259629 - New Profiles Created in Already-Existing Folders Are Missing Bookmark Files (bookmarks.bak and bookmarks.html)

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Toolkit :: Startup and Profile System, defect)

Description

[Timothy P. Wolfe]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10

When using the .zip build of Firefox 0.10/1.0 PR and creating a profile using
Firefox's Profile Manager (or by creating a shortcut with the "-ProfileManager"
line to a specific folder), if the user puts their profile in a custom location,
the files "bookmarks.html" and "bookmarks.bak" are not created - The Bookmarks
Toolbar Folder will be blank in this case.

(On a related note, for *any* profile, already-existing or new: I have noticed
that, if only *one* of these two files is deleted, it will be recreated the next
time Firefox is opened.  However, if *both* of these files are deleted before
opening Firefox, *neither* is recreated the next time Firefox is opened.)

If the user adds any bookmarks to Firefox, they will be lost when Firefox is
closed - The next time it's opened, all bookmarks are gone again.  Importing
bookmarks into this profile (from a previously-saved bookmarks.html file) has
also, on rare occasions, crashed Firefox.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open the Profile Manager.
2. Create a new profile.  Change the location of the profile folder.
3. When Firefox is opened with this profile, notice that there is no
"bookmarks.html" file in the profile folder, the "Bookmarks" Menu only has one
item (the folder for "Bookmarks Toolbar Folder"), and the Bookmarks Toolbar
Folder itself is blank.
4. Modify the list of bookmarks (by adding, deleting, or importing them).
5. Close and reopen Firefox with this profile.
Actual Results:  
The next time Firefox is opened with that profile, all previously-saved
bookmarks are lost.  No new bookmark files (.bak or .html) are created, so any
future changes to the list of bookmarks will be lost when Firefox is closed and
reopened.

Expected Results:  
The next time Firefox is opened with that profile, if both "bookmarks.bak" and
"bookmarks.html" are missing, create both files (using the default list of
bookmarks) and place them in the profile folder.

Comment 1

[Richard Aspden]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10

Confirming this bug, again on XP and 1.0PR, after creating a network-based
profile (although it did the same locally too). Attempting to click OK on adding
a bookmark makes it appear in the bookmark list, but the dialog doesn't clear.
Clicking again as if it hasn't reponded adds it multiple times. Of course, as
above, these are lost on exit.

Comment 2

[Morten Bojsen-Hansen]

Confirming this on Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; rv:1.7.3)
Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10.1. I store my profiles on my second partition (D:),
so that when I restore the image I keep of my first partition (C:), I don't lose
my Firefox configuration. :)

Comment 3

[Morten Bojsen-Hansen]

Attachment: Screenshot of non-working bookmarks

Comment 4

[Olaf]

same here: decided to get rid of slow, buggy Mozilla and tried Firefox today.

After I found the (undocumented, according to just pressing F1) switch -P, I
created my brand new d:\olaf\firefox profile, very similar to Mozilla's. No, I
did not import anything because as I tried FF did put everything into
"C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\Olaf\..." unfortunately, so I had to delete
that. C: is for binaries only, not for data. This "first time wizard" should ask
where to put the profile like Mozilla's does.

BTW, I am really missing that "profile manager" in the start menu.

Anyway: whenever I add a bookmark with drag-'n-drop, everything is fine. Until I
close firefox, then all added bookmarks are gone. (1.0PR / Win32)

Comment 5

[Olaf]

yup, it worked. I just copied Mozilla's bookmarks.html to FF's profile
directory. All my old bookmarks are here.

Comment 6

[Vladimir Vukicevic [:vlad] [:vladv] (needinfo me, slow to respond)]

This isn't bookmarks related -- the bookmarks system isn't involved in the
installation of the initial bookmarks.html file, as far as I'm aware.  However,
I can confirm that it does not work.  If I'm wrong, and bookmarks is supposed to
do something here, I'd appreciate a pointer to the relevant code. :)

Comment 7

[Olaf]

just one addition: all bookmarks were there, but *not* the Mozilla folder named
"Bookmarks" itself. Only the folders I had added to the "personal toolbar" are
there.

Comment 8

[Benjamin Smedberg]

vlad: if the "new profile" function doesn't copy bookmarks.html correctly, that
is a bug (part 1). But the bookmarks service is supposed to handle this
situation gracefully, and create a new (empty) bookmarks file at shutdown (part
2). Both issues are regressions, the second one is perhaps related to the
safe-save-stream.

Comment 9

[Vladimir Vukicevic [:vlad] [:vladv] (needinfo me, slow to respond)]

(In reply to comment #8)
> vlad: if the "new profile" function doesn't copy bookmarks.html correctly, that
> is a bug (part 1). But the bookmarks service is supposed to handle this
> situation gracefully, and create a new (empty) bookmarks file at shutdown (part
> 2). Both issues are regressions, the second one is perhaps related to the
> safe-save-stream.

Yep; #2 is bug 260591, I've got a patch for that one there (we weren't passing
CREATEFILE to the stream creation.. I guess we just never ran into the case
where there was no bookmarks.html before :).  It's #1 that I'm not sure of
what's going on.

Comment 10

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

plus if you get a small patch in the next 24 hrs. 

Comment 11

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

*** Bug 261552 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 12

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

*** Bug 261990 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 13

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

*** Bug 262965 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 14

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

*** Bug 259960 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 15

[Darin Grimm]

Nominating this for blocking 1.1 -- there are too many "lost bookmark" issues in
the support forums...

Comment 16

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

This isn't the lost existing bookmarks bug, this is "creating a profile into an
existing path means bookmarks won't work.

Easy workaround is to let profile manager create the folder instead.  Since
we're not really supporting Profile Manager (hidden by default, not documented)
at this time, this shouldn't qualify as a blocker.

Comment 17

[Darin Fisher]

An easy way to demonstrate this bug is by doing the following:

$ mkdir test
$ firefox -profile test

Comment 18

[henri]

I had a probleme with firefox: I couldn't start it without a new profiles. I
create a new one and now i have lost all my bookmarks and evrything. And I can
not find my old profile.

P.S. I speak french but understand english...

[e-mail]

Comment 19

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

This works for me in DPA2, I think bsmedberg's relatively recent changes have
fixed this now, since we always copy over bookmarks.html if its missing.