271366 - Bookmarks get deleted, default bookmarks not installed and bookmark toolbar will not correctly

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 249150

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Description

[Liam]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

As i've seen in other bug reports, when a computer crashes the bookmarks are
deleted.

But this is not quite the same. After my computer crashed not only was bookmarks
deleted but most functions did not work in firefox. So i uninstalled firefox and
deleted all remaining files.

I than rebooted my PC, went to the firefox website, downloaded firefox and
reinstalled it. Again I rebooted.

But when i opened up Firefox and looked in bookmarks the default bookmarks where
not installed and their was only an empty file titled "Bookmarks Toolbar Folder".

So I thought this had just been excluded from this version of firefox, but the
users in the firefox chatroom said it should have been installed.

Then the second part of my problem was that the bookmark toolbar would not work.
When I right click on it and selecting manage folder, or add bookmark nothing
happens.
If i go up top and go Bookmarks -> manage bookmarks -> add bookmark and drop it
into the file it only sometimes shows up in the bar.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Comment 1

[Sam Katz]

A variety of things can cause this behavior, normally a bad skin or a Macromedia
Flash installation.

What would you rather happen?

What were you doing when Firefox crashed?

What version did you upgrade from? What version did you upgrade to?

Did you use the default skin?

Did you install Flash?

You may find the "Firefox Guide" useful as well as a program called Mozilla
Backup. Between the Guide and the backup software, you can ensure this doesn't
happen again.

(I do not work for Mozilla, and even I will buy the Guide soon.)

--Sam

Comment 2

[Sam Katz]

Norton Goback may also help you. www.goback.com

Comment 3

[Liam]

What would you rather happen?
-That all the functions work

What were you doing when Firefox crashed?
-Playing Battlefield 1942 and checking my email (gmail)

What version did you upgrade from? What version did you upgrade to?
-I have the latest version

Did you use the default skin?
-Yes. I've never tried to change it.

Did you install Flash?
-No. I dont have flash installed and mozilla wont download the plugin for some
reason.

Comment 4

[darkrider198507]

yes evertime any kind of spy gets on firefox all my book marks get deleted

Comment 5

[DT]

I don't know what happened to my bookmarks.  They just disappeared!!!  I had
hundreds categorized!! How do I get them back???  Help!!  Please give simple
directions, as I am not a computer geek, and cannot understand most of the help
given on the Mozilla site.  Thanks!

DT

Comment 6

[shaunwilliams544]

All my Bookmarks have disappeared!!! as well but I can still make new ones Iam
pretty sure it just confined to Mozilla bacause I still have all my BT Yahoo
Bookmarks and when I used System Restore to try and correct the problem it did
not work any Ideas on how to fix this? 

Comment 7

[mw]

(In reply to comment #5)
> I don't know what happened to my bookmarks.  They just disappeared!!!  I had
> hundreds categorized!! How do I get them back???  Help!!  Please give simple
> directions, as I am not a computer geek, and cannot understand most of the help
> given on the Mozilla site.  Thanks!
> 
> DT

Did your computer crash? I had this problem when my computer crashed. I found this solution: search for files named FILE(something).chk. These are the windows files created during or on recovery from crashes, I think. Mine are in a folder called FOUND.000 on the c:\ drive. If you right-click on those files you can open them in Notepad. They look like garbage, but I found one that said <!DOCTYPE NETSCAPE-Bookmark-file-1>
this was my bookmark file! so I copied it to the profiles place for Firefox and renamed the file bookmarks.html and when I next opened firefox all my bookmarks were back again. Of course, before you can rename the file you copy, you have to either delete or rename the existing bookmarks.html file. I renamed it in case the solution didn't work.

I think this would work best if you do it right after the crash because I think the FILE.chk files get overwritten.

Good luck!

Comment 8

[skip]

I just had this happen to me two days ago on my Win XP box. Everything was fine when I shut down the machine. Next morning I turn it on and login, suddenly Firefox has no bookmarks and won't remember window formatting. Every time I restart it the window is tall and thin.

I was running 1.5 beta 2 and have since uninstalled and reinstalled RC1 and the problem persists.

Comment 9

[Babci1]

uh, sorry.  this site is way way way too advanced for me!  I am just trying to locate bookmarks that were deleted when it asked me to create a default profile.  so ****!  this is the 3rd time, 2nd computer

Comment 10

[Patrick Orr]

WTF?  Why aren't you guys working on this?

 Assigned To:   	Nobody's working on this, feel free to take it <[e-mail]>

Why aren't you guys working on this?

All of my bookmarks just got deleted, and now I don't know half of the sites I go to...

All I am asking is for my bookmarks to be restored, that's it.

Comment 11

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

this is a duplicate, there is a backup folder in your profile in 1.5, see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Lost_bookmarks

Comment 12

[bj_lykins53]

(In reply to comment #11)
> this is a duplicate, there is a backup folder in your profile in 1.5, see
> http://kb.mozillazine.org/Lost_bookmarks
> 
I'm having the same problem. My bookmarks keep disappearing!
Tell me what I can do to keep them from going bye-bye again!

Comment 13

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 249150 ***

Comment 14

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

sorry for bugspam, long-overdue mass reassign of ancient QA contact bugs, filter on "beltznerLovesGoats" to get rid of this mass change