windows is a sure way to back up stuff... as long as the OP closed Firefox.
As you can see she's (The CAT) always alert and on the prowl for Meoware !!
TrueFalcon
Posts: 146
Joined: July 1st, 2010, 10:18 pm
Location: Blenheim, Ontario, Canada

Re: I lost all my firefox data

Post by TrueFalcon »

Not paranoid here...

besides the scheduled full automatic system backups run daily, I also backup and keep the last two good working Firefox profiles every time Firefox starts. (which happens frequently when running Nightly ;-) )

An AutoHotKey hotkey checks if Fx is running, if not, it calls Firefox_start.ahk which, in turn, first calls buFirefox.cmd which copies the prior good profile to the second backup, then copies the last used profile to first backup. The cmd file exits and returns control to the waiting ahk script which then starts Firefox.

Code: Select all

/*
 *  O:\AHK\Script\Firefox_start.ahk
*/

RunWait o:/CmdFiles/buFirefox.cmd
Run C:\Program Files\Nightly\firefox.exe	;; 64 Bit Nightly
Return

;; buFirefox.cmd
@echo off
C:
cd C:\Users\True\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\TrueFalcon
xcopy /f /d /y /s /q "..\TrueFalcon - Copy\*.*" "..\TrueFalcon - Copy - Copy\"
xcopy /f /d /y /s /q *.* "..\TrueFalcon - Copy\"
exit
It may sound cumbersome, but it keeps two prior good working profiles and only takes ONE second from the hotkey push to Firefox running on an HP I7 with a Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD.

And all those profiles go into the daily full backups so there is always lots of ways to recover a profile here!

;-)
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