help: major hell with Firefox 4

clapton is god · 23 Mar 2011 at 18:51

had major probs installing Firefox 4, backed up folder and it's contents with folders such as bookmarksbackup and a password file called signons.sqlite file.

well things were not going to plan and in my frustration i deleted the mozzilla firefox folder (but with as above saved to safe postion/folder) and installed Firefox 4 once again.

pc booted up, clicked on firefox.....expecting all to be ok.....it was not....hell.

bookmarks gone and i presume passwords too as i have to manually input details to log on here.

i tried restore many times to no avail - simply no joy using restore to correct my major error.

please help, i know i goofed big time, patient sod that i am, but I'd really appreciate constructive advise for someone going into a slow panic.

UnworthyBean · 23 Mar 2011 at 18:55

Pretty sure all user data is stored in the AppData folder within your user folder. So if you didn't back that up, then theres nothing much you can do.

clapton is god · 23 Mar 2011 at 19:28

got my bookmarks restored - imported it from back up folder suing bookmarkbackup .json file
( not imported from another browser.ie.explorer 8) just need to get password file restored.

SiriusB · 23 Mar 2011 at 20:42

As above, if you haven't got the backup of your password files from the temp dirs, you can probably kiss them all goodbye.

The FF password manager is pants anyway. Time to start fresh with LastPast!

mrk · 24 Mar 2011 at 00:06

FF does encrypt the passwords if you enable the master password feature in FF but that's besides the issue here

The files you needed to back up were signons.sqlite and key3.db, both are required for a successful restore of logons and passwords for websites.

C:\Users\YOU\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\PROFILENAME
Is where they are, not in the Local folder where another Mozilla folder is!

You could do a Windows System, restore which would restore the profile directory back and then you can restore the contents and once done you can undo the restore.

Alternatively you could right click the profile folder and click properties then the Previous Versions (pic:1) tab and select to browse a previous version of that folder's contents thanks to the Shadow Copy service built into Windows.

Pic:1