[SOLVED] Firefox passwords lost after update to 60 Quantum

[kateto]

Hello,
The title says it all. A week ago my Firefox got updated from version 52 to 60, and now the dozens of password I had in store (including the one for this forum, which I've had to reset) are totally gone . Remarkably, the Master Password that I had set is gone too, and the option is unchecked.

Has anybody else suffered this bug? What shall I do to recover my old passwords?

[morgano]

A web search tells we are not alone.

Yes me too. cookies, everything. And some important plugins are not compatible, like tab managers i used heavily.
Yes it is a bit itrritating i repair industrial machines that have lasted 30+ years without program changes, while desktop computers have always been an unreliable changing mess during decades despite requirements on reilibility is lower (a browser can not kill a human. OK maybe by heart attack ). Go figure. OK i know it is driven by people wanting newest fashion bling-bling, and companies want to sell
OK sorry for the rant, i just need more cofee i think...

I never trust programs to last and never store important passwords in any browser, and use keepassx for passwords also for reliability as it have migration paths to other password managers.
(And i still keep laptops with Windows XP or lower to talk to some quality machines...)

[isadora]

Morgano is absolutely right, more users are complaining.
Mozilla gives extensive information, maybe take a look at:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1204443

And concerning use of password-managers; keepass(x) is absolutely doing a great job, it's even pluggable within Firefox, and you have everything in own control.
Advise to keep the keepass-database-file somewhere on external media as a safe-copy.

[morgano]

Regarding the keepassx I automatically sync the database file to other devices, and regard it safe as it is encrypted. Also programs on other operating system can use it. For extra safety i use both manually entered key, and a non synced key file that looks like something else.

[kateto]

Please, stay on topic! I need to recover my passwords before I go hunting another pasword manager.
I have a backup of my Firefox profile. Is it possible to downgrade Firefox back to the previous version in order to recover them? How should I do it?

[morgano]

I guess the easiest is to use MCC: uninstall Firefox, and then you search for firefox and all available versions in enabled repos should appear.
I did not try this myself, if old firefox finds the passwords then, but i guess you could find that info, or what to do, at firefox site/forum.
Then maybe you can enable password sync in firefox to sync them somewhere, and then back in the newer firefox after upgrade? I dont know.
We are not firefox support, like we are not support for the myriads of other programs in our repos.

[kateto]

Thanks for the hint, after uninstalling, reinstalling Firefox 52 and copying my backup over I got my paswords back.

[jiml8]

Was it only passwords that got lost? Or was it the whole environment?

I would not care about lost passwords; I use a password manager on my NAS anyway. But it would really suck to lose my whole environment. I am hesitating about this particular upgrade because of that particular issue.

[doktor5000]

From the mozilla support article it seems firefox simply moved the complete profile to the desktop in a folder "Old Firefox" which is the same as if you don't run firefox in a while, it will offer you a prompt to clean up and stuff, and you basically end up with a fresh profile.
Maybe firefox also offered this when starting it the first time after the update, and people did simply not realise what was being offered and accepted ...

I just checked my firefox profile, which is pretty extensive and pretty old, and it worked just fine, nothing was lost, so it's not a general issue.