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Url bar autocomplete not working, renamed places.sqlite file, now can't restore or import bookmarks

  • 5 replies
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  • Last reply by SoFoxxy

SoFoxxy
SoFoxxy
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The autocomplete in my url bar suddenly stopped working. I'm running Firefox 43.0 on a Mac with OS 10.10.5. First, I double-checked that autocomplete was enabled in preferences, "refreshed" Firefox, and finally installed a fresh copy. When none of that worked, I changed the name of the places.sqlite file in my Profile folder as mentioned in this thread: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/951168. It worked and now the url bar autocompletes; hooray!

But now my bookmarks are gone! I manually backed up my bookmarks beforehand, both as .html and .json, but when I try to restore/import my bookmarks from these files, it doesn't work: I'm left with a bunch of empty folders. Help?

The autocomplete in my url bar suddenly stopped working. I'm running Firefox 43.0 on a Mac with OS 10.10.5. First, I double-checked that autocomplete was enabled in preferences, "refreshed" Firefox, and finally installed a fresh copy. When none of that worked, I changed the name of the places.sqlite file in my Profile folder as mentioned in this thread: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/951168. It worked and now the url bar autocompletes; hooray! But now my bookmarks are gone! I manually backed up my bookmarks beforehand, both as .html and .json, but when I try to restore/import my bookmarks from these files, it doesn't work: I'm left with a bunch of empty folders. Help?

Chosen solution

If you open the HTML Export file in a Firefox tab as a web page, does it have your bookmarks? In other words, is this an import problem, or was there an export problem?

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All Replies (5)

jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
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Chosen Solution

If you open the HTML Export file in a Firefox tab as a web page, does it have your bookmarks? In other words, is this an import problem, or was there an export problem?

SoFoxxy
SoFoxxy Question owner
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Thanks for your response! Your suspicions were correct: the html file has all my bookmark folders, but none of the links. I tried exporting them again, but got the same results. Do you have any suggestions? My current idea is to import the bookmarks from Firefox into Safari (which for some reason still seems to work...) then use Safari to export them to html. I'll try this later today unless you have a better suggestion.

Thanks again!

jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
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Hi SoFoxxy, I think that's a good plan, actually. My other suggestions would involve database maintenance tools, so the intermediate import seems easier.

cor-el
cor-el
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You did remove possible places.sqlite-shm and places.sqlite-wal files when you replaced places.sqlite?

Do you still have the "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop with the bookmarkbackups folder and the compressed .jsonlz4?

The name of a JSON bookmarks backup file includes a total item count (folders and separators included) and an hash value to prevent saving the same backup more than once.

  • bookmarks-YYYY-MM-DD_<item count>_<hash>.jsonlz4.
SoFoxxy
SoFoxxy Question owner
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Hi cor-el, I didn't see any places.sqlite-shm or places.sqlite-wal in my Profile folder. I renamed places.sqlite while Firefox was closed, and I think those files vanish when Firefox closes.

As you suggested, I took a look in bookmarkbackups in Old Firefox Data, and all of them (dating back to mid-November) have 48 in the <item count> field, which I think is just the number of folders I have in bookmarks.

Anyway, I ended up exporting my bookmarks from Safari, so it's all fixed now. Thanks for your response!