Losing bookmarks

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Booglebox!
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Post by Booglebox! »

Hi everyone,

Sorry to be another anonymous guest posting on these beleaguered forums- the guys who answer questions are doing a great job, and I promise to join you some day.

I have had a pretty good look at this thread and can see nothing about my particular problem- probably due to the fact that it's not exclusively to do with Firefox. But anyway, here it is:

A couple of months ago I got a couple of bubbles from the system tray saying things like "The file ...Mozilla Firefox/xxxxxx.default/xxxxx.xxx is corrupt and unreadable. Please run the Chkdsk utility" So I did. End of story. Until this morning when up comes "...xxxxx.default/bookmarks.html.moztemp". It had the word bookmark in it so my brain went "woop woop mozilla f*ckup alert" and I took a screenshot. Now how's that for quick thinking? :D

I started firefox and, lo and behold, no bookmarks. I had some nonsense with different profiles a while ago and sorted that out, so I checked to see if there was anything amiss there. Everything was fine.

So, it's probably a corrupt file on my (admittedly rather abused) hard drive. Why the golden BB? Aargh!

My question is the following- I've heard that Firefox automatically backs up your bookmarks now and then. Is this true, and if so, how can I recover my bookmarks from whatever backup it has created?

I found a file in my profile folder called "bookmarks.bak" but it is only 423 bytes, and I had a couple of hundred bookmarks.

By the way, I am running:

1.3 ghz Centrino
40gb
512 mb
ati mobility radeon 9000 32mb
XP home

Does anyone know the answer to this? I'm guessing it's a bit of a head-scratcher.

Cheers (in advance!)
Ed
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Alice
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Joined: April 23rd, 2003, 11:47 am

Post by Alice »

The bookmarks.bak file that Firefox 1.0.x creates is pretty useless since most times when you need the backup that file is a copy of the now corrupt or truncated bookmark.html. Firefox 1.5 has a better bookmarks backup system, creating five rolling backups.

Bookmarks.html.moztmp shouldn't exist, normally. Firefox uses it as a temporary holding file when updating the bookmarks. If you still see the file in the profile folder, check to see if it is read-only... Also check for other read-only files in your profile and remove the read-only attribute. Details here:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=157152
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=257288

While you are at it, make a backup copy of the
Bookmarks.html.moztmp file , if it exists, and place it in another location, rename it bookmarks.html and open the file in firefox or another browser. It may contain your missing bookmarks. If it does, either import the file using the Firefox Bookmarks Manager or replace the existing bookmarks.html in the profile with the renamed file.

If that doesn't help see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Lost_bookmarks (sorry if that link has been posted before... I haven't looked through the whole thread)
Alice Wyman
hurricane_sh
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Post by hurricane_sh »

I made a small bat file to backup firefox profile data: FireFox Backup.

Make one click when you want to backup it.
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Alice
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Joined: April 23rd, 2003, 11:47 am

Post by Alice »

Booglebox!
Did you run chkdsk to see if you could recover any lost file fragments?
I took a look through this thread. Details start here: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 93#1360593

More on chkdsk here:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=315265
How to perform disk error checking in Windows XP
Alice Wyman
delnz99
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Thanks but now what?

Post by delnz99 »

trolly wrote:That is wrong.
It should be something like:
C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
Search the directories for bookmarks.html or bookmarks.bak (the backup for the bookmark file).
If you are lucky you have a directory named bookmarksbackup. There the bookmark files of the last few days are stored.


I have found my missing bookmarks in this directory, my question is, how do I reinstate them? Do I have to add them manually, one by one?

Thanks
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trolly
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Joined: August 22nd, 2005, 7:25 am

Post by trolly »

a) copy one of the files one folder up and rename it to bookmarks.html (FF must be closed)
b) Bookmarks -> Manage Bookmarks -> File -> Import -> From File ...
Think for yourself. Otherwise you have to believe what other people tell you.
A society based on individualism is an oxymoron. || Freedom is at first the freedom to starve.
Constitution says: One man, one vote. Supreme court says: One dollar, one vote.
delnz99
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Joined: February 24th, 2006, 8:50 am

Post by delnz99 »

trolly wrote:a) copy one of the files one folder up and rename it to bookmarks.html (FF must be closed)
b) Bookmarks -> Manage Bookmarks -> File -> Import -> From File ...


Excellent! That worked perfectly!

Thank you so much :banana:
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trolly
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Post by trolly »

:-)
Think for yourself. Otherwise you have to believe what other people tell you.
A society based on individualism is an oxymoron. || Freedom is at first the freedom to starve.
Constitution says: One man, one vote. Supreme court says: One dollar, one vote.
pendeltonpeck
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Post by pendeltonpeck »

My bookmarks all mysteriously vanished. I spent ages organising and updating my bookmarks. I've tried Vector's suggestion, but I only have one profile. As far as I can remember I've never been prompted to create a new profile. I am more than annoyed with Firefox as I require these bookmarks to work with and only about half of them are in my old IE profile. If you rely on your bookmarks for your job then it looks like IE is your best option. This is an appalling problem with Firefox.
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trolly
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Post by trolly »

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Lost_bookmarks
You are using 1.5.0.1 so there are 5 additional backups in the bookmarkbackups folder. Find your profile folder and follow my tip from above.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder
Think for yourself. Otherwise you have to believe what other people tell you.
A society based on individualism is an oxymoron. || Freedom is at first the freedom to starve.
Constitution says: One man, one vote. Supreme court says: One dollar, one vote.
Guest
Guest

Post by Guest »

I've only read through page 9 so I don't know if this has been mentioned. Here is what I did to solve my problem with disappearing bookmarks.

1. Downloaded PC Inspector File Recovery program.
2. Searched for lost data.
3. Searched the "FOUND.xxx" folders to find one that corresponded with the date of my bookmarks being erased.
4. Opened each of the "FILEXXX.CHK" files with notepad until I found my bookmarks.
5. Went to Firefox bookmark manager and on "file" clicked import. Selected appropriate file "FILEXXX.CHK" file.
6. Stored a backup of that file on my desktop!
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trolly
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Post by trolly »

@Last Guest: My notice was for pendeltonpeck who is using FF 1.5. For FF 1.0.7 you did the exactly right thing. :-)
Think for yourself. Otherwise you have to believe what other people tell you.
A society based on individualism is an oxymoron. || Freedom is at first the freedom to starve.
Constitution says: One man, one vote. Supreme court says: One dollar, one vote.
Guardian_Outlaw
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Post by Guardian_Outlaw »

Yo i don't get it this is the 2nd time this xxx' browser deleted all my bookmarks!!!!!

How do i get my old bookmarks back?
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Daifne
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Post by Daifne »

That language is not allowed here. Watch it.
Guardian_Outlaw
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Post by Guardian_Outlaw »

sorry but this firefox browser is getting me angry this is the 2nd time it deleted all my bookmarks and i had very important links bookmarked now i can't get to them!
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