Firefox Sync loses bookmarks and places them in wrong folders
One version before updating to the version 31.0 of the Firefox, I began using Firefox Sync. I use Firefox mainly on my desktop computer, which has Windows 8 as an operating system. Occasionally I use Windows XP on a laptop, which also has the latest Firefox installed.
If I add bunch of bookmarks while using just the Windows 8 machine, Firefox Sync won't lose any of the bookmarks, but if I use the other computer's Firefox for a few moments and while doing that add bunch of bookmarks, problems arise:
desktop browser either a) lose all of the bookmarks from folders, which I had added last, but folders themselves are still there (they are empty) or b) if the bookmarks don't totally vanish, they are magically moved to a wrong folder (source folders don't get deleted).
This happens while not touching the desktop browser at all. Sometimes bookmarks appear again like they were never really gone, but I'm not sure does this happen every time as in most cases nothing appears after 10 minutes of waiting.
From technical point of view it sounds like there could be either counting or folder-id related error, but who would code something so silly like getting the placement of a folder in a hierarchy by counting? If it is id-related.. well, that would be equally awful. Also, there should be something wrong with the syncing itself, but is it really normal that bookmarks totally vanish for some time, before (maybe) appearing again later?
Or then.. I have an unknown remote user, who manages my bookmarks, while I'm not watching..?
All Replies (2)
Hi gliaristcrat, Thank you for using Firefox Sync. Most likely the last is an unlikely case, but if you need to be sure please change the password.
The default syncing is to merge the bookmarks between the devices. Sometimes the output is a combination.
Are there bookmarks that are in different places on each device?
Currently the ideal situation is that they would have the same order and folder across all devices, however this is something that the sync team is looking to improve. Unfortunately I do not have ETA when it will be fixed, but I do know that the team is aware.
Seems like things tend to get worse seemingly automatically as my desktop browser constantly merges the latest bookmarks resulting to few empty folders and one with the latest bookmarks (e.g. after adding 3 new folders and putting few bookmarks to all of them) . This happens only in the root of a bookmark hierarchy and thus I can add any amount of folders and bookmarks to the existing subfolders without them getting messed up. Bookmarks residing out of any folder seem to stay intact. I haven't tested what happens if I add subfolders to folders I added last.
The messing up of bookmarks happens with a delay, so I can happily add lots of bookmarks for an hour or more without anything suspicious happening. I can even close the browser and reopen it. I'm not sure what the actual delay is. Maybe few hours, maybe more. No involvement of other devices required.
I've tried to reinstall the browser by uninstalling it first which included deleting of the "Firefox" directories from the following directories: "AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\" and "AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox"
That didn't help either. I guess I could try to use another Firefox account for syncing bookmarks, but I don't have very high hopes toward trying such.
Simplest reasons might sometimes be the right ones, so in this case I actually could have a remote user, who does some "evil tweaking" to my bookmarks. Or would somebody claim that after being few years in development the Firefox Sync still can not handle the most basic functionality (keeping bookmarks in folders) -- for some people? I read that there are others, who have had similar problems, but that doesn't rule out the possibility this is something else than just a technical glitch.