lost bookmarks on update to 3.6, unable to retrieve them

Discussion of general topics about Mozilla Firefox
Bbill
Posts: 16
Joined: February 14th, 2010, 2:11 pm

Re: lost bookmarks on update to 3.6, unable to retrieve them

Post by Bbill »

Not sure what just happened, but I was able to import one of the older saved bookmark files that wouldn't import earlier. Maybe it just took time to heal?! Anyway, I'm back in business. Thanks to all who did their best to assist me. Cheers!
digihax
Posts: 38
Joined: February 13th, 2010, 12:15 pm

Re: lost bookmarks on update to 3.6, unable to retrieve them

Post by digihax »

Bbill wrote:On Friday I checked for updates to Firefox, which I hadn't done in a very long time. It showed version 3.6 as available, so I downloaded it, without first backing up the bookmarks. I'm not sure what version I was using before updating.

After downloading, the bookmarks file was empty. I searched for FF solutions, found 'Lost Bookmarks' and followed instructions for all possibilities there, but still no bookmarks. Also searched the FF database, read a dizzying amount of info and tried ALL the various fixes listed, but no luck getting the bookmarks back. When I go to 'backup & restore' and click on a date from before 3.6 was installed, a window says 'Unable to process the backup file.'

I've only ever had 1 user/1 profile. One of the attempts to get the bookmarks back was to create a new profile. No luck there, even after creating a 'bookmarkbackups' file in the new profile and pasting one of the .JSON files there. It still won't open or restore through 'Library/import and backup/restore' One thing that did happen when trying a new profile was the disappearance of most of the files in the Profile folder. There had been other files, such as 'places.sqlite', which are nowhere to be found now.

In the FF Profile file there are 5 files of saved bookmarks, but they have .JSON extensions and I haven't been able to open them. The files are dated before the update to 3.6 and each is more than 1MB in size, so there is data in there. Those files are now saved in other places.

One thing I did was to change the .json extension to .txt This allowed viewing of the text, which shows that all the bookmarks are there. On one web site for converting .JSON to HTML, I pasted that text into the conversion window, but it was unable to convert the file because it said there was 'an error in the syntax string'. Can this file (.json or .txt) be checked somewhere and maybe be repaired and converted to HTML and then imported?

This is my third day dealing with this. A final solution will be greatly appreciated! TIA.

BTW below are some of the sites checked for solutions and all tried without success. Also searched through the forums, did a general online search and tried a few suggestions, without luck:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Lost_bookmark ... _3_upgrade
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Lost_bookmarks
http://support.mozilla.com/search.php?w ... &sa=Search


Why didnt you back you stuff up with a flash-drive dude lol, i mean it might not be perfect but atleast its something...
Post Reply