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Help Please With Mozilla Firefox

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Grainger49

Grainger49

Old Fart
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I have been using Firefox for several years now. Every so often I open it up and it has forgotten everything. It doesn't have any bookmarks, no passwords and no homepage. Well not my homepage.

It has happened again and I started with the pull down menus. File/Import and it only looks at Internet Explorer. Even so, it didn't import anything.

IIRC, Firefox is supposed to store backups periodically. But I don't know where nor what file I am looking for.

Please help and please do not send me to Mozilla's site. It has never been any help in the past.

Thanks in advance,
 
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Go to preferences and check the privacy settings. Sounds like you have them set to clear periodically. I use FF on Mac, Windows XP, Vista and Linux (Ubunto and OpenSuse) and not experienced it but I do not have the caches scheduled to empty.
 
If you are using Windows XP, check this directory:

C:\Documents and Settings\Your Name\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xybdej7b.default

(The xybde... is probably different for your installation).

There should be a sub-directory called bookmarkbackups. In this directory, I found some files with the .json extension. They are text files, with all the bookmark information on a single line. I do not know how to use that file to re-create the bookmarks. But this is with Firefox 3.

In Firefox 2, it might be that these are .html files, instead of the .json that I am seeing with Firefox 3.0.

Copying the most recent backup html file to the main directory (Firefox not running), and then restarting firefox should get it back.
 
Brian said:
Go to preferences and check the privacy settings. Sounds like you have them set to clear periodically. I use FF on Mac, Windows XP, Vista and Linux (Ubunto and OpenSuse) and not experienced it but I do not have the caches scheduled to empty.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I'm a computer cripple. I have to be lead to much. I couldn't find a Preferences. Would I find this setting under "Tools/Options"?

Thanks.
 
ashok said:
If you are using Windows XP, check this directory:

C:\Documents and Settings\Your Name\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xybdej7b.default

(The xybde... is probably different for your installation).

There should be a sub-directory called bookmarkbackups. In this directory, I found some files with the .json extension. They are text files, with all the bookmark information on a single line. I do not know how to use that file to re-create the bookmarks. But this is with Firefox 3.

In Firefox 2, it might be that these are .html files, instead of the .json that I am seeing with Firefox 3.0.

Copying the most recent backup html file to the main directory (Firefox not running), and then restarting firefox should get it back.
Click to expand...

Yes! I found a file with bookmark backups (and yup, mine was labeled "ykmelngc.default"). But Holey Crap ! ! ! it is from 2006, isn't Thunderbird supposed to backup twice a year, once a month or something more often than every 2.5 years???? (Not poking at you, I'm bemoaning Thunderbird!).

My Firefox is 2.0.0.16.
 
Grainger49 said:
Yes! I found a file with bookmark backups (and yup, mine was labeled "ykmelngc.default"). But Holey Crap ! ! ! it is from 2006, isn't Thunderbird supposed to backup twice a year, once a month or something more often than every 2.5 years???? (Not poking at you, I'm bemoaning Thunderbird!).

My Firefox is 2.0.0.16.
Click to expand...

The directory bookmarkbackups should have 5 or 6 backup bookmark files. There should be a date code like so: bookmarks-2008-08-12.html etc.

If you are seeing files from 2006, something squirrelly is going on, someone more computer savvy might have a better idea.

Also, I checked the Mozilla knowledge base and one of the things they suggested was deleting the localstore.rdf file in your ykmen...default directory, and restarting firefox.
 
ashok said:
The directory bookmarkbackups should have 5 or 6 backup bookmark files. There should be a date code like so: bookmarks-2008-08-12.html etc.

If you are seeing files from 2006, something squirrelly is going on, someone more computer savvy might have a better idea.

Also, I checked the Mozilla knowledge base and one of the things they suggested was deleting the localstore.rdf file in your ykmen...default directory, and restarting firefox.
Click to expand...

I admit, I find all this bewildering.

But I will try the last thing this morning.

Thanks for the help!

And, Brian, I don't have 3.0.
 
Ashok,

I deleted the localstore file and restarted, no change. I have even restored from a date that I know had the bookmarks.

Does anyone know how to make Firefox backup?
 
Grainger,

Also use the Windows Search utility to search for the bookmarks file. Use bookmarks* as the file name to search for (the * is a wildcard). Hopefully you will find another bookmarks.html on your machine that is a lot more recent than 2006.

The bookmarks file that you restored - you can open it up in a text editor like notepad and see what it contains. If the file contains all your bookmarks, then you have not lost them. Just need to figure out how to get Firefox to recognize the file.

Here are some more suggestions:
  • Shutdown firefox.
  • Press Ctrl-Alt-Del, to bring up the windows task manager.
  • Click the Processes tab. Organize the list in alphabetical order by clicking on Image Name
  • See if there is another running process(es) with the name firefox.exe. If there is, select it, and click End Process at the bottom of the window.
  • You will get a warning message, OK it.
  • After all firefox.exe processes are killed, close the windows task manager.
  • Restore the bookmarks file as before
  • Delete localstore.rdf
  • Restart Firefox

If it still does not work, I am afraid I am out of ideas now.
 
Ashok,

Please bear with me here I'm not sure of what I am doing till I do it. Then I gain more confidence than I should. I am looking at explorer and I see several bookmark files.

Under my weird user name I have both a bookmarks.html (135KB) and a bookmarks.bak (also 135KB). The folder "Bookmarks Backup" has a file from 2/2006 of 16KB. Under the default user, not me, there is a bak that is 135KB and HTML that is 1KB. And the default user has several bookmark backups that are 1,239KB. But at this juncture I don't know how to "restore backups."

I'm thinking that since I didn't know how to do this I have lost my old bookmarks completely by having the program over write them in the last few days. Mozilla's site where you guided me to says that. But... I have an old backup that I stashed a year ago in another file folder. But how do I make the BAK the new bookmarks? Do I just rename it ".HTML" and copy it in? See, I'm just not there.

Thanks,
 
WOO ! ! ! HOO ! ! ! !

I figured it out. In the "Organize Bookmarks" window you can import from a file. The main window File/Import only imports from another browser program.

The default user backups were mine.

Now I know, and will really try to remember, how to restore.

Thanks to everyone who has posted.

Now I can upgrade to 3.0 and I hope this never happens again.
 
Grainger49 said:
But... I have an old backup that I stashed a year ago in another file folder. But how do I make the BAK the new bookmarks? Do I just rename it ".HTML" and copy it in?
Click to expand...

That is exactly what I would have done. But you already figured out that you can import a file in the "Organize Bookmarks" window. That is great!!:thmbsp: I will keep that trick in mind.
 
A suggestion - start an account on Foxmarks (www.foxmarks.com) and install it as a FF add-on. For me, it gives me a way to access all my bookmarks even when I'm at someone else's computer, as well as keeps all my various copies of FF in sync WRT bookmarks. Not to mention that it serves as an off-site backup should something bad happen to my copy of FF...
 
CUlater, Thanks, I did just that.

Sounds safe and you don't have to remember to back up.

Both computers are working and it is no real trouble.

Thanks ! ! !
 
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