Recovering your Password Database in Epiphany 2.20.x on Ubuntu

Having just upgraded my laptop to the recently released beta version of Ubuntu's next Long Term Service release (Hardy Heron -- aka. 8.04), I started up my preferred browser (Epiphany) and discovered that my saved web password database was empty.

After a bit of web hunting, I discovered that the new Firefox 3.0 betas have a new version of the signons.txt file that Mozilla/Firefox/Epiphany use to store the actual password.

Looking in my .gnome2/epiphany/mozilla/epiphany directory, I noticed a signons2.txt file and a new, blank signons3.txt file.

I also noticed that the datestamp on the key3.db file had been updated to today's date.

First, I tried renaming the signons2.txt file to signons3.txt and restarting Epiphany -- as expected -- the datestamp of signon3.txt was now the same as key3.db.

Going into the Personal Data / Passwords menu in Epiphany now gave me access to some passwords, but not all -- plus there was some duplication between passwords.

So, I tried deleting both the key3.db and the signons3.txt file -- and copying a backup version of both files (with an older datestamp) to my epiphany profile directory and then renaming signons2.txt to signons3.txt.

Restarted Epiphany and from a terminal window, noticed both files had been updated to the current time.

This time, going back to the Personal Data / Passwords menu in Epiphany now gave me access to all my old password information.

So, in a nutshell -- to upgrade from Ubuntu Gutsy to Ubuntu Hardy's Epiphany seamlessly, you should use a three step process:

* Backup your .gnome2/epiphany directory before doing your upgrade.

* After doing your upgrade, copy the key3.db and signons2.txt files from your backup into your updated .gnome2/epiphany/mozilla/epiphany directory.

* Before using Epiphany for the first time, copy your signons2.txt file to a new file called signons3.txt.

note: this issue has also been reported to the Ubuntu Bug Tracker as #180205.