Losing bookmarks

User Help for Mozilla Firefox
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zorgon
Posts: 11
Joined: December 20th, 2004, 7:21 am

Lost bookmarks on setup of 1.0

Post by zorgon »

I installed the new Firefox 1.0 on my computer before backing up my profile and bookmarks from my FireFox beta version. When I opened firefox my bookmarks were gone. These were too many bookmarks to try to find all over again. I didn't create a new profile. I looked in the "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles" where the profile was before, and a new profile existed with new bookmarks, but when I went into the separate folder for what looked to be my original profile, instead of having just one bookmarks.html, there was 7,340 files titled bookmarks-1.html through up to 4 digits long like (bookmarks-1457.html). I had quite a lot of bookmarks, and I believe these are them singularly. How can I recover these? If it is possible.
I would appreciate it greatly.
Guest
Guest

Post by Guest »

I have the same problem, it dumps my bookmarks quite often (at least once every 2 days). Since I use linux these steps really do not help...
Guest
Guest

Post by Guest »

Guest.....try searching the forums, and/or start a new post with "Linux" in the title.....you'll get more Linux users' attention that way.
Guest
Guest

Post by Guest »

I lost my bookmarks following a crash and reboot, however when going into the Profile manager there were not two profiles as suggested above, only the default. However I was eventually able to recover most of my old bookmarks after downloading a file recovery utility and finding a file named "bookmarks.html.moztmp" that had been deleted. After restoring the file I had to do some manual editiing of the file to get it to import back into Firefox (the inclusion of the icon and favicon data within the bookmark html file itself really obfuscates things and made it harder than it had to be though).

Given the emotional trauma that comes from losing ones bookmarks, I think it would be great if the developers could reconsider how they handle making a new default bookmarks file in these sorts of situations (I don't know what all circumstances trigger the creation, but in cases where there is an existing file and it isn't loading properly because it has been corrupted or something, to allow the user to save that information instread of just blindly overwriting it with a useless default list that doesn't contain anything).
randh
Guest

lost bookmarks

Post by randh »

Following up on Heldje's message.

I just lost all my bookmarks, but found the -1 (and -2 file).
Unfortunately, I simply renamed the "bookmarks-1" to "bookmarks" (after deleting the other one) and Mozilla overwrote it all withthe blank 'default" again. So....

Anyone know if I have totally lost all my old bookmarks, or is there a way to recover them.?

I was not asked to do a new profile.
I had gotten rid of the quicklaunch icon in the taskbar, mostly because the computer was bogging down badly this evening.
randh
Guest

What do I do after "recover"?

Post by randh »

Hi all,
I lost my bookmarks, am now trying to recover the 'bookmarks.html.moztmp" file

I looked for this file, found it, recovered it (or think so, it's the right size). What do I do next?

Of course, with that extension, no program recognizes it as their own. Trying to Open it with Mozilla does not work. I renamed to "bookmark.html' (without the moztmp extension) and when Mozilla opens it, it's only gibberish.

Please help, I need to get those bookmarks back! I'll start backing them up now, but this is a problem!

RHD
Guest
Guest

Post by Guest »

thx all back those bookmarks
ps:can they fix that bug in the next update
zorgon
Posts: 11
Joined: December 20th, 2004, 7:21 am

Post by zorgon »

randh:
What program did you use to recover the old file?
I still am having troubles trying to retrieve my old bookmarks.
Does anybody have any suggestions on how to retrieve them or what all those files* are in that backup profile of mine? (*First post.)
willems59
Posts: 1
Joined: July 3rd, 2003, 9:27 am

Post by willems59 »

I lost my bookmarks too, 3th time!!!!!

I have read the thread and it simply doen't work!!!!!

I will move back to Opera. Yes I have to pay a few $'s for it. In return I get no frustration. An other nice thing: I can move bookmarks simple between dirfferent computers with different operating systems. Can't say that of Firefox.

When Firefox 2.0 GA is available I will give it a try again..
Guest
Guest

Post by Guest »

willems59 wrote:I lost my bookmarks too, 3th time!!!!!

I have read the thread and it simply doen't work!!!!!

I will move back to Opera. Yes I have to pay a few $'s for it. In return I get no frustration. An other nice thing: I can move bookmarks simple between dirfferent computers with different operating systems. Can't say that of Firefox. [emphasis added]

When Firefox 2.0 GA is available I will give it a try again..

That's not true --- I do it routinely --- you simply exit FireFox on both systems; copy the Bookmarks.html file from your source profile to whatever medium you're using for transport (a share over a network) and then copy that file to the target profile.

I find it fascinating that people think they should not have to backup important data.
zorgon
Posts: 11
Joined: December 20th, 2004, 7:21 am

Post by zorgon »

I did back up my bookmarks file. But I fell behind and haven't for at least a few months. I possibly lost all new data.

I am asking again.

Does anybody have any suggestions on how to recover my old bookmarks from before I upgraded to 1.0?
Guest
Guest

Post by Guest »

zorgon wrote:I did back up my bookmarks file. But I fell behind and haven't for at least a few months. I possibly lost all new data.

I am asking again.

Does anybody have any suggestions on how to recover my old bookmarks from before I upgraded to 1.0?

Have you tried opening those bookmarks-{n}.html files? With a browser or a text reader/editor (notepad)?
Guest
Guest

Post by Guest »

zorgon, there may be a way to recover those but you need to tell us what those bookmarks-{n}.html files look like.....
Guest
Guest

Post by Guest »

Well, gives this a try:

1. open up a dos/command prompt
2. dir to the directory that contains the subject files
3. enter this command: copy/b bookmarks-*.html newmarks.html [hit enter]
4. this will combine all those files into one named newmarks.html
5. open up FireFox
6. goto Manage Bookmarks in the Bookmarks dropdown
7. goto File/Import
8. Select File
9. drill down to the directory that has the newmarks.html file
10. select that file --- newmarks.html
11. you should now have your bookmarks back

If the above does not work, delete the newmarks.html file and repeat the above instructions but change the command in item #3 to copy/a bookmarks-*.html newmarks.html.

If again that does not work try opening up each file, selecting the bookmark text in each file and copying it to another text file one line at a time --- wow --- over 7000 files --- that's a lot of work.

Let us know what happens.
zorgon
Posts: 11
Joined: December 20th, 2004, 7:21 am

Post by zorgon »

The files are titled like this: "bookmarks-1457.html"
My first post at top of this page explains everything.
I don't know what these files are.
Each one has a size of 0kb.
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