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Lost browsing history after automatic update of Firefox

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Usually, when you close Mozilla Firefox or shut down your computer, you can restore the before closed bookmarks while you start again Mozilla Firefox. In my case, Mozilla Firefox automatically updated itself and I could not open again my bookmarks (the history was gone...). I had lots of pages that I still wanted to read and am looking for a way to find them back...

Usually, when you close Mozilla Firefox or shut down your computer, you can restore the before closed bookmarks while you start again Mozilla Firefox. In my case, Mozilla Firefox automatically updated itself and I could not open again my bookmarks (the history was gone...). I had lots of pages that I still wanted to read and am looking for a way to find them back...

All Replies (5)

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Hello,

Firefox automatically creates backups of your bookmarks, which can be helpful if your bookmarks are lost or missing. To recover them, follow the instructions below.

  1. Click the Library button 57 library icon, then click Bookmarks.
  2. Scroll to the bottom and click Show All Bookmarks.
  3. At the top of the Library window, click on Import and Backup and select Restore.
  4. Click the date of the bookmark backup you want to recover.
  5. In the new window that appears, click OK.

Your bookmarks from the selected date should now be restored.

For more information, see the Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer article. For other solutions, see the Recover lost or missing Bookmarks article.

Did this fix your problems? Please report back to us!

Thank you.

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Hi Jerome, all your history and open tabs were gone after restarting Firefox?

If you haven't already, I always suggest doing a normal shutdown and restart of Windows when Firefox suddenly loses access to data. This can resolve issues with locked files, deferred updates, privilege issues, and transient glitches.

If the problems continue: Did Firefox mention anything about creating a new profile or performing a tune-up?

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Hi everyone and thanks a lot for trying to help me !

@ jscher2000, This is something I already tried yesterday but both my bookmarks and history got cancelled... @ RageE1der, I tried but I have no backup available before the one of yesterday evening. Things that I still can access are the pages I visited with my smartphone. But all I visited with my laptop disappeared...

Any other idea ? If no, do you know if there is a possibility to contact Mozilla themselves and see if they keep something stored somewhere ?

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jerome.santarini said

@ jscher2000, This is something I already tried yesterday but both my bookmarks and history got cancelled...

Do you have an "Old Firefox Data" folder on your desktop?

If so:

Double-click into that folder and see how recent the files are.

If not:

Could you check whether your stuff is available in a different profile, as follows:

Profile Manager Page

Inside Firefox, type or paste about:profiles in the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it.

This page should list at least one profile and could list many. (Each profile has two folders and one or more buttons. Do not use any Remove buttons!)

The profile that Firefox is currently using will have this:

This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted.

Do you have another profile listed on this page? If so, you can check whether it is the one you were using recently by clicking its Launch profile in new browser button.

If it isn't what you want, simply close that new window.

If it IS what you want, back on the about:profiles page, click the Set as default profile button for that profile so Firefox uses it automatically at the next startup.

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Hi jscher2000.

I tried... I had 2 other profiles than the one I was actually using

One of them dates from yesterday evening and is almost empty The other one seems to correspond to the history of what I visited with my smartphone

So still... the history of what I have visited for the past few weeks on my computer (including the pages that were still open yesterday evening before my computer restarted and Firefox got updated) is not accessible anymore...