Site list reset only for a specific container

[grahamperrin]

Today I realised that the long list of sites for my Personal container had become empty.

At a glance, lists for other containers are undamaged. (I briefly checked two containers – gjp4 and Shopping – for each one, a list is present.)

I began using Firefox 88 around three days ago, the change is not recent enough for me to suspect that the update is a factor.

At https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/issues/1228#issuecomment-400790200 @dbolton describes use of browser-extension-data@testpilot-containers\storage.js. I see a storage.js.migrated file with a modification date of 2019-03-12.

I wondered whether these pages would help to discover where data is stored:

• https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers
• https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/wiki
• https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/multi-account-containers/versions/
• https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/multi-account-containers/

– they do not.

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Cross-reference <https://matrix.to/#/!CuzZVoCbeoDHsxMCVJ:mozilla.org/$JDj9ZN5WyGrzs0Db2NoK6vSp0ftpVgyK88W7798XlE8 > my question today:

Please, where can I find stored data for site lists in Multi-Account Containers?

[grahamperrin]

1975 also involved loss of rules (site lists) but the situation there was quite different, with a crash and loss of all containers.

[grahamperrin]

Synchronisation was enabled before the bug bit, so my current plan is:

1. without starting the application, identify Firefox profiles (including those on other computers) that might have been synchronised prior to loss of data
2. take the computer offline
3. start Firefox then use the extension to tell whether the identified profile truly includes what's required
4. quit
5. copy the required data (for all containers)
6. reuse the data with the profile from where data was lost
7. backup
8. synchronise.

[grahamperrin]

Until I can discover where data is stored then reuse the data:

• I'm using Always In Container to streamline the process of repopulating the empty list

– hindered mainly by #434 in that (for example) without forethought, a Control-click on a link might wrongly open a tab in the same container. Note to self, for things to be streamlined without the risk of wrongness:

• do not use the Firefox default Shift-click to open a link in a new window
• instead, use the context menu to open a link in a new window

– as far as I can tell, a new window allows Always In Container to present the array of containers.

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Side note, maybe a bug in Firefox: Shift-click seems to prevent what's required.

[grahamperrin]

https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/issues/2027#issuecomment-826045241

my current plan

Change of plan.

I found ZFS snapshots of my home directory, the most recent taken on 9th March:

% zfs list -t snapshot | grep home | sort
copperbowl/usr/home@2020-09-19-20:29-r365364                 17.5G      -     52.9G  -
copperbowl/usr/home@2021-03-09-07:50-0d3b3beeb25             6.33G      -     71.5G  -
% 

– and a slightly older archive of the bugged Firefox profile, from which I extracted what seems to be the relevant idb directory. A DB Browser for SQLite view of part of the ⋯.sqlite file:

• 608 rows (I probably had hundreds of site associations for Personal)
• I assume that data is hashed.

[grahamperrin]

Data restored:

Prior to restoration, with Firefox not running, I archived the SQLite area from which data had been lost:

I'll keep this data in case it's needed by developers, to diagnose what might have caused the loss.

[grahamperrin]

Today again I lost all site associations for the Personal container.

Re: #2030 I restored the relevant idb directory from a 2021-04-25 backup of the profile:

% pwd
/usr/home/grahamperrin/.mozilla/firefox
% ls -hlrt 58ectoj2.default*
-rw-r--r--  1 grahamperrin  grahamperrin   436M 10 Mar  2020 58ectoj2.default 74.0? 2020-03-10.tar.gz
-rw-r--r--  1 grahamperrin  grahamperrin   883M  6 Apr  2020 58ectoj2.default 75.0 2020-04-06.tar.gz
-rw-r--r--  1 grahamperrin  grahamperrin   894M  7 Apr  2020 58ectoj2.default 75.0 2020-04-07.tar.gz
-rw-r--r--  1 grahamperrin  grahamperrin   2.8G 26 Jan 11:52 58ectoj2.default 2021-01-26 11:41.tar.gz
-rw-r--r--  1 grahamperrin  grahamperrin   1.6G  1 Mar 14:26 58ectoj2.default 86.0_2,2 2021-03-01 14.22.tar.gz
-rw-r--r--  1 grahamperrin  grahamperrin   2.1G 25 Apr 12:52 58ectoj2.default.tar.gz

58ectoj2.default:
…

Set aside: an archive of files as they were before today's restoration, after I added just one site to the Personal container

[Archaeopteryx]

Over the last week, the issue has also affected my Nightly profile (91.0a1 + 92.0a1 on Windows 8.1, add-on version 7.3.0 last updated in January 2021) after years without issues. All sites associated with containers have been forgotten, the onboarding dialog gets launched again.

[grahamperrin]

Thanks,

… the onboarding dialog gets launched again.

That sounds like a broader problem.

I follow Mozilla bug 1482662 - [meta] The War on Storage Initialization Failures, although I don't know enough about the technologies to guess whether anything in the dependency tree might relate to your case.

[Archaeopteryx]

See #2079 for the potential fix (at least to the issue on my end).

[grahamperrin]

Thanks!

[grahamperrin]

Today again I lost all site associations for the Personal container.

Preceded by these symptoms:

• no containers (blankness, emptiness) when clicking the toolbar icon
• the personal container alone when clicking the address bar icon

I keyed Control-Q to quit, waited for the quit to complete, started Firefox in safe mode, quit, started in normal mode, discovered the loss of site associations.

[dannycolin]

Over the last week, the issue has also affected my Nightly profile (91.0a1 + 92.0a1 on Windows 8.1, add-on version 7.3.0 last updated in January 2021) after years without issues. All sites associated with containers have been forgotten, the onboarding dialog gets launched again.

Sounds more like a variant of #1236 since all containers are affected.

@grahamperrin do you still experience this issue in the latest Firefox and MAC version?

[dannycolin]

Oh also, do you use Sync? This definitely sounds like Sync remote data overwriting your local one.