My bookmarks disappeared. The health report says I have 289, but I can't access them.
I opened firefox and all my bookmarks were gone. There is only 1 backup, it is from this morning and it contains only the default bookmarks. However, when I go to the health report it says I have 289 bookmarks, so it knows they are there somewhere.
All Replies (13)
First try start Firefox in Safe Mode:
Try go to your profile backup it, then create a new profile and restore the data, some articles to help you:
- Recovering important data from an old profile
- Profiles - Where Firefox stores your bookmarks, passwords and other user data
- Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles
Also:
Modified by Diego Victor
IMPORTANT please backup your bookmarks, and backup your Firefox profile right away. Put the files somewhere safe outside of Firefox profile or program paths, your XP Desktop will be ok. Please Do NOT attempt to restore any bookmarks until you have done that.
- Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles
- Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer_manual-backup
I would not rely on the Firefox Health Report (FHR) to confirm your correct current bookmark status.
Once backed up have a look at
There is a method of using the Windows OS to recover previous versions of Files but i do not think that is present on Windows XP so we probably need to work only with whatever you do have in the profile.
Problems with bookmarks and history not working properly can be caused by a corrupted places.sqlite database file.
You can check for problems with the places.sqlite database file in the Firefox profile folder.
None of that worked, but thanks for the suggestions guys. This is like the 3rd time Firefox has eaten my bookmarks when it installs an update - looks like I'm switching to Chrome or Opera, I recommend everybody else does the same until Mozilla figures out how to avoid doing so.
Firefox should not do that. Sorry you are having problems but most of us do not see that happening.
Had you stayed with Firefox you could have made sure you backed up your bookmarks manually that should have ensured you would not loose them even if you had a problem with Firefox somehow loosing the current bookmarks.
If you have another device you could have tried using firefox sync and that way ensure you had similar bookmarks on more than one device.
"most of us do not see that happening. " That's a really dumb ass thing to say, it really doesn't matter what you or anybody else sees happening, it happened.
As for the rest, well yes, however if you need to back up your booknarks on the off chance that your browser is going to just decide to erase them all, that makes it a pretty shitty browser now doesn't it. Hell, even IE can update without deleting your bookmarks.
Firefox updates without losing bookmarks. Firefox also automatically backs up snapshots of bookmarks. Generally Firefox works well. Your problems may well have been cause by third party software.
I doubt IE works totally faultlessly in all circumstances.
Backing up important information is often good practice whether that relates to browser use or general computer use.
"Firefox updates without losing bookmarks." Clearly it doesn't always, it has done it to me 3 times, once on this computer and twice on another.
"Firefox also automatically backs up snapshots of bookmarks." Not always, otherwise I wouldn't have posted this problem, would I?
"Your problems may well have been cause by third party software." That is just a bullshit excuse to not address a serious bug somewhere within Firefox
"Backing up important information is often good practice whether that relates to browser use or general computer use. " Yet more bullshit weasel words to avoid addressing an issue.
Really people, if you have no solution, then why waste time making such pointless posts. It's almost as if you feel threatened by the fact that there is a major flaw somewhere in Firefox. It's just a browser, and it has a problem. There is no need to post to deny it, the fact that this thread even exists is all the proof you need that the problem exists.
We could try to help you but it looks like you would prefer to other browsers anyhow.
You usually only lose bookmarks when there is a problem with the places.sqlite database file and we would see a lot more reports if this would be an issue with Firefox updating.
I update two or three Firefox Nightly versions each day and never have had a problem with losing bookmarks.
Normally it would be sufficient to delete the places.sqlite file to make Firefox use the most recent JSON backup in the bookmarkbackups folder to rebuild the bookmarks.
It is still security software that is the most likely cause of such issues with files in the Firefox profile folder as Firefox is open source software and anybody can inspect the source code to see how it works.
"We could try to help you but it looks like you would prefer to other browsers anyhow." Really? telling me the problem is uncommon or that I could have avoided it if I had backed up my bookmarks when using a browser that claims to do so automatically?
Excuse my French and all, but you are a twit.
@cor-el "It is still security software that is the most likely cause of such issues ..."
I use Comodo, the Malware Bytes, and the little Microsoft Security Essentials. Has either of those been known to cause an issue?
There are nearly 1/2 Billion users of Firefox and it is highly customisable and used in differing platform in in conjunction with many combinations of other software. The more common problems are picked up in various ways.
If you were able to reproduce this issue maybe it could be investigated further. For instance we could explain how to install an additional outdated copy of Firefox with its own bookmarks and profile then you could update that to see if you could reliably make Firefox lose bookmarks.
Possibly comodo could be implicated in bookmark problems with both Firefox and the comodo dragon browser. Although with the numbers involved almost anything can be found if a search is done.
- Alert!!! Comodo Privacy Cleaning 2.2.335611.5 deleting ALL bookmarks and Bookmarks Backup File. /questions/780820
Are you also running any cleanup software ?