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Trying to update my browser but when I did all my customizations were gone like changing my Top Sites to 24 and curved tabs so I can click in between them?
I also lost all my tools like the printer button. However I know how to configure it to get my tools back under Customization. I need to know if there is a way to update where I don't have to redo everything especially customizing my tabs to be curved as someone sent me steps on here and I only did it once so I would need the steps again.
When you update you should not lose your settings and customization's.
Can someone help me update correctly where everything sync 's with what my current version has?
Chosen solution
Hi LisaMichelleS, how do you have two different versions of Firefox installed? In separate program folders?
If you haven't already, could you close out of Firefox and do a normal Windows shutdown and restart to complete any pending updates and release any file locks.
Firefox 67 does a profile migration, creating a new profile (settings folder) named default-release and migrating your old data to it. Sounds like the migration did not work properly.
Could you check:
Profile Manager Page
Inside Firefox, type or paste about:profiles in the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it.
This page should list at least one profile and could list many. (Each profile has two folders and one or more buttons. Do not use any Remove buttons!)
The profile that Firefox is currently using will have this:
This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted.
Do you have another profile named default or default-longnumber listed on this page? If so, you can check whether it is the one you were using recently by clicking its Launch profile in new browser button.
If it isn't what you want, simply close that new window.
If it IS what you want, back on the about:profiles page, click the Set as default profile button for that profile so Firefox uses it automatically at the next startup.
Any progress so far?
Read this answer in context 👍 1All Replies (12)
Look on your desktop. Do you see a folder called; Old Firefox? Look inside. Look for the folder with the latest creation date.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-run-firefox-when-profile-missing-inaccessible
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-run-firefox-when-profile-missing-inaccessible
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox#Navigating_to_the_profile_folder
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles
Type about:profiles<enter> in the address bar.
How many profiles are listed?
How many should be there?
Also, open the folder in your file explorer.
There is no folder on my desktop called old firefox? and should I be clicking on the next couple of links below that question?
I don't understand the steps to do. Right now I have the new version and the old version. When I open the new version where I added 2 more rows of Top Sites and got the curved tabs back, both are gone and it was a lot of steps to get both and customize my firefox to what I needed.
I was told I would not have to do that again that when the next update happened I would not lose my custom settings.
I can't go through this every time there is an update?
How can I update and keep my two custom options I have done?
Chosen Solution
Hi LisaMichelleS, how do you have two different versions of Firefox installed? In separate program folders?
If you haven't already, could you close out of Firefox and do a normal Windows shutdown and restart to complete any pending updates and release any file locks.
Firefox 67 does a profile migration, creating a new profile (settings folder) named default-release and migrating your old data to it. Sounds like the migration did not work properly.
Could you check:
Profile Manager Page
Inside Firefox, type or paste about:profiles in the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it.
This page should list at least one profile and could list many. (Each profile has two folders and one or more buttons. Do not use any Remove buttons!)
The profile that Firefox is currently using will have this:
This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted.
Do you have another profile named default or default-longnumber listed on this page? If so, you can check whether it is the one you were using recently by clicking its Launch profile in new browser button.
If it isn't what you want, simply close that new window.
If it IS what you want, back on the about:profiles page, click the Set as default profile button for that profile so Firefox uses it automatically at the next startup.
Any progress so far?
Modified
Hi Jscher, I found where you completely helped me last time by giving me the steps for the curved tabs and for adding the rows to my Top Sites and was going to see if I could ask you for help again as you explained it last time so well. So thank you so much for the reply!! :)
So I have two because I downloaded the new version and I opened it to take a peak and see if it had my curved tabs and extra rows of Top Sites and it didn't have it so I opened Task Manager and killed my current version of Firefox (as I know it will save my current open tabs and allow me to in history restore my last session or on the first page that opens it will say would you like to restore your last session as when you kill it it thinks there was an issue and saves your last session) I do this as I have several tabs open always that I work on continuously which is why I use firefox as it can handle 40 or 100 tabs open beautifully. This is my workflow for salesforce as I leave open the customers I need to go back and work on.
I thought if I used task manager and killed it and restored it in the new version of firefox it would save all my settings. But it didn't work.
Even though my old firefox was not in my task bar at the bottom I was able to click on my windows key and open the firefox version it had and luckily in there it was still my old version. Which put it back in my task bar and I restored my sessions/tabs.
I still can open the new firefox version I downloaded to my desktop and when I do it is the new version or if I use the one on my task bar it is the old version. So I have both.
I'm afraid to close it with out the kill in case I can't get the new one to work with my customizations.
I can do the download again but I need to be able to restore my current session, keep my curved tabs you gave me the steps on and it wasn't easy but I don't want to do it again, and keep my extra rows of Top Sites.
Is this possible? and is there any way to give me a step by step of how to download the new version and keep all 3 things above from my current session and my current customizations?
I'm sorry, maybe it's because I haven't had dinner, but I'm confused about how you can be running two different versions of Firefox, old and new.
Did you check the about:profiles page yet?
I downloaded the new version on my desk top and I can open it and see what's missing. The old version does get pulled out of my task bar but still exists in windows. I can pull it up and it has my tabs and customizations and I know it is the old version as I check the version number. I can access both. Probably because my old version of Firefox is open and running while I am opening the new version. I'm afraid to close it completely as I don't want to lose my tabs I'm working on even if I have to go through all the steps again to get the curved tabs and Top sites I just can't lose my tabs I'm working out of and there are too many to book mark them all.
I will try the profiles page once I get a computer savy person with me as that just is over my head.
If I knew that I could hit restore previous session in history after opening the new version of Firefox I could redo the steps or if there was a way for the customization to carry into the updated version but it seems like it should be seamless.
I will get on site help as this is to big a deal for me to mess up. Wish I could share my screen and give you the controls to help me but I know that is way above and beyond.
I wish Firefox had help that could remote in like some services do but again I know that would be costly.
jscher2000 said
how you can be running two different versions
As long as each is using its own programs folder, and its own profile, it can be done without problems.
I have several versions set up this way.
Lisa, what versions of Firefox are installed? You have several options as to get the data from the old program to the new.
First is sync. Selected data can be shared between different profiles and systems.
Second is to copy users files from one profile to another. This will overwrite the current user files
Also, make a backup of the profile running in the older version of Firefox. See: Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles.
Thank you both so much this was a crazy mess. I was able to copy the profile I wanted to the new version and set it as my default. The old version is somehow still accessible through a pinned short cut in my start menu but I did have both pinned in my task bar and removed the old version or unpinned it from my task bar. If I search my start menu by firefox they both still come up somehow and I had to launch them both to see which one was the right one. So now I know to go to the 2nd one if needed but I only use it as a short cut on my task bar anyway. I cannot tell you how happy I am to keep all the custom work I did like you helped me before for the curved tabs customizing my Top Sites to 24! Thank you so very much for all the help I really truly appreciate it!!
I simply want to add to this thread, as it might help someone. I can't believe I actually managed to muddle through it by myself, as I was relying on the "help" pages. Some of them are pretty good but some are not and some are useless. Here's the deal: everytime FF downloads, I have to redo some of the settings. I keep it set so that it will not install unless I say so. It did anyway. Then 2 days later, (my computer sat idle as something else came up) FF downloaded another upgrade and installed it. This time it also reset it to install automatically, and restarted with the welcome screen, period. I did not know this until I went to resume my work. So when I went back to the computer, I discovered that nothing I'd left was there. AND no history or bookmarks. Confusing as hell. I tried to follow the instructions, but just went in circles. It was trying to get me to connect with my phone, but my phone was still using the older version of FF, and it wasn't working. So I started reading the help pages and getting more and more confused and frustrated.
Sorry you are going to get the long version of this story because I am still venting.
As I was to eventually learn, FF on my laptop created a new profile and set it as default. I bet I read close to 40 pages of "help" before I stumbled across that. So typed in about:profile and there they were, Two of them. Then things got easy. Well, easier. The two were identical except for the labels and a string of numbers. And one said it was default and the other said default something else. But each had a button I could click to see them in the browser. One was my old stuff! So I left it up while I checked the other. Yep, the bare bones one. I changed the first one, with all my goodies, to default.
But that meant I had to shut both down for the next step. Because I had no intention of leaving the other one on the computer, though I know it would have been harmless as long as I didn't click on it. So to make it easy, I shut down FF and opened the profile page in my FF account using another brouser, double checked that I was about to delete the useless profile, and did. Went back to FF, and it opened up looking just as it should, cluttered with tabs, all my bookmarks and history intact (I use the history as an easy way to get back to sites I use a lot in my research, or to locate something I'm not sure about- basically use it as key words.)
Everything is as it should be now (as far as I know. Even managed to get the phone linked in, though I don't plan on using FF on it anymore. Another discovery along the way was Duck Duck Go. Love it as a search engine, love it even more as a clean little browser on my phone.
This should not have taken as much time and effort as it did. It makes sense to me now that a new profile identical to the old would behave this way. Yeah, I guess something went wrong with the migration, but why did it take people who should be familiar with it so long to figure it out? And why did the second install not simply replace the one that was there? I am both inquisitive and stubborn. And if I didn't like the way FF works and have serious concerns about other browsers, I would simply have given up and gone to some other browser. Betcha some people did.
Ok, this is way longer than even I thought it would be, but I don't much feel like editing it down to a more reasonable length just now. Feel free.