FireFox - unable to restore profile. Help?

By Technique
in Web Browser Discussion & Support

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Grand Master

Technique

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So based on the other thread I have here, i couldn't go into the drive & save bookmarks etc so i followed the advice on saving the Profile folder which I did.

 

I then formatted the hard drive, installed FireFox & came to restore the profile.

 

To do this i went to

 

C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox

 

There was a folder called "Profiles" which i renamed to "Profiles.old". There's also a "Profiles.ini" file in that folder which i left alone.

 

So i copied the backed up Profiles folder from my USB drive into this folder where it sat alongside the renamed "Profiles.old" folder.

 

Once it had finished copying there (347mb) i then opened FireFox

 

Only to be greeted with the message "Your FireFox Profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible".

 

1) What have i done wrong?

2) How can i fix it?

 

I'm not so bothered about the saved usernames & passwords, although it'd be nice. It's the bookmarks i want because there's so many of them.

Grand Master

Technique

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13 minutes ago, Gary7 said:

Do you sync Firefox?

Not that I know of? Sync FireFox with what?

 

Sorry if that sounds stupid but you lost me. You're going to have to hold my hand on this one i'm afraid. :)

 

11 minutes ago, Ned said:

You left the profiles.ini file alone.  You need to edit it in notepad and point it to the new profile folder name.

Except the 'new' folder is called Profiles. It's like this....

 

I access the folder & there's a folder which we'll call folder#1, it's name is "Profiles". 

 

I rename this to "Profiles.old".

 

I then get the Profiles folder that i want (we'll call this folder#2) & copy it across. 

 

The name of that folder is "Profiles".

 

So if the .ini is just pointing at a folder called "Profiles" then the new (Folder#2) folder should fit the bill right?

 

 

 

 

On a side note, i opened both Profiles folders, both the new & old & the content of each are very different. There's a lot more in the new folder (folder#1) than there is in the old one (folder#2 - the one that i want).

Grand Master

+Gary7 Subscriber²

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You can sync Firefox with a Firefox Account and it saves all of your data including your profile. If you ever got a new PC all you would have to do is install Firefox and sync it with your account and you would have everything back, pw-bm's etc and or whatever you choose to sync. I use it as there is not really a need to save Firefox with a program like Hekasoft Backup & Restore 0.53.

Grand Master

Technique

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  • Author
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Oh right i get you. 

 

No i don't do that.

 

Is there any way to get round this problem from the position i'm in

 

When i reinstalled Windows & then Firefox, i went to the profile folder of the 'new' FireFox profile. The contents were like so...

 

FireFox1.jpg

 

Like i said, plenty.

 

But when i went to the old profile which i had saved (basically from another hard drive which had Windows installed i was able to access the hard drive i couldn't boot to. I followed the advice in the other thread, going to the listed directory & just copied that Profile folder to my USB drive.)

 

The contents of the old Profile folder are like so...

 

FireFox2.jpg

 

Couldn't be any more different really.

Grand Master

+Gary7 Subscriber²

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7 minutes ago, Technique said:

Oh right i get you. 

 

No i don't do that.

 

Is there any way to get round this problem from the position i'm in

 

When i reinstalled Windows & then Firefox, i went to the profile folder of the 'new' FireFox profile. The contents were like so...

 

FireFox1.jpg

 

Like i said, plenty.

 

But when i went to the old profile which i had saved (basically from another hard drive which had Windows installed i was able to access the hard drive i couldn't boot to. I followed the advice in the other thread, going to the listed directory & just copied that Profile folder to my USB drive.)

 

The contents of the old Profile folder are like so...

 

FireFox2.jpg

 

Couldn't be any more different really.

Put all of the above in a folder called Profiles which should be located in C:\username\appdata\roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\ XXXXX  The xxxx is your Profile or profiles.

Grand Master

+Gary7 Subscriber²

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48 minutes ago, Ned said:

You copied files from C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\local  instead of C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Roaming.

 

If this is the case then you probably only have the firefox cache.

My entire profile is located there:

 

Profiles - Where Firefox stores your bookmarks, passwords and other ...

 

Profile folder - Firefox - MozillaZine Knowledge Base

 

Profile folder - Firefox - MozillaZine Knowledge Base

Mentor

+Neyht Subscriber²

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12 minutes ago, Gary7 said:

My entire profile is located there:

 

Profiles - Where Firefox stores your bookmarks, passwords and other ...

 

Profile folder - Firefox - MozillaZine Knowledge Base

 

Profile folder - Firefox - MozillaZine Knowledge Base

Judging by what he posted his backup is from C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxx.default,  which is firefox cache and whatever else.

 

The folder structure is pretty much the same except local instead of roaming.

Grand Master

Technique

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I had a bit of a brainwave :)

 

I remember creating an image of the hard drive back in September with Acronis. 

 

I'll have saved some bookmarks since then i guess but not too many. So i went on to my USB hard drive & found it .. in "Roaming" this time.

 

Got the "places.sqlite" file, copied it over & voila .... plenty of bookmarks restored.

 

Are there any other key files such as "places.sqlite", such as a file for usernames/passwords & also extensions & themes?

 

  • +Gary7 and +Neyht
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Grand Master

+Gary7 Subscriber²

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24 minutes ago, Ned said:

Judging by what he posted his backup is from C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxx.default,  which is firefox cache and whatever else.

 

The folder structure is pretty much the same except local instead of roaming.

The local profile has the cache the raoming profile has the PW's, BM's, Extensions, History...etc

 

LP.pngRp1.png

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