One of my many brave profiles is corrupt

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@chickenrun6 ,

My ‘In Case of Emergency’ Guide, that I created for the occasion. Read and study carefully.

No way around your broadly losing site data and several/various settings, if you mean to cleanse your Brave Browser Default profile. You need to be prepared.

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Get a password manager. Suggestions:

  • 1Password
  • BitWarden
  • KeePass
  • LastPass

. . . and copy your Sign-In / Log-In username-and-password combinations to that password manager (aka ‘password wallet’). Start, with your most-critical combinations - at the least, get that accomplished.

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Back up the BraveSoftware folder:

C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\

. . . to an external, attached drive. Use WinZip or 7-Zip (or another application of your choice) in order to make a .zip compressed copy of the BraveSoftware folder; and place such copies on the external, attached drive, in addition to wherever you wish, OUTSIDE of the Brave Browser installation paths.

Use a filenaming convention in order to keep track of the backup dates-and-times, example: 20220514-2038_Saturday_BraveBrowser_bkup.zip

Make backups, a routine.

Manually back up your Bookmarks - using the Brave Browser > Bookmarks Manager.

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Daily Create a New System Restore Point. Create such System Restore Points BEFORE doing anything that you may wish . . . that you had done so.

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Go to: brave://settings/getStarted

  • Select: Open a specific page or set of pages
  • Select: Add a new page
  • Enter: about:blank (notice the colon)

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In a Brave Browser > New Window, go to: brave://settings/siteData

  • Remove all sources of site data (example of a source: www.google.com)

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Go to: brave://settings/clearBrowserData

For tab Advanced:

  • Set: Time range:All time
  • Enable: Browsing history
  • Enable: Download history
  • Enable: Cookies and other site data (Signs you out of most sites)
  • Enable: Cached images and files
  • DISABLE: Passwords and other sign-in data
  • Enable: Autofill form data
  • Enable: Site and Shields Settings (DELETES Shields Settings and RESTORES default: Shields UP for site-specific Shields [Lion icon] panel)
  • Enable: Hosted app data

Click on the ‘Clear data’ button.

(The ‘Clear data’ button also saves the selections.)

RESTORING the default: Shields UP
Ref. for the site-specific Shields (Lion icon) panel:

NOTE REGARDING PASSWORDS: You might have to return to the setting above, and ENABLE the clearing away of ‘Passwords and other sign-in data’. The ‘other sign-in data’ part, might be part of your issue / problem.

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Return to: brave://settings/clearBrowserData

For tab Advanced:

  • Set: Time range:All time
  • Enable: Browsing history
  • Enable: Download history
  • Enable: Cookies and other site data (Signs you out of most sites)
  • Enable: Cached images and files
  • Disable: Passwords and other sign-in data
  • Disable: Autofill form data
  • Disable: Site and Shields Settings
  • Enable: Hosted app data

Click on the ‘Clear data’ button.

(The ‘Clear data’ button also saves the selections.)

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Return to: brave://settings/clearBrowserData

For tab On exit:

  • Enable: Browsing history
  • Enable: Download history
  • Enable: Cookies and other site data (Signs you out of most sites)
  • Enable: Cached images and files
  • Disable: Passwords and other sign-in data
  • Disable: Autofill form data
  • Disable: Site and Shields Settings
  • Enable: Hosted app data

Click on the ‘Save’ button.

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Return to: brave://settings/clearBrowserData

For tab Basic:

  • Set: Time range:All time
  • Enable: Browsing history
  • Enable: Cookies and other site data (Signs you out of most sites)
  • Enable: Cached images and files

Click on the ‘Clear data’ button.

(The ‘Clear data’ button also saves the selections.)

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In a Brave Browser > New Window, go to: brave://settings/shields

  • Enable: Show the number of blocked items on the Shields icon
  • Default view: Advanced view (if option is available)
  • Disable: Auto-redirect AMP pages (AMP - Google’s Accelerated Mobile Page)
  • (Alternate setting for older Brave Browser versions, try: DISABLE: Enable De-AMP at brave://flags)
  • Enable: Prevent sites from fingerprinting me based on my language preferences (if option is available)
  • Trackers & ads blocking: Agressive
  • Enable: Upgrade connections to HTTPS (HTTPS EVERYWHERE toggle switch)
  • Enable: Block scripts
  • Block fingerprinting (aka Fingerprinting blocking): Strict, may break sites
  • Block cookies (aka Cookie blocking): Only cross-site

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In a Brave Browser > New Window, go to: brave://settings/cookies

  • Disable: Allow all cookies
  • Enable: Block third-party cookies
  • Disable: Block all cookies . . .
  • Disable: Clear cookies and site data when you close all windows
  • Remove all: Sites that can always use cookies
  • Remove all: Sites that clear cookies when you close them
  • Remove all: Sites that can never use cookies

Re Sites that clear cookies when you close them - Better to clear those cookie sites/sources, manually, at: brave://settings/clearBrowserData

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In a Brave Browser > New Window, go to: brave://settings/security?search=DNS

  • Re: Always use secure connections (HTTPS ONLY toggle switch) (Enable/Disable)
  • Disable: Use secure DNS

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Regarding all the following settings of the following section, these are intended to DISABLE and reduce to bare essentials, what otherwise burdens the browser.

Do the following, and AFTER running Brave Browser and visiting some websites, then return to the following section and use it as a guide . . . ENABLING ONLY what you need.

Using a Brave Browser > New Window, go to: brave://settings/content

Scroll down to Permissions . . . and set:

  • Location: Don't allow sites to see your location
  • Camera: Don't allow sites to use your camera
  • Microphone: Don't allow sites to use your microphone
  • Notifications: Don't allow sites to send notifications

Scroll down to Additional permissions . . . and set:

  • Motion sensors: Don't allow sites to use motion sensors
  • Automatic downloads: Sites can ask to automatically download multiple files
  • Autoplay: Blocked
  • Ethereum: Block sites from accessing the Ethereum provider API
  • Protocol handlers: Don't allow sites to handle protocols
  • MIDI devices: Dont allow sites to connect to MIDI devices
  • USB devices: Don't allow sites to connect to USB devices
  • Serial ports: Don't allow sites to connect to serial ports
  • File editing: Don't allow sites to edit files or folders on your device
  • HID devices: Don't allow sites to connect to HID devices
  • Clipboard: Don't allow sites to see text or images on your clipboard
  • Payment handlers: Don't allow sites to install payment handlers
  • Augmented reality: Do not allow sites to create a 3D map of your surroundings or track camera position
  • Virtual reality: Don't allow sites to use virtual reality devices or data
  • Window placement: Sites can ask to use info about your screens to open and place windows
  • Fonts: Sites can ask to use fonts installed on your device

Scroll down to Content . . . and set:

  • Cookies and site data: Third-party cookies are blocked
  • JavaScript: Don't allow sites to use javascript
  • Images: Sites can show images
  • Pop-ups and redirects: Don't allow sites to send pop-ups or use redirects

Scroll down to Additional content settings . . . and set:

  • Sound: Sites can play sound
  • Zoom levels: (No sites have been zoomed in or out)
  • PDF documents: Open PDFs in Brave
  • Protected content IDs: Sites can play protected content
  • Insecure content: (Insecure content is blocked by default on secure sites)

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Using a Brave Browser > New Window, go to: brave://flags

  • Click the Reset all button

Exit / Quit Brave Browser
Restart your computing device.

Re Reset all see:

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Using a Brave Browser > New Window, go to: brave://flags

  • Disable: Enable De-AMP

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Clear DNS cache:

Using a Brave Browser > New Window, go to: brave://net-internals/#dns

  • Click on: Clear host cache

Close idle sockets and Flush socket pools:

Go to: brave://net-internals/#socket

  • Click on: Close idle sockets
  • Click on: Flush socket pools

Exit / Quit Brave Browser.
Restart your computing device.

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Notes re what are:

DNS cache:

Socket pool:

With pooling, instead of closing a connection after it is used, we can keep it idle while it waits to handle another request. This saves the resources required to create a new connection.

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Worthy backup application: GoodSync

https://www.goodsync.com/for-mac-desktop

RESTORATION NOTE: Read what “bat-chriscat” says at:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/smh28a/brave_backup/

“Thanks for all the good questions. In short, this is where backup & restore stands:”

  1. The official way to “back up and restore” is basically to verify your Rewards wallet with Uphold/Gemini. When you do so, the BAT that’s stored in your browser (as local files) is transferred to your Uphold/Gemini account. So, as long as you log into your Uphold/Gemini account on your new browser installation, you should see your BAT balance again, since verified users just use the BAT from their Uphold/Gemini accounts.
  1. If you are unverified, your BAT is basically local data on your device. If you reformat your computer, for example, you will lose your BAT. However, you can back it up by copy-pasting the /brave-browser folder, which contains basically all your Brave browser profile data, including unverified BAT.
  1. Regarding “Users manually backup (copy/paste) and restore their user profiles to new computers (restoration fails as we could not decrypt the wallet as each instance of the wallet has its own decryption key)”, we made some changes recently that makes copy-pasting like this much more reliable, so users can do it if they are tech savvy, and if they are otherwise out of options. (In other words, that line is slightly out of date, will probably be updated, but is still somewhat relevant given not all users have updated.) However, it is extremely important that users do this properly: first by making sure their browser is updated to the latest version of Brave (brave://help), and then completely replacing the /brave-browser folder on a new installation. Failing to perform those steps can lead to all kinds of unexpected behavior. Still, this is not the officially supported path, so there are no guarantees.
  1. A new Backup & Restore feature for unverified BAT is actively in development right now. It’s quite a big lift, but progress has been substantial: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/18101

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