firefox lost or reset all its settings???

[Marco Fioretti]

Greetings,
last week, I installed Ubuntu 22.04 over a previous Ubuntu installation, without touching /home
First time I logged in, the new version of Firefox loaded all my "old" settings properly: history, saved logins, extensions, customized toolbar, theme,everything.
Ten minutes ago, I had Firefox open with 5/6 tabs. Doing some work at the command line, I saw an HTML file, and to check its content I typed "firefox.html".
Instead of opening that page in a new tab of the already open window, Firefox opened a new window, showing its welcome page in another tab as if it were the first time I was using it.
then, I typed CTRL-C at the prompt (istinct, I had my hands on the keyboard instead of the mouse...)
then, I restarted firefox, and now all my settings are lost. No extensions, no customized toolbar, history, no nothing.
Right now, my $HOME/.mozilla folder contains this:
drwx------  2 marco marco 4096 ago  6  2021  kde55qzu.default
-rw-rw-r--  1 marco marco  259 ago  6  2021  profiles.ini
-rw-rw-r--  1 marco marco   62 ago  6  2021  installs.ini
drwx------  5 marco marco 4096 gen 14  2022 'Crash Reports'
drwx------  2 marco marco 4096 mar 15  2022 'Pending Pings'

drwx------ 16 marco marco 4096 ott 25 09:25  jnpu0exe.default-release
and the newest file in there is timestamped october 25th, the day I installed, IIRC.
What this looks like to me is as if firefox switched to a default, empty profile: but how and above all WHY on Earth should this happen in this way, without warnings, or asking for confirmation?
Does anybody have ideas of what happened, and of what to do next, without risking to lose all my settings? Sure, I can google myself how to restore profiles and similar, and will do it right after sending this email, but this seems so idiotic that I'd rather hear some feedback, before touching anything....
TIA,
Marco
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