536007 - All preferences, passwords and bookmarks lost after udate from Firefox/3.5.5

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Lech Szczypka]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1.6) Gecko/20091216 Fedora/3.5.6-1.fc12 Firefox/3.5.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1.6) Gecko/20091216 Fedora/3.5.6-1.fc12 Firefox/3.5.6

All preferences, stored passwords, bookmarks and other less significant data get lost after upgrade. There is no warning and no way to store these data before proceeding with an update/upgrade.

Reproducible: Didn't try

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install Firefox 3.5.5
2. Modify bookmarks, store a few passwords
3. Perform an update to Firefox 3.5.6
Actual Results:  
All personal data cleared. All configuration data reset to defaults.
There is no way to restore lost data.

Expected Results:  
Preserve personal & configuration data OR issue  warning and offer an option to store required data manually.

Comment 1

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Lost+Bookmarks can help you get your bookmarks,
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Preferences+are+not+saved with your prefs,
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Bookmarks+and+toolbar+buttons+not+working+after+upgrading may help as well.

Comment 2

[Lech Szczypka]

None of help topics applies.
The case DID NOT appear during earlier updates (Firefox versions 3.5.x and earlier, up to 3.5.5). Update to 3.5.6 was the first that caused full data loss, as if it were a clean install.

Comment 3

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

You don't even have bookmark backups?

Comment 4

[Lech Szczypka]

Of course I have backups! It is not a problem of my private loss of some passwords, forms data and a few most recent bookmarks. I wanted to signal a case that (in my opinion) isn't normal and should be corrected.

Comment 5

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Lech, due to the fact that there have been no other reports of this happening, I am thinking this was something specific in your situation (possibly an addon or something). So, I suggest that you go to support.mozilla.com, they can help you recover your data. If we get more reports of this, we can investigate.

Comment 6

[thornuk]

I've had the same problem since upgrading Firefox. Two other symptoms: 1) I have a "startup" folder of bookmarks, which starts them all with "Open all in tabs".  If I select that having already been on a different site, all bookmarks in that folder are replaced by the previously open site, so I get 6 copies of the one I no longer want to see, and it keeps them from then onward - it keeps the original names but replaces their URLs in the folder.  2) Going to "Organise Bookmarks" and trying to restore the backups gives an error message that it can't open the backup - I tried the 5 or 6 listed, unsuccessfully.

Comment 7

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Reporter, are you still seeing this issue with Firefox 3.6.13 or later in safe mode or a fresh profile? If not, please close. These links can help you in your testing.
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+Mode
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles

Comment 8

[Lech Szczypka]

The case did not repeat in any other versions that I tried (on other computers), i.e. from Firefox 3.6.12 on.