If you’ve upgraded from Firefox 66 to 67 and noticed your bookmarks, add-ons no longer there in Firefox, you’re not alone! This issue is bothering a lot of users right now where Firefox creates a new profile and makes it as default, don’t fret! Your old profile is still there here is how you can switch to it easily, meanwhile, Mozilla is still collecting information on what went wrong with new profile per install architecture feature they introduced with Firefox 67.
Users who have updated Firefox 66.0.5 to Firefox 67 complaining the new Firefox update wiped old profile data or done a reset to customization, which is not the case, Firefox created a new profile and made it as default, in this case, this could’ve happened if you’ve run beta or Nightly version of Firefox before. This has been done to prevent release profile from mixing with beta or nightly versions which can cause data ls and some other issues.
Switching to old profile from a new profile in Firefox 67
1. Visit about:profiles
2. You can notice newly created profile “default-release” listed along with other profiles in the page, identify your old profile and click “set as default profile”
3. Close and launch Firefox browser.
Some users reporting that they’re receiving “You’ve launched an older version of Firefox” dialog which informs doing so can “corrupt bookmarks and browser history already saved to an existing Firefox profile”, asks to create a new profile. This is also related to changes introduced in version 67.
In this situation, instead of unnecessarily creating a new profile, launch Firefox profile manager by running ” Firefox.exe -p” command without quotes and choose your profile and start Firefox, visit about:profiles and set the old profile as default.
In some cases, enabling privacy. can trigger this dialog, ensure you’ve set that pref value to it to false in about:config.
Are you affected?
This was not the case for me under Win 7 !
Not all affected, those who ran prerelease versions before are.
I got affected. I have install Firefox 66 on new machine. When Firefox 67 appeared, I have downloaded installation program for FF67 and it created new profile for me. Even if I did not use pre-release versions on this machine.
That’s interesting. Thanks for sharing that with us Robert AB, welcome to techdows.
You didn’t specify how to fix the “using an old profile” warning! Launching the old profile from the profile manager doesn’t stop it from appearing, and once it appears, it makes you create a new profile or quit.
Fortunately I found a solution on IRC: launch the old profile once with the flag –allow-downgrade . Then everything should be back to normal
A dot release coming to fix old version dialog.
This worked for me, thank you.
On MacOS in Terminal:
– cd to /Applications
– run “open Firefox.app –args –allow-downgrade” (without quotes)
@Your Pal,
Thanks for the clue. I was just having problems with Firefox 70 and Thunderbird 68 on Kubuntu, and your lead helped me find a remedy.
Helpful comment, Connor( or Dorothy) 😉 thnx!
The –allow-downgrade made my Firefox work again
with old profile “force” loaded when going in about > version shows 66 and gives prompt to update. sounds like the old profile is not completely compatible with 67.
That didn’t work!…I set the old profile and it’s still not coming up. There are a lot of bookmarks, passwords that I have saved for years. Websites that were saved for years. I see my old profile file. So how do I get it from my desktop and profile folder? I am sooooo upset
That means your Firefox was reset, check this https://techdows.com/2013/06/restore-old-firefox-data-after-reset.html
Hello,
Yes I’m. And I DO NOT WANT to store my profiles and any data into the Microsoft garbage C:UsersxxxAppDataRoamingMozillaFirefoxProfiles and C:UsersxxxAppDataLocalMozillaFirefoxProfiles
I like to manage my personal data as I want, not as microsoft, google and so on, included mozilla want… Stop bothering us with your crazy decision. It is MY system, not yours.
I will roll back the firefox installation. But… nightly works perfectly !
Best regards
Hello,
I found a solution…
Add an environment variable (system) :
MOZ_ALLOW_DOWNGRADE with the value = 1
or, under linux run a command (shell) like :
MOZ_ALLOW_DOWNGRADE=1 firefox -P
-P for selecting a profile
or firefox -P –allow-downgrade (not tested)
firefox -P –allow-downgrade is the only thing that worked for me in the beta.
The update fixed the issue though.
ran MOZ_ALLOW_DOWNGRADE=1 firefox -P
(/usr/lib/firefox/firefox:5343): dconf-WARNING **: 01:23:29.081: Unable to open /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/user: Permission denied
(/usr/lib/firefox/firefox:5637): dconf-WARNING **: 01:23:56.032: Unable to open /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/user: Permission denied
[Parent 5072, Gecko_IOThread] WARNING: pipe error (266): Connection reset by peer: file /build/firefox-gHMaBx/firefox-67.0.1+build1/ipc/chromium/src/chrome/common/ipc_channel_posix.cc, line 357
(/usr/lib/firefox/firefox:5657): dconf-WARNING **: 01:24:39.584: Unable to open /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/user: Permission denied
[Parent 5072, Gecko_IOThread] WARNING: pipe error: Broken pipe: file /build/firefox-gHMaBx/firefox-67.0.1+build1/ipc/chromium/src/chrome/common/ipc_channel_posix.cc, line 726
very bad update
Had a similar problem with 68.0.1 – wouldn’t use existing profile as “You’ve launched an older version of Firefox”.
Ran through this article steps (thanks), running Firefox.exe -p
Only one profile displaying in the about:profile ‘choose user profile’ dialogue.
Selecting that and then ‘start firefox’ gave same initial ‘out of date profile’ error prompt.
Selected that prompt’s ‘create new profile’, giving it a date name.
Opened FF again with that and checked for an update via openhelpabout- to initiate such, fortunately in this case to 86.0.2 (thanks).
Ran about:profile again and set old profile to default and successfully opened FF with that in place.
Fortunately the update solved the issue.
Updating FF did it for me. Was able to go into about:profiles, set my old profile as default and restart FF with default profile without getting the “Old version….” message. Thanks!
This “bug” is a feature designed to get you to log in to Firefox and have all activity tracked for resale.
Goodbye Firefox, it was fun.
Here it is in Nov of 2019. I updgraded from 68.1 ESR to 68.2 ESR. And it trashed my profile.
I use firefox with the -P profile like this:
firefox -P firefox68
When I started firefox with 68.2 it gave me the message: Using an older version – blah blah blah. I then ‘Quit’ since I didn’t want my profile screwed up.
Removed 68.2 and reinstalled 68.1. And it’s all screwed up. Screw you firefox.
Of note: The last few weeks I’ve been running ungoogled-chromium. Check it out.
After this last screw up – and the SSL Cert problem a few months back – I’m pretty much done now with firefox.