Bookmarks cause Firefox to hang

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AMCarter3
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Joined: April 17th, 2005, 7:34 am

Bookmarks cause Firefox to hang

Post by AMCarter3 »

Ever since the Ver 10.0 update, I've been experiencing a frustrating time lag issue when I open the Booksmarks folder and attempt to rearrange bookmarks. If I move a bookmark link from one folder to another, Firefox hangs (spinning wheel) for at least 60+ seconds or more. The only action that stops the hangup is closing the Bookmarks folder. This is a new behavior. Has this issue been reported to Mozilla? Is there a solution?

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AMCarter3
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JayhawksRock
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Re: Bookmarks cause Firefox to hang

Post by JayhawksRock »

Try it in Firefox Safe Mode and see if it happens > Menu > Help > Restart with add-ons disabled
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AMCarter3
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Re: Bookmarks cause Firefox to hang

Post by AMCarter3 »

I tried it in Safe mode. No change. More specifically, when I do a sort on a bookmark folder, that is when the time lag occurs. I can move bookmark links around before that, but as soon as I perform a folder sort, a time lag occurs - up to about 45-60 secs. As soon as I do another sort, the same thing occurs.
AMCarter3
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sarpo
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Re: Bookmarks cause Firefox to hang

Post by sarpo »

Sometimes the places.sqlite file gets corrupted - Firefox is meant to clean it up itself from time to time, but things can go wrong. Make a backup of your profile - http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/ - and try a places vacuum - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... -improved/

If that does not help, and you are willing to lose your history (but not your bookmarks) - I believe you will also lose favicons until sites are revisited and the awesomebar will give poorer suggestions at first:
1. Manually make a bookmark backup- http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/Bac ... -bookmarks
2. Go to the profile folder while Firefox is closed and rename (DO NOT DELETE) places.sqlite to placeold.
Profile folder is here: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox
When that file is missing, Firefox will restore your bookmarks from the daily backups. If you have moved things or made new bookmarks since the daily backup you may want to restore from your manual backup.
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AMCarter3
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Re: Bookmarks cause Firefox to hang

Post by AMCarter3 »

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm on a Mac laptop, so the Windows "Mozbackup" didn't work. But, your suggestions gave me some clues re: how to do maintenance on my Bookmarks places.sqlite file. I installed 3 places maintenance extensions and between them I weeded out a pile of extinct web links. That seems to have solved my issue. Thanks very much for the help!
AMCarter3
Apple MacBook Pro 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; 2 GB Ram; OS 10.6.8
Guest
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Re: Bookmarks cause Firefox to hang

Post by Guest »

I am just having trouble even finding out where my books makes even went! I can't even find the place they have been on Firefox screen at the top that were there yesterday. I have done no purposefully updating overnight that I personally chose to do. Even system restoring back a few days did not make them show up at the top where they were. Can't see "tools" either. What have I accidentally done.

I did have the issue of slow responding when trying to use the bookmarks yesterday. I guess they did it on their own?
Guest
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Re: Bookmarks cause Firefox to hang

Post by Guest »

ctrl-B should show your bookmarks on the left side bookmars sidebar for now until you resolve other issues.
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AMCarter3
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Re: Bookmarks cause Firefox to hang

Post by AMCarter3 »

Back to the original topic... after using various bookmark maintenance utilities to clean up my Bookmarks file, I am still seeing a 30 sec+ lag after moving a link from one folder to another in my bookmarks folder. Any suggestions?
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dfoulkes
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Re: Bookmarks cause Firefox to hang

Post by dfoulkes »

Here's a routine/test that you could try in order to find out if there's corruption in your Places file. It will take a couple of minutes.
1. Open up your Bookmarks organizer (Show all bookmarks).\
2. Make sure that the All Bookmarks is focused on the left...(click on it)
3. In the search window place a : in there and it should list all your bookmarks. Click on the vertical scroll-bar and the total for all your bookmarks should display at the bottom.... note that total.
4. Export your bookmarks to HTML and place the file in an easy location (Desktop?)
5. Create a new/test profile....Name??? BMtest should work.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Creating_a_ne ... on_Windows
6. With the creation of that new profile Firefox will have created some basic bookmarks... you can use the : to see how many were made...and/or delete them all if you want to.
7. While you are in that new profiles Show all Bookmarks Import from HTML file the bookmarks you saved from step 4.
8. After that's finished importing... place that : in the search window and then click on the scrolling bar... you should now get the count of what it imported... compare the two count-results... if there is a big diff. then you've got a problem in your default-profile Places file.

Anyway, that's one way to check some stuff out.
As you can see she's (The CAT) always alert and on the prowl for Meoware !!
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AMCarter3
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Re: Bookmarks cause Firefox to hang

Post by AMCarter3 »

Thanks, I'll try it.
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AMCarter3
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Re: Bookmarks cause Firefox to hang

Post by AMCarter3 »

To dfoulkes,

Success! I created a new profile and imported my Bookmarks. The total number was within "1" of the old bookmarks, so I assumed that the next step would be to start using the new profile. I re-installed my extensions and, VOILA!... everything is working perfectly now.

THANKS VERY MUCH!
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dfoulkes
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Re: Bookmarks cause Firefox to hang

Post by dfoulkes »

I'm surprised that it was that close... "1" . Usually a corrupted places file will fail to create (or at least stop creating) the HTML file at the area that's corrupted... but who knows.

With respect to using your new profile... I take it that you don't use lots of extensions... I use over 40 and I'd hate to have to create a new prof. and install all of them... what I would do (and it may have worked for you) would have been to rename your default profile places.sqlite file to ?something and then copy over the new one that you created with that test profile... I think that would have worked.

Anyway, glad you got it fixed.
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Frank Lion
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Re: Bookmarks cause Firefox to hang

Post by Frank Lion »

dfoulkes wrote:With respect to using your new profile... I take it that you don't use lots of extensions... I use over 40 and I'd hate to have to create a new prof. and install all of them...

If you know that the extensions are OK, there is an easier way.

Close Firefox > go to new profile > rename any file starting with 'extension'...to 'extension1' > paste into that profile your entire extensions folder from the old profile > restart Firefox > You're done.

I mention it briefly here - http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_ ... ox#Folders but didn't make a big thing this method, because often it is the extensions that are at fault in the first place.


To the OP - now you're sorted - enter about:config into the addressbar and toggle browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML to true - saves a copy on each exit and it is very good to have this easy backup, for the future.
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dfoulkes
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Re: Bookmarks cause Firefox to hang

Post by dfoulkes »

Thanks Frank ... by copy/paste of the whole extension folder... what happens to any setting in about:config?
As you can see she's (The CAT) always alert and on the prowl for Meoware !!
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Frank Lion
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Re: Bookmarks cause Firefox to hang

Post by Frank Lion »

dfoulkes wrote:Thanks Frank ... by copy/paste of the whole extension folder... what happens to any setting in about:config?

Those are stored in prefs.js and you'll lose them. You daren't move the old one across as very often the trouble in the old profile was in prefs.js.

However, nothing to stop you carefully editing your new prefs.js and adding (in the right place) configs from the old one for the harder to configure extensions, like the weather ones, etc. That's what I do. - backup the new one before starting, etc. etc.
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