Can't import Bookmarks from old hard drive

[eddiejoe67]

I really need some help. The motherboard on our old PC died (Windows 7) so we bought a new one (Windows 10). I thought I had my bookmarks backed up on our external hard drive, but didn't. I am trying to get them off of the OLD hard drive which I have hooked up to the new computer externally via a USB port, but I can't seem to find them. As far as I can tell, they aren't in my old Windows User profile on the old drive. I can't find them in the Firefox folder in the Programs folder on the old drive. I've tried using the "help" feature for Firefox, and it's not helping. If I try to launch Firefox off of the old hard drive, it doesn't launch that version of Firefox. I just see the Firefox that's on the new computer which has no bookmarks yet.

**UPDATE*** I've found all kinds of bookmarks files. Here's an example: file:///I:/Users/Ed/AppData/Roaming/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/84fn49kp.default/bookmarkbackups/bookmarks-2017-12-25_659_5IMnepKs5x6ktogjgFnZlg==.jsonlz4

Here's another one: file:///I:/Users/Ed/AppData/Local/Temp/scoped_dir_3856_9953/CRX_INSTALL/bookmarks.html

Are any of these actual bookmarks files? I've actually tried using the "Import Bookmarks from HTML..." and selecting these kinds of files, but it's not working. I'm completely lost...

[the-edmeister]

Users/Ed/AppData/Roaming/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/84fn49kp.default/bookmarkbackups/bookmarks-2017-12-25_659_5IMnepKs5x6ktogjgFnZlg==.jsonlz4
Would be a Firefox bookmarks backup file, which needs to be restored via the Library > Import and Backup -> Restore ---> Chose file.

Users/Ed/AppData/Local/Temp/scoped_dir_3856_9953/CRX_INSTALL/bookmarks.html
No idea what that may be, but if you use File > Open File ... in Firefox you can view that file (just like a webpage) and see what's in that file. Firefox wouldn't put a bookmarks.html file in /Local/Temp/, but the /CRX_INSTALL/bookmarks.html folder might be a file from an application that you had installed??

.

[dickvl]

Note that the file name of a compressed .jsonlz4 backup includes the date and an item count: 2017-12-25_659

[BuddhaNature]

Hi Eddiejoe,

Try the following:

(1) Launch FF Quantum and then go (Menu) Help > Troubleshooting Information.
(2) In the page that opens you will see a table titled Application Basics.
(3) Look in that table for an item titled Profile Folder.
(3) To the right of that item you will see a button titled Open Folder. Click on that button and your Quantum profile folder will open - keep that window open.
(4) Now close down FF Quantum. Don't close the profile folder window.
(5) In the folder that you opened look for these two files: favicons.sqlite and places.sqlite - rename those files to something else e.g. favicons.sqlite.new and places.sqlite.new
(6) Now from your old FF profile copy the files favicons.sqlite and places.sqlite into you new FF Quantum profile folder.
(7) Relaunch FF Quantum and see if your bookmarks are back again.

For other files that you might want to selectively transfer from your old profile to your new Quantum profile see these two documents (read both documents as the information differs in them in some ways and that might be important to you):

Transferring data to a new profile - Firefox
Recovering important data from an old profile

General advice on these forums was that for a new (first) install of FF Quantum it is best copy out your old FF profile, uninstall your old FF, delete your old profile (which you've already copied off), then install FF Quantum - letting it create a new profile and build up that new profile from there. Reason for doing all this is that Quantum might not play pretty with a profile from a pre-Quantum version of FF. For an example of this happening read this thread: [Solved] Problem Moving Profile from v56 to v57

P.S. On your old HDD you can find your old FF profile folder at this path (adjust the path to suit what you now actually have for your old HDD - your DriveLetter will now be different but the UserName folder will still be the same name): [DriveLetter]:\Users\[UserName]\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles