Losing bookmarks

User Help for Mozilla Firefox
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jon99
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Just one missing file

Post by jon99 »

I have noticed that a bookmark that I thought I imported from IE has vanished from a subfolder in Firefox 1.0.1 (just one of hundreds of bookmarks). I tried re-importing the favs from IE without having that much needed bookmark successfully copied.

Can anyone suggest how to start from scratch on the migration of these favorites, or how to deal with this?
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Post by Guest »

I never created any new profile and my bookmars, hundreds of them!, just disappeared. I'm driving myself crazy trying to get them back!! The profile manager thing didn't work. I don't know what else I can do, other than give up firefox. This never happened with IE anyway.
swarlock
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Post by swarlock »

VectorThunder wrote:OK: That was the 'hanging' firefox.exe 'process' still running on your system. Do the following:

Close Firefox.
Open Task Manager (ctrl-alt-del) and look in the 'processes' list and if you find 'firefox.exe' then highlight it and click on 'end task'.

Now go:

Start > run, and type in: firefox.exe -p

That is firefox.exe<space><hyphen>p



This is a temporary solution unfortunately as it happened to me again for the third time in the last two months. I'm going to report this as a bug and hopefully a more permanent solution can be implemented.

Still it's the best thing I can think of.
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Post by Guest »

ok,
Good computer - good amount of RAM and CPU blah blah blah
Win XP Pro
can't find any Found.000, nor .baks
there's no Phoenix folder
I followed the Profile manager advice... there's only one: Default and it has no bookmarks
I searched the computer all over... the .html was blank

can't think of anything else that I hadn't try. Very upset and disappointed with FF. Not to mention how dang difficult is to make a backup of the bookmarks. Never had this problem with IE and to save my favorites was a breeze. Someone please help!
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Post by Guest »

After nearly a year of use after leaving IE, this is the only problem I've experienced with Firefox. But it is a major one that needs fixing, and may render the browser unuseable for me.

I, too, started up Firefox this morning and found all my bookmarks gone, with no warning or reason. Just gone. This is months of accumulated information -- really the only important user data Firefox is resonsible for -- and the browser should be able to protect that data.

The average user has no prior reason to backup bookmarks, and so this comes as a very rude and disastrous surprise. A stable, functional browser should not lose such information on its own whim. This is a serious problem with the browser, not the fault of users failing to backup data they had no reason to believe was in danger. There is no warning upon use of Firefox that this is a potential problem, and users should not have to download a backup extension to prevent the problem -- it should be integrated into the browser itself.

Very disappointed that such a major flaw has been overlooked, and that the average user has to comb a support forum for answers.
Guest
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Post by Guest »

Mac folks-- HELP PLEASE

I had a similar problem as y'all did (when I updated from FF 1.0 to 1.0.2 I lost my bookmarks). I think it's because I changed the profile but now I can't get to the damn profile manager! The "help" says double-click the FF icon while holding down the option key but that DOES NOT bring up the profile manager. In short, I can't revert to the profile that has my bookmarks. Help!
Old enrgy21
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Post by Old enrgy21 »

A lot of issues on this post. About bookmarks, serious discussion on this post: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=239970 But losing bookmarks and other instabilites can also be attributed to 1.0.2. installation procedure re: "extensions and themes" and/or "known issues-all systems" in the official release notes. http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox ... 1.0.2.html
Mozilla Firefox 1.0.2 Release Notes
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hellene
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Post by hellene »

Having just read this thread, a thought relevant to those who looked for a checkdisk file (FOUND.00whatever or .chk depending on Windows version). That type of file is generated by the SCANDISK utility (previously known as CHECKDISK). Windows sometimes runs SCANDISK automatically (eg after a crash or power outage), but it sometimes doesn't, or you can cancel the scan.

I am willing to bet that folks who found their lost bookmarks in a SCANDISK file did so because Windows had automatically run a scan (no-one mentioned doing a scan). Those who couldn't find such a file probably could not because SCANDISK hadn't run.

So, if all else has failed, run SCANDISK (Start>Run>Scandisk) and see if it finds an error on the disk (just run the file validation part, not the hard drive physical check). SCANDISK works by finding files where the actual length (from start to end bits) is different to the length recorded in the FAT. Someone posted that they thought Firefox kept the file open rather than using a temp file - if it does so, or if the system shuts down badly while writing the temp file back to the master file, a bad or missing end bit is a possibility. SCANDISK or another recovery utility might be able to help.

This could be a bug, but if it happens repeatedly I might recommend taking the hour or so it takes to run a physical scan of the hard disk. If Firefox is writing back to a bad sector of the disk, this would explain the repeated problem (I had a pc once that kept doing this to the NORMAL.DOT in Word, until I used a disk scanning utility to mark the bad sector).

If anyone does so and actually finds a bad sector, perhaps they could post.
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Post by Guest »

hellene wrote:Having just read this thread, a thought relevant to those who looked for a checkdisk file (FOUND.00whatever or .chk depending on Windows version). That type of file is generated by the SCANDISK utility (previously known as CHECKDISK). Windows sometimes runs SCANDISK automatically (eg after a crash or power outage), but it sometimes doesn't, or you can cancel the scan.

I am willing to bet that folks who found their lost bookmarks in a SCANDISK file did so because Windows had automatically run a scan (no-one mentioned doing a scan). Those who couldn't find such a file probably could not because SCANDISK hadn't run.

In my particular case (I was the guest that replied four posts above), it does seem to have been a result of scandisk. I searched for "FOUND" and obtained the folders FOUND.000 and FOUND.001. Inside FOUND.001, FILE0002 and FILE0003 contained my bookmarks.

Why would scandisk randomly trash Firefox bookmarks? There's something the browser is doing which is causing this to occur. Furthermore, scandisk ran automatically after my system inexplicably crashed. I have to wonder if this was a result of Firefox itself.
AnotherGuest.
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Post by AnotherGuest. »

Let me try to summarize.

1. Search your whole computer for bookmarks*. This will find every file with the name "bookmarks" in it. You will probably find more than one. If you are using DOS or some more primitive OS that I don't know about, search for bookmarks*.*. Make sure you search also for hidden files if you are running Windows.

2 Can't manage this? Professional EMail support is only $5.

3. Back up your bookmarks. How? Simple. Bookmarks/Manage Bookmarks to open Bookmark Manager. Then File/Export... will save a copy whereever you want to put it. You say you can't remember where you put it? See #1. Hint: timing is important. Hint: if this advice comes too late, I can't help you.

4. Try ScanDisk and check your ScanDisk logs. Maybe the file can be recovered or has been recovered.

5. Yes, there are other ways to back up your bookmarks. Find one that works and use it.
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greenknight
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Post by greenknight »

As stated repeatedly in this thread, the Bookmark Backup extension will make automatic daily backups (seven of them before it starts overwriting them). You can also use the Bookmarks Manager to make a copy of your bookmarks. Click Bookmarks -> Manage Bookmarks -> File -> Export, and select a place to put them. You can copy them back in the same place with the Import function. So it's really easy to back up your bookmarks. I do agree, though, that more should be done to inform users about the need to do this.
Win 10 Pro x64, AMD Ryzen 5 5600G 6 core, 3900 MHz (4450 Turbo), AMD Radeon Vega (integrated graphics). 16GB DDR4-3200, Firefox 123.0.1, Developer Edition 124.0b8, Nightly 126.0a1.
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mcm_ham
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Post by mcm_ham »

What about filing an enhancement bug to include this functionality by default?
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the-edmeister
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Post by the-edmeister »

Come up with an enhancement bug number and I'll vote for it!

I have just finished reading every message of this thread; too many people have had too much trouble with lost bookmarks. Having to install an extension to backup bookmarks is too much to expect of the 'average' user, the 'feature' should be standard.
It's a real shame that when the bookmarks.html.bak scheme was started last year, that 'they' didn't have the foresight to put them in another folder that was locked while the 'real' bookmarks were being used.
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greenknight
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Post by greenknight »

I' ll open a Bugzilla account just to vote for that. The need couldn't be more obvious, but the devs apparently have to be prodded.
Win 10 Pro x64, AMD Ryzen 5 5600G 6 core, 3900 MHz (4450 Turbo), AMD Radeon Vega (integrated graphics). 16GB DDR4-3200, Firefox 123.0.1, Developer Edition 124.0b8, Nightly 126.0a1.
PetRe
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Post by PetRe »

It once happened to me. I have installed the FF on my SuSE 9.2 linux and I have imported the old bookmarks. Tomorrow, there were none. Besides bookmarks, I lost extensions too.
So I guess, it is not windows-only problem.
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