Move bookmark toolbar favicons?

[Ed1]

I have just set up a new computer and installed FF. FF on the new computer is set to sync with my Firefox account, and I copied the old Chrome folder over to the new profile, so a lot of my customizations have made it onto my new FF.

But one that did not are the favicon buttons on the bookmarks toolbar. I now have only black and white globe icons for every bookmark. When clicked on, some will change to the correct favicon, but most will not.

Is there a file that I did not copy over from the old profile that would bring back all of the favicons at once onto the new profile's bookmarks toolbar?

[xanthon]

favicons.sqlite : https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/re ... ld-profile

[Ed1]

Thanks, xanthon, but I replaced both places.sqlite and favicons.sqlite with the same files from the old profile and there is no change in either the toolbar icons' appearance or behavior.

The globe icons all remain in the new profile rather than the site favicons, and for most of them, they do not change to the site favicons when clicked on.

I am stumped by this, as what is happening now seems to be inconsistent with fixing this in new profiles with prior FF versions. (Using FF 87 on the new computer - and both transferred files were from FF 87 on another computer.)

Is there another way?

[dickvl]

Does the star in the location bar get highlighted if you open the bookmark in a tab ?

Note that it is possible that older bookmarks have the http:// protocol and are redirected to https://.

[Ed1]

Thanks, dickvl. I have mostly https but some http. Some of each type fill in the blue star, some don’t, regardless of whether https or http. Some fill in the favicons, some don’t, again regardless of whether https or http. And the blue star fill in or not is not coordinated with whether the favicon displays.

[morat]

Maybe export the bookmarks.html file on the old machine, then import the bookmarks.html file on the new machine.

The bookmarks.html file saves the favicon data in the icon attribute.

[Ed1]

Thanks, morat.

I exported the bookmarks from the old computer to a .html file. But, I can't find a way to import them back into a new profile on the new computer. The only importing option I see is File > Import From Another Browser, which allows importing from 4 listed browsers (Edge, Edge Legacy, Internet Explorer, and Chrome but not Firefox). I don't see the way to import from an .html file.

[LIMPET235]

Hi Ed,
Open the "LIBRARY", via "Bookmarks > Show all" & select "Import & Back-up > Import from HTML.
Chuck the EXported HTML to the desk top & away you go.
(I created a "special" "MANUALLY ADDED" folder in My Docs for the exported HTML files & keep it updated.)

[morat]

Restoring a bookmarks.json file will always replace all current bookmarks where as importing a bookmarks.html file will merge them with existing bookmarks.

[Ed1]

OK, thanks guys. I don't know why after 15 years of using Firefox I still have trouble finding settings. I would say that having bookmark import and export settings in two places is less than ideal, though.

So, I tried importing the old bookmarks both ways. First, with importing the bookmarks.html file, the bookmarks all appeared in a new profile but none were displayed on the bookmarks toolbar. And none of those on the main bookmarks list had any favicons showing.

Then, I deleted the places.sqlite and favicons.sqlite files from the new profile and imported the bookmarks again using the bookmarks-21-04-14.json file from the old profile. This time, the bookmarks all showed up on the main list and on the bookmarks toolbar, but again without favicons. The favicon behavior on the bookmarks toolbar is just the same as before - a few change to favicons when clicked on but most just stay as black globes even after being clicked. And again, replacing the places.sqlite and favicons.sqlite does not fix this.

So, I am at a loss on this again.

[Ed1]

After a bit of Google research, I decided to try one more thing - deleting (renaming) the favicons.sqlite file in my new FF profile. After closing and reopening FF, clicking on each of the globe icons in the bookmarks toolbar and the main bookmark list brings back the proper favicon display for about 80% of my bookmarks. The others remain as globes. It will be a bit tedious to have to click on all of my many bookmarks but I'm glad to have most of them back.

So, maybe something in the process of saving the favicons.sqlite or the bookmarks .json file to a USB drive and retrieving it from the USB drive on the new computer corrupted the file in some way. Or, maybe the backup/restore of the html file corrupted something.

As for the remaining bookmarks where loading the page does not bring back the favicon, I guess I'll keep looking for a reason.

[dickvl]

Maybe look at this extension:

Cache Favicons for Bookmarks
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addo ... bookmarks/