When did this problem start?

Firefox recently changed from plain .json to compressed .jsonlz4 files, so you might find some of the latter are more recent, but much more difficult to view on screen.

Do the file names of your .json and .jsonlz4 files show a reasonable number of bookmarks in them? This is the readable number that follows the date in the file name.

I don't know whether the crashes are related to this problem, but maybe...

When Firefox crashes, it usually records information about what was happening at that moment. You can submit that data to Mozilla and share it with forum volunteers to see whether it points to the solution. Please check the support article "Firefox Crashes" (especially the last section) for steps to get those crash report IDs, and then post some of the recent ones here. (These might only be visible in your old profile; I'm not sure.)

These can't get your data back, but will help in the future.

These add-ons can be a great help by backing up and restoring Firefox

FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup Extension) {web link} FEBE allows you to quickly and easily backup your Firefox extensions, history, passwords, and more. In fact, it goes beyond just backing up -- It will actually rebuild your saved files individually into installable .xpi files. It will also make backup of files that you choose.

OPIE {web link} Import/Export extension preferences

Thank you for the very fast replies guys. Much appreciated.

This only happened about 2 or 3 days ago.

I made a mistake, I don't think I can find the .json files. The ones I found on my computer don't relate to Firefox. Sorry about that.

But when I go to profile manager, switch to my old Firefox profile [that still has problems with bookmarks and crashing] I can view the previous bookmark backups, I just get an error when trying to recover them in the bookmarks manager.

Does this mean that those bookmark backups are still stored somewhere? I assume they are .json files?

[I cant see them if I switch to a new Firefox profile however.]

I tried to get a crash report, but it doesn't seem to produce one, not even in Safe mode, but I have provided the trouble shooting information below. Please tell me if it contains any security sensitive information so I can take it down [or an admin has my permission to do so].

Many thanks guys

Application Basics

Name: Firefox Version: 33.0 User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:33.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/33.0 Multiprocess Windows: 0/1

Crash Reports for the Last 3 Days

All Crash Reports

Extensions

Name: Adblock Plus Version: 2.6.4 Enabled: true ID: {d10d0bf8-f5b5-c8b4-a8b2-2b9879e08c5d}

Name: Adblock Plus Pop-up Addon Version: 0.9.2 Enabled: true ID: adblockpopups@jessehakanen.net

Name: GPU Accelerated Flash Player Version: 1.32 Enabled: true ID: gpuacceleratedflashplayer@stas

Name: Places Maintenance Version: 1.3 Enabled: true ID: places-maintenance@bonardo.net

Name: Wiktionary and Google Translate Version: 7.1 Enabled: true ID: googledictionary@toptip.ca

Name: Dictionary (EN/DE) Version: 0.0.4 Enabled: false ID: dictlookup@arnhold.com

Name: enterprise 1.1 Version: 0.95.43 Enabled: false ID: e38c01fb-ffb2-4c7e-b4c7-1f47c844d855@gmail.com

Name: PrivDog Version: 2.2.0.14 Enabled: false ID: PrivDog@AdTrustMedia.com

Graphics

Adapter Description: AMD Radeon HD 8670D + HD 6670 Dual Graphics Adapter Drivers: aticfx64 aticfx64 aticfx64 aticfx32 aticfx32 aticfx32 atiumd64 atidxx64 atidxx64 atiumdag atidxx32 atidxx32 atiumdva atiumd6a atitmm64 Adapter RAM: 1024 Device ID: 0x6758 Direct2D Enabled: Blocked for your graphics driver version. Try updating your graphics driver to version ATI Catalyst 14.6+ or newer. DirectWrite Enabled: false (6.2.9200.16571) Driver Date: 4-17-2014 Driver Version: 14.100.0.0 GPU #2 Active: false GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1 Direct3D 11 (OMTC) Vendor ID: 0x1002 WebGL Renderer: Google Inc. -- ANGLE (AMD Radeon HD 8670D + HD 6670 Dual Graphics Direct3D9Ex vs_3_0 ps_3_0) windowLayerManagerRemote: true AzureCanvasBackend: skia AzureContentBackend: cairo AzureFallbackCanvasBackend: cairo AzureSkiaAccelerated: 0

Important Modified Preferences

accessibility.typeaheadfind.flashBar: 0 browser.cache.disk.capacity: 235520 browser.cache.disk.smart_size_cached_value: 256000 browser.cache.disk.smart_size.first_run: false browser.cache.disk.smart_size.use_old_max: false browser.cache.frecency_experiment: 3 browser.places.smartBookmarksVersion: 7 browser.search.param.yahoo-fr: chrf-comodo browser.search.param.yahoo-fr-cjkt: chrf-comodo browser.search.useDBForOrder: true browser.sessionstore.upgradeBackup.latestBuildID: 20140923175406 browser.startup.homepage: http://katproxy.com/ browser.startup.homepage_override.buildID: 20141011015303 browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone: 33.0 browser.tabs.warnOnClose: false dom.mozApps.used: true dom.w3c_touch_events.expose: false extensions.lastAppVersion: 33.0 font.internaluseonly.changed: false font.size.variable.x-western: 22 gfx.direct3d.checkDX10: false gfx.direct3d.last_used_feature_level_idx: 0 keyword.URL: http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?fr=ytff-comodo&p= network.cookie.prefsMigrated: true places.database.lastMaintenance: 1413144268 places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages: 3356 plugin.disable_full_page_plugin_for_types: application/pdf plugin.importedState: true plugin.state.npuplaypc: 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_bgcolor: false print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_bgimages: false print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_colorspace: print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_command: print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_downloadfonts: false print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_duplex: 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_edge_bottom: 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_edge_left: 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_edge_right: 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_edge_top: 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_evenpages: true print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_footercenter: print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_footerleft: &PT print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_footerright: &D print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_headercenter: print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_headerleft: &T print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_headerright: &U print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_in_color: true print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_margin_bottom: 0.5 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_margin_left: 0.5 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_margin_right: 0.5 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_margin_top: 0.5 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_oddpages: true print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_orientation: 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_page_delay: 50 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_paper_data: 9 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_paper_height: 11.00 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_paper_name: print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_paper_size_type: 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_paper_size_unit: 1 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_paper_width: 8.50 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_plex_name: print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_resolution: 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_resolution_name: print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_reversed: false print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_scaling: 1.00 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_shrink_to_fit: true print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_to_file: false print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_unwriteable_margin_bottom: 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_unwriteable_margin_left: 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_unwriteable_margin_right: 0 print.printer_HP_Deskjet_3050_J610_series.print_unwriteable_margin_top: 0 privacy.donottrackheader.value: 0 privacy.sanitize.migrateFx3Prefs: true storage.vacuum.last.index: 0 storage.vacuum.last.places.sqlite: 1412697626 toolkit.startup.recent_crashes: 2

Important Locked Preferences

JavaScript

Incremental GC: true

Accessibility

Activated: false Prevent Accessibility: 0

Library Versions

NSPR Expected minimum version: 4.10.7 Version in use: 4.10.7

NSS Expected minimum version: 3.17.1 Basic ECC Version in use: 3.17.1 Basic ECC

NSSSMIME Expected minimum version: 3.17.1 Basic ECC Version in use: 3.17.1 Basic ECC

NSSSSL Expected minimum version: 3.17.1 Basic ECC Version in use: 3.17.1 Basic ECC

NSSUTIL Expected minimum version: 3.17.1 Version in use: 3.17.1

Experimental Features

Use these instructions to get a copy of the old bookmarks backup and place it in the new profile. If you need better instructions, just ask.

(Open to the old profile) Type about:support<enter> in the address bar.

Under the page logo on the left side you will see Application Basics. Under this find Profile Folder. To it’s right press the button Show Folder. This will open your file browser to the current Firefox profile. Now Close Firefox.

Enter the bookmarkbackups folder. This is where Firefox makes backups of your bookmarks. Look for the jsonlz4 file you want to restore (check the time / date / size). Right click on that file and select Copy.

(Close current Firefox, then open to the new profile) (Repeat above steps to open the new Profile Folder)

Now go back to the profile folder where you started. Rename the file places.sqlite by adding .old to it. Now right click in the folder and select Paste. The file you just pasted here, rename it to places.sqlite. After you are done, restart Firefox.

Did you try to delete all places.sqlite files including places.sqlite-shm and places.sqlite-wal files?

Thanks guys.

One quick question Fredmcd.

When you say;

"Now go back to the profile folder where you started. Rename the file places.sqlite by adding .old to it. "

Do you mean I change the name of the places. file in the old profile or the new one?

And where you say;

"Now right click in the folder and select Paste. The file you just pasted here, rename it to places.sqlite. "

Am I copy/pasting the bookmarks backup into the new profiles folder?

Many thanks

The instructions I posted were to bring back a backup bookmark within the same profile. Do you see the edit comments I added?

After you copy the old jsonlz4, you need to paste it to the new profile. because you may have more profiles that you know about, restart Firefox using the new profile. Open the new profile folder, Close Firefox, rename the current places.sqlite by adding .old to it. Paste the file you copied to this folder, and rename it to places.sqlite

Yessssssssssssssssssssssss, I got them all back! Now to do a proper back up :)

Thank you so much guys. And fredmcD, you are superb at what you do, I cant thank u enough

Great to hear! Use the FEBE and OPIE add-ons and all will be safe.

Hello,

I am glad to hear that your problem has been resolved. If you haven't already, please select the answer that solves the problem. This will help other users with similar problems find the solution more easily.

Thank you for contacting Mozilla Support.