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I cannot restore bookmarks after a refresh.

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 12 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

BrianaW77
BrianaW77
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I was having major slow down and crash issues with Firefox and it kept prompting me to do a refresh. So this morning I did a complete refresh. After the refresh, all of my bookmarks, passwords, etc were missing. When it refreshed it created the "Old Firefox Data" folder on my desktop, but when I try to restore my bookmarks, not matter what I do, it just gives me the error "Unable to process backup file" I have tried choosing the file from the bookmarksbackup folder in the Old data file, I have tried using all of the backups listed in the dropdown in the restore window and I just get the same error message. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I was having major slow down and crash issues with Firefox and it kept prompting me to do a refresh. So this morning I did a complete refresh. After the refresh, all of my bookmarks, passwords, etc were missing. When it refreshed it created the "Old Firefox Data" folder on my desktop, but when I try to restore my bookmarks, not matter what I do, it just gives me the error "Unable to process backup file" I have tried choosing the file from the bookmarksbackup folder in the Old data file, I have tried using all of the backups listed in the dropdown in the restore window and I just get the same error message. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

All Replies (2)

BrianaW77
BrianaW77 Question owner
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I finally got it to work. Just had to restart the browser 3 times - Not really sure what was different, but all is good.

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Hi BrianaW77

Did Firefox create a new places.sqlite and renamed the previous file to places.sqlite.corrupt?

Did you manage to get your passwords?

You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.

You can copy files like these with Firefox closed from the "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop to the current profile folder to recover specific data.

  • bookmarks and history: places.sqlite
  • bookmark backups: compressed .jsonlz4 backups in the bookmarkbackups folder
  • cookies.sqlite for the cookies
  • formhistory.sqlite for saved form data
  • logins.json and key3.db (decryption key) for Passwords saved in the Password Manager
  • cert8.db and possibly cert_override.txt for (intermediate) certificates stored in the Certificate Manager
  • persdict.dat for words you added to the spelling checker dictionary
  • permissions.sqlite for Permissions and possibly content-prefs.sqlite for other Site Preferences
  • sessionstore.jsonlz4 for open tabs and pinned tabs