Closed Bug 260553 Opened 20 years ago Closed 15 years ago

Bookmarks disappear after power outage and/or crashes

Categories

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
Bookmarks & History
Platform:
x86
Windows XP
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
major

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED WONTFIX

People

(Reporter: gallis, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Keywords: crash, dataloss, helpwanted) 

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10

The bookmarks disappear regularly from both the bookmarks folders and from the
toolbar.  It doesn't appear to be linked to any particular action.  They are
just there one time and the next time I use the Firefox browser they are gone. 
I can't reproduce the problem by doing anything.  It doesn't happen while I am
using the browser.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.
Same thing happened to me first time today. I'm using:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10

Was browsing the web, and next I notice my "Bookmarks Toolbar" is empty. Sure
enough, all my bookmarks are gone. Both Bookmarks.html and Bookmarks.bak are
void of even the default bookmarks.

Only thing I recall doing is clicking a link (from an outlook email message) to
an eVite.com, and typing in "google x y x" and "translate" into the address bar.
I can confirm this too.  My wife's laptop has a problem where it "shorts out"
and loses power periodically.  On several occasions her bookmarks were gone
after restarting.  The bookmarks file should only be read except when actively
being updated, so I don't understand why that should even be possible.

I would recommend that the bookarks file be copied to a backup copy before
writing the new file to help guard against total loss.  The user could then
restore that automatic backup file if something were to happen.
My carefully tabulated and very useful bokkmark disappeared for the third time.
I cannot say what action caused the problem. Maybe a crash. My PC spontaneously
reset while browsing two days ago, but I have not used the bookmarks until this
AM.  Arg.
My carefully tabulated and very useful bokkmark disappeared for the third time.
I cannot say what action caused the problem. Maybe a crash. My PC spontaneously
reset while browsing two days ago, but I have not used the bookmarks until this
AM.  Arg.
Bookmarks disappear on Linux too, using FF 1.0PR. The file "bookmarks.html" is
not created at all (this file does not exist!). If I add links to my Personal
Toolbar Folder, they are available for the current session only but are not
saved on shutdown. When I restart FF, they are gone as well as bookmarks.html!
It is a severe data loss!
Flags: blocking-aviary1.0?
*** Bug 260163 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Can anyone provide reproducable steps that cause the loss of the bookmarks.html
file (without manually deleteing it?  Crash and power loss were two suggested
causes here.  Both cases work for me. 

Bug 260591 is on not being able to save bookmarks because of a missing bookmarks
file.
I can confirm this on FF 1.0PR and Mozilla 1.7.2.  In my case, if a changes is
made to the bookmarks it is saved in a file called bookmarks-1.html.  The next
change to the bookmarks is saved in bookmarks-2.html, etc.  Once FF or Mozilla
is closed and re-launched, it appears to read the bookmarks from bookmarks.html
(which was never updated).  In about:config, I have changed
'browser.bookmarks.file' to 'G:\bookmarks.html'.  All backup bookmark files
(bookmarks-1.html, bookmarks-2.html, etc) are saved in G:\.  G: is a FAT32
partition which is shared between OSs (Windows XP and Linux) on a dual boot
machine.  This same bookmarks file is used by Windows FF 1.0PR, Windows Mozilla
1.7.2 and Linux FF 1.0PR (by setting browser.bookmarks.file in each application).
Update to comment #8:

The bookmarks-[#].html files are being created even when no changes are being
made to the bookmarks.  2 new files appear every minute (currently at
bookmarks-160.html).  Also the file G:\bookmarks.html is NOT marked 'read-only'
in the Windows properties dialog.  I am also able to manually edit the
bookmarks.html file and any changes I make are propogated to the browser
application once it is restarted.
(In reply to comment #7)
> Can anyone provide reproducable steps that cause the loss of the bookmarks.html
> file (without manually deleteing it?  Crash and power loss were two suggested
> causes here.  Both cases work for me. 

Alas, no.  I run FF on both Mac OS X and my PC at work and have never
experienced this problem, but my wife, on the other hand has had it happen
fairly frequently.  Not sure what else to tell you...
Followup to comment 8 and comment 9:

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

The bookmarks-#.html files continued to be created until the drive ran out of
disk space.  I was able to resolve my problem by doing the following:
  1) close FF
  2) backup the bookmarks.html file to another location
  3) delete all bookmarks-#.html, bookmarks.html, boomarks.bak and
bookmarks.moztmp files (NOTE: bookmarks.moztmp was read-only)
  4) start FF (all bookmarks should be empty)
  5) import bookmarks from file backed up in step 2

I am now able to create, delete and move bookmarks and all changes are written
to bookmarks.html and they are there when the application is re-launched.  I am
also able to access (and update) the same bookmarks.html file from both Mozilla
and FF.  Deleting only some of the files in step 3 didn't work, I had to delete
them all.
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Flags: blocking-aviary1.0? → blocking-aviary1.0+
The patch for 260591 might fix some of these cases; if the bookmarks location
was changed to a place where there was no bookmarks.html file, none would have
been created due to that bug.  It should be in tomorrow's nightly.

I'm going to minus this for 1.0 because of the lack of a reproducible test case
-- things like bookmarks.moztmp being read-only are troubling, but I can't
figure out how we got into such a state to begin with.
Flags: blocking-aviary1.0+ → blocking-aviary1.0-
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041014 Firefox/0.10.1

When upgrading from FF 0.9.3 to 0.10, bookmarks began not being updated on disk
(the mtime of bookmarks.html stayed at Sept 16th), so new bookmarks were lost at
each "reboot" of FireFox.
So I tried the "import" trick I just read here:
- bookmarks.html moved to a different name, restart, import bookmarks, quit ->
no bookmark.html
- "touch bookmarks.html", start FF, import, quit -> zero length bookmarks.html
- copy stock bookmarks from /usr/lib/MozillaFirefox/..., start FF, import, quit,
now everything seems OK

Aha, let's see if this old bookmarks.html is buggy: remove new file, put back
the old one, start FF -> bookmarks do get updated on disk !!?!!

Sorry, I don't have any more a buggy Firefox to help finding the cause. If
someone else wants to help, perhaps the whole .mozilla/firefox/ dir shoud be
backuped before "curing" FF, then try some "diff"... 

BTW the favicons in the bookmarks would not show anymore, now they do again.

On Thursday 10/14 I updated to 1.0 Preview release of Mozilla Fire Fox. My OS is
Windows XP Professional. I imported my book marks from IE and added a few more.
I am a librarian and I have built an extensive library of links to support the
students and staff of my high school. When I shut down my machine for the night,
I fully expected to come back in the morning, launch the browser and get ready
to work. All of the bookmarks had disappear. I reloaded. I shut down to see what
would happen. All bookmarks gone. This is not good. I don't have time to reload
after each shut down. I guess its back to IE for me until this is fixed.


I closed down last night, nothing different; When I booted up and logged on this
morning, all my bookmarks had disappeared.  Any idea on how to get them back?
This happened to me to today.

I am using Windows 2000 Pro.  I have Firefox 1.0 (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U;
Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0).

I booted my pc, when I ran FireFox all my bookmarks were gone.  There were there
when I shut down.  I checked all instances of bookmarks.html that I could find.
 The files where missing all my bookmarks.  The only remaining bookmarks were
ones that I had imported from MSIE and the default ones.

I see from the commentst this happens to quite a few others.  Is anyone close to
determining a cause for this?
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

Closed Firefox in the morning, re-opened it in the afternoon and I have no
bookmarks, no extensions and no themes. I do have apparently have cookies as I
went to reset my homepage to my.yahoo.com and it still remembered my username.
Also have some FF profile folders and files with two week old date stamps.
Searched my entire harddrive for 'bookmark' and found only a brand new FF base
set. I have one Mozilla profile and it contains a Profiles file with a date
stamp of around the time I last closed. Here's the contents of that file:
[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1
[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=Profiles/1nodx2ys.default

Windows XP Pro SP2, McAfee 8i with Access protection and unwanted program
protection enabled. Fresh FF 1.0 install with no prior installs on a two week
old machine with my User Profile restored from an XP profile backup (contained
my first fresh FF 1.0 release profile).

(In reply to comment #7)
> Can anyone provide reproducable steps that cause the loss of the bookmarks.html
> file (without manually deleteing it?  Crash and power loss were two suggested
> causes here.  Both cases work for me. 

I can reproduce this on Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5)
Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0.  

Steps to reproduce:
1.  As non-root user launch FF as /usr/lib/firefox-1.0/firefox (your path may vary)
2.  Non-root user creates bookmark(s)
3.  Close all instances of Firefox
4.  Same non-root user does 'sudo /usr/lib/firefox-1.0/firefox' to start Firefox
as root
5.  Close all instances of Firefox
6.  Again as the non-root user, launch FF as /usr/lib/firefox-1.0/firefox

Bookmarks.html is overwritten with a new file (with no bookmarks) owned by root.  

Wish I'd made a backup...
I'm having a similar issue. I reinstalled FF fresh, and still the issue arises.
I import my bookmarks from Netscape7.0, they show up on FF, yet as soon as I
close/reopen the browser, they dissapear. Although the mousegestures and theme
have stayed.

This is similar to Bug260928
I confirm this bug too. Every time I tried to upgrade mozilla or firefox
(Linux/FreeBSD) my bookmarks disappeared. Thery annoying thing.


I confirm this bug too. Every time I tried to upgrade mozilla or firefox
(Linux/FreeBSD) my bookmarks disappeared. Very annoying thing.
Keywords: dataloss
I don't know when a bug is critical to the Firefox-team, but this one sure is
for me. My Windows XP crashed 'hard' (sound, mousemovement, everything, ceased
to work), and when I started Firefox again, all bookmarks were gone and I can't
find a trace of them anywhere on my harddrive. Annoying.

Also, standard theme was chosen when I restarted.
Please install Firefox with Talkback enabled (Custom Install->Quality Feedback
Agent)...and submit your crash reports.  If we can get incidents from you on
these crashes, we can get a better understanding of what is happening.
Keywords: crash, helpwanted
Summary: Bookmarks disappear → Bookmarks disappear after power outage and/or crashes
could this be related / similar to bug 193749?
*** Bug 282517 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 287417 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I've lost my toolbar and all bookmarks. I was dialling up when Mozilla froze and
I was forced to restart my PC. Upon restart - everything was gone and my
home-page was reset with standard theme choosen. Rather annoying. The only
explanation is that I did install a few software apps last night - one of which
'GetRight' (download manager) plugs into my web-browser and it might not be
Firefox compatible.

MS Win XP SP2. MS AntiSpyware Beta 1. Norton Antivirus Corp Edition.
Any chance of someone seeing about a bandaid or fix before 1.1? The support
forum is getting several reports of bookmark loss per day, and really "you could
have backed your bookmarks up" isn't something we should be telling people.

I can't think of anything I'd rather not lose from my profile than my bookmarks,
and I'm sure most people are the same.
Flags: blocking-aviary1.1?
Trying to + the nomination, this is a bug we cannot keep around any longer.  We
have been seeing a lot of email and even getting phone calls from users that are
losing all of their bookmarks.
Flags: blocking-aviary1.1? → blocking-aviary1.1+
I know this it's too later for 1.0.3, but nominating for 1.0.4 in case we get a
fix before that potential release.
Flags: blocking-aviary1.0.4?
Nominating for 1.1
Flags: blocking-aviary1.1+ → blocking-aviary1.1?
Depends on: 289615
Jay, we're going to try to get what of this we can wiht the fix for bug 289615,
hopefully. I don't know what else beyond 289615 we have to go on here.
Is this really profile corrupt, or are we seeing people get stuck in a new profile?

Those who are reporting this issue, if you change your Firefox shortcut to
firefox.exe -P, do you see one or two profiles?
*** Bug 291823 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I can confirm this. I was reading my e-mail, brought up Firefox to check
something out (used the regular shortcut, didn't invoke it from Thunderbird) and
noticed the Bookmarks toolbar was completely blank. Also typing "google x" no
longer did anything special, so even the default bookmarks were gone.
Bookmarks.html and Bookmarks.bak in my profile directory had both been replaced
with files containing no bookmarks.

I wasn't doing anything unusual before this occurred. This has never happened to
me before. To answer Mike's question, I can confirm that there is no second
profile on my machine -- my named profile is being corrupted. Also, this was not
preceded by a crash for me. The last time I had used Firefox it had shut down
cleanly. I have Talkbalk installed and it was not invoked.

There have been no recent crashes on my machine, and Windows has shut down
normally the last several times, so I don't think what I experienced is related
to bug 289615.
Addendum to my last post: I also noticed that my history disappeared at the same
time, my start page was reset to the default, and all my extensions are gone. So
it looks like my entire profile was just wiped clean. Looks like this is similar
to what Graham described; he didn't mention a crash either.
Mike, Asa et al, I've just posted a thread in MozillaZine to try and collect
info for use in these bugs:

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=258366

Although I've linked to the related bugs, I'm hoping that explicitly saying
"don't comment in Bugzilla" twice should be sufficient. If it's not, then I
apologise and will remove the links at your request if you PM me.
Flags: blocking-aviary1.0.5? → blocking-aviary1.0.5-
*** Bug 299125 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I think we've got two of these on the b4 list now, we need to dupe one.
Flags: blocking-aviary1.1? → blocking1.8b4?
Flags: blocking1.8b4? → blocking1.8b4-
(In reply to comment #18)
> I can reproduce this on Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5)
> Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0.  
> 
> Steps to reproduce:
> 1.  As non-root user launch FF as /usr/lib/firefox-1.0/firefox (your path may vary)
> 2.  Non-root user creates bookmark(s)
> 3.  Close all instances of Firefox
> 4.  Same non-root user does 'sudo /usr/lib/firefox-1.0/firefox' to start Firefox
> as root
> 5.  Close all instances of Firefox
> 6.  Again as the non-root user, launch FF as /usr/lib/firefox-1.0/firefox
> 
> Bookmarks.html is overwritten with a new file (with no bookmarks) owned by root.


This should be reported as a separate bug, since it's apparently reproducible and Linux-specific.
sorry for bugspam, long-overdue mass reassign of ancient QA contact bugs, filter on "beltznerLovesGoats" to get rid of this mass change
QA Contact: mconnor → bookmarks
Assignee: vladimir → nobody
Status: ASSIGNED → NEW
After an unplanned restart my Firefox no longer had my bookmarks, and I understand this is a known issue.  However, it won't let me add new bookmarks.  I try to add a bookmark, click "OK," but nothing happens.  The dialog box doesn't even go away.  I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling from scratch, but the problem persists.  Any ideas?
I also am with the same problem that its, when I make one downgrade for the 1.0.5.12 version functions ok, but in the 2.0.0.6 version nothing.
Another problem is with the menu View/Toolbars/Customize
Open/Done and menu no functions more.
excuse my english.


(In reply to comment #17)
> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107
> Firefox/1.0
> 
> Closed Firefox in the morning, re-opened it in the afternoon and I have no
> bookmarks, no extensions and no themes. I do have apparently have cookies as I
> went to reset my homepage to my.yahoo.com and it still remembered my username.
> Also have some FF profile folders and files with two week old date stamps.
> Searched my entire harddrive for 'bookmark' and found only a brand new FF base
> set. I have one Mozilla profile and it contains a Profiles file with a date
> stamp of around the time I last closed. Here's the contents of that file:
> [General]
> StartWithLastProfile=1
> [Profile0]
> Name=default
> IsRelative=1
> Path=Profiles/1nodx2ys.default
> 
> Windows XP Pro SP2, McAfee 8i with Access protection and unwanted program
> protection enabled. Fresh FF 1.0 install with no prior installs on a two week
> old machine with my User Profile restored from an XP profile backup (contained
> my first fresh FF 1.0 release profile).
> 


As you know the Mozilla firefox 2.x contain also the backup of some previous bookmarks - the histrory, so you can easyly retry your lost bookmarks. 

The path that mozilla stores this bookmarks is something like this (for my profile example).... you have to check under tools - folder options - view - show hidden files and folders... to acces the location oid your disk.

here it is: 

C:\Documents and Settings\USERPROFILE NAME\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\vyxtl9yu.default\bookmarkbackups

HERE THE  MOZZILA SOTORES A BACKUP COPY OF YOUR BOOKMARKS.
I was unable to reproduce the bug.  I tried a few different things.  First, I had 
Firefox running on a computer, and also ran a bunch of other appliances on the same outlet, forcing a power outage.  After rebooting, the bookmarks were still there.  Then I tried without Firefox running, and still, the bookmarks hadn't disappeared.  Then I tried both ways again just after adding new bookmarks to check if new bookmarks would disappear, but they didn't.
Opened firefox using a link in Outlook Express and it opened with a blank page instead of the page linked to. Closed firefox. Reopened firefox.
Address bar is empty regardless of what page is displayed.
Favourites folder is empty
Any profile changes I make disappear if Firefox is restarted.
Fixed by ending a stray firefox process (no firefox windows open).
No crashes prior to this, Firefox closed cleanly.
No computer crash
XP SP3
NTFS
Norton360 (Norton toolbar)
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070208 Firefox/3.0.1
For all upgrades the profile has been upgraded.
Firefox has been upgraded as and when upgrades became available since original install with version 1.5
No losses in other programmes
Addons:
Adblock Plus
AutoFormer (disabled)
Copy Plain Text
DOM Inspector
DownloadHelper
DownThem All!
Firefox Showcase (disabled)
Flagfox
IE Tab
NoScript (disabled)
StumbleUpon
this bug is about bookmark lost on 2.x or previous, since everything has changed with Places, a new bug should be filed on that if it is still reproduceable. Sqlite by itself should be more tolerant to this kind of failures.
Marking as wontfix due to end of firefox 2.x support.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 15 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
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