FireFox Bookmarks Vanished

cormie

Last night my laptop shut down unexpectedly and when I rebooted, my FireFox bookmarks had vanished:eek:

I had a google and there's supposed to be a bookmark.bak file and .html file in my mozilla folder, but there isn't.

It seems others have had this problem and that their homepage has also been reset after a shut down. This hasn't happened me, it's just the bookmarks and I can't find them anywhere:(

Anyone have experience with this?

frodo_dcu

try here also
C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox

jor el

That's happened to me once before and I've seen it happen to someone else too. After the crash, everything in Firefox gets reset. All the themes, extensions, cookies, remembered passwords, etc are gone, including the bookmarks. The backup bookmark file should be there but everything else will be gone.

Pain in the a$$ when it happens as you have to try and remember everything you had.

Get the Google browser sync extension to help the recovery process should it happen again.

cormie

their not in that path frodo, thanks anyway.

the backup bookmark file isn't even there, well I can't see it anywhere anyway

Maybe I chose not to backup when I installed firefox? Is that an option on installation? I forget...

I wonder can they be recovered by an undelete program

art

cormie wrote:

their not in that path frodo, thanks anyway.

the backup bookmark file isn't even there, well I can't see it anywhere anyway

Maybe I chose not to backup when I installed firefox? Is that an option on installation? I forget...

I wonder can they be recovered by an undelete program

Your back up folder is not your default Mozilla folder but hidden inside the Application Data folder as referred to earlier - perhaps you've hidden files set to on?

Check this (you may know this but I'll assume nothing!):

Go to "My Computer" and open your "C" drive (assuming that is where you installed Windows). Before going further, go to the menu there and select Tools -> Folder Options. Click to the Tab called "View" inside the Dialog box that opens and make sure "Show Hidden files and folders" is checked. Click "Okay" to close that then.

Now inside "C"
-> open the "Documents and Settings" folder.
-> Inside that the folder named whatever you log in as...
-> Inside that the folder called "Application Data"
-> Then the one called "Mozilla"
-> Then the one called "FireFox"
-> Now the called "Profiles"
-> Then the one called a string of letters that ends in "default"
-> The the one :eek: called "bookmarkbackups"

Hopefully you will find a recent backup inside here. Just double click them to have a look...

What you need to do then is open Firefox itself, and inside the Bookmarks menu item, select "Organize Bookmarks..." (sic) and from inside what then opens, under the File menu "import" the backed up bookmarks that you have hopefully already found....

Best of luck - I know it can be incredibly annoying to lose bookmarks.

cormie

Thanks for the detailed explanation, I did that before but it made me rethink my moves.

I got them back, but here's what the problem was, and this is weird, see, when I was backing up my computer before, I copied the application data folder and called it "cdocuments and settingsusername application data" and I don't know why, but in the username folder, it's still called that, but when I click into it, in the address bar it's simply called application settings and it was actually in there, I thought that was just a folder that had no user because it was an old backup, but it's actually in use all the time, which is weird, because I also have an application data folder in Local Settings folder, whch is also in the username folder, in which I found the Mozilla folder (confused yet? lol) and I was looking for the bookmark folder in there, but it was in the one I thought wasn't in use.

jonny68

Guys ive tried all that and still nothing, ive lost my bookmarks as well, instea dof clsoing down my PC this morning i wa sin a rush and just unplugged it could that be the problem?

I've tried system restore twice and nothing, any more suggestions?

Endurance Man

jonny68 wrote:

Guys ive tried all that and still nothing, ive lost my bookmarks as well, instea dof clsoing down my PC this morning i wa sin a rush and just unplugged it could that be the problem?

I've tried system restore twice and nothing, any more suggestions?

Hmm, doubt its a coincidence , was firefox open when you unplugged it?

jonnybadd

It happens sometimes when firefox crashes, and then doesn't load up your userprofile just the default empty profile. Try this;

Close down firefox completely and open your run prompt and type in firefox.exe -ProfileManager

From there you should be able to select your profile and your bookmarks should be in there

jonny68

Endurance Man wrote:

Hmm, doubt its a coincidence , was firefox open when you unplugged it?

No it wasn't i just unplugged it something i rarely do,jaysus this is doing my head in i must have had over 250 bookmarks there ill lose the plot if i cant retrieve them

jonny68

jonnybadd wrote:

It happens sometimes when firefox crashes, and then doesn't load up your userprofile just the default empty profile. Try this;

Close down firefox completely and open your run prompt and type in firefox.exe -ProfileManager

From there you should be able to select your profile and your bookmarks should be in there

Tried that and my home page itself just opens,for fcuks sake ill throw this bleedin PC out the window unless i can sort it, hopefully i can or ill have to get the IT geek in work to help me out.:o

jonny68

I managed to retrieve about 60% of my bookmarks, was up until 2am as well trying to sort it.... ive lost a load of brilliant websites im seriously thinking of jacking in firefox after this, bad and all as IE is but this sh*t never happened to me when i was using IE, ill make sure to back up my favourites now in case this ever happens again, im gutted i must have lost about 70/80 quality websites :mad:

tba

I usually back up my Bookmarks. Its very important data tbh...

ethernet

I'd recommend Google Browser Sync. I've set it to encrypt my data on Google's servers and performance is still more than acceptable. It's really useful when dual booting and keeping the same history, cache and cookies. I used it on a new install of Linux about a month ago. All bookmarks, history, the lot were downloaded.