this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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I'm running Ubuntu, and every once in a while, I boot up my PC and some app is missing that was there previously. Last night I shut down my computer, and this morning Firefox was missing. I lost all my browsing history, cookies, bookmarks, extensions, etc.

This has happened several times before. Does anyone know what's going on? I know I'm not personally removing any of these apps. Is there something I could be doing unknowingly to do this?

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Firefox is a snap package on Ubuntu and I had a similar thing happen where it would lose all my settings when it randomly updated.

You could try installing it as a PPA package: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-deb-apt-ubuntu-22-04

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I'll try the deb install instead of snap. I don't know if/when I'll find out if it makes a difference though.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I never had it disappear right enough.... However, I ended up installing chrome after Firefox losing all my stuff twice.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

don't you sync your account so you will be able to retrieve your bookmark etc?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, I never bothered as I like to keep my work/personal stuff separate (on different machines)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can keep a copy of your FF profile and just load it on a fresh install anytime so you don’t need to reinstall extensions and reconfigure settings.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Cool, didn't know that! I usually use a distro hop as a fresh start to ignore my ever growing "to-read" folder 😂

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Could an update have removed it? Although it seems strange that it would affect your home directory.

Do you sleepwalk?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Could an update have removed it?

That's what I'm wondering. What did I do that would cause it to go away? I was using Firefox last night just before I shut it down for the night, and the next time I booted it was gone.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Run unsnap, you find it on Github. Great tool, will solve these weird problems

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Side note: do try out Firefox sync. It will only take a minute to setup, is pretty secure and most importantly saves your bookmarks, history, passwords, ... so you don't end up where you are today again. HTH

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I get that it can be convenient, but I don't want another account. Everybody wants me to sign up for everything, and my browser is not something I have a desire to sign up for. I already have bitwarden for my passwords. Losing my bookmarks and history is annoying, but it's not something that should be happening anyway. I'm more concerned about my software uninstalling itself.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Well good thing is your Firefox profile should still be on the disk?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Have you checked syslog and apts logs?

Also, simply uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox shouldn't lose all your settings. Silly question, but are you sure you're the same local user? Also, Firefox syncs this stuff so all sounds odd.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I only have one user account.

I don't have a firefox account, so it's not syncing. I don't really care that much about that, it's mostly troublesome because I need to re-approve all of my MFA logins.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Check your drive for damage?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Does anyone have access to your machine (local or remote)? This sounds every odd.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

No, unless someone is sneaking into my apartment while I'm sleeping and can get past my password, I don't see how that would happen.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Do you have a list of the apps? Maybe we can identify they are all snaps/debs and move on from there.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is there a chance you're deleting these programs and forgetting?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Like a carbon monoxide thing?
I don't think you forget uninstalling your web browser.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

No. You could totally forget it. The actual thing is: WHY would you uninstall your web browser (especially Firefox?)