276354 - Firefox crash lost all my bookmarks

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 193749

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Description

[Kevin Riley]

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

After a crash of Firefox I lost all my bookmarks, 275k worth. I had backed them
up a few months ago so I only lost a few forever.
I switched to Firefox from Netscape for this very problem. Every 6 months or so
NS would do the same thing. Now I find out Firefox does it as well.
You REALLY need to fix this bug and be very public about the fix.
I really hate to go to IE but I don’t see an alterative if this persists.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.It happens randomly
2.
3.



Expected Results:  
Not lost the bookmoarks

Comment 1

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

Are you sure that you didn't just create a new profile? Try searching your hard
drive for files named bookmarks.html, as that is where the bookmarks are stored.

The reason that this bug is hard to fix is that it is difficult to reproduce and
only happens in rare cases.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 193749 ***

Comment 2

[Kevin Riley]

No I didn't create a new profile. Firefox crashed...bookmarks
gone...bookmark.htm empty. Zero, Zip, Nadda!!!
Since the Netscape days I've backed them up once a week but this is ridiculous
if it’s still happening and you can’t fix it.

Comment 3

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

I'm very sorry that you lost your bookmarks.

In all likelyhood, this is a problem that is very specific to your
configuration. You may feel angry and blame Firefox, as I'm sure it can be very
frustrating to lose your bookmarks. And that is understandable. You may also
feel like coming to Bugzilla and enouraging people to "fix your bug". There are
several problems with that approach.

First and foremost, your bug is not easily reproducible. This does not happen
for the vast majority of users. If there was an obvious bug in the bookmarks
code, you can be sure that it would be fixed immediately. If there is a certain
specific situation with your computer that causes the bug, then it is almost
impossible to "fix" the bug without getting some very specific information. See
http://www.mozilla.org/quality/bug-writing-guidelines.html for details on
exactly what information is needed for a successful bug report.

Secondly, Bugzilla is not a user support forum. There are lots of people on the
Mozillazine forums and on IRC that are willing to help you recover your
bookmarks or find the cause of the problem. Please be respectful of developers'
time by using the resources that are at your disposal before filing bugs.

Third, this bug is either a duplicate of bug 170449 or bug 193749. You'll notice
by reading the comments in those bugs that there are others in the same
situation as you are. You must realize however that each and everyone of those
cases could be different. They are not all caused by one super-bug that can be
easily fixed. In many cases the blame lies with another program, or a faulty
hard drive, or any number of other possible issues. Please mark this bug as a
duplicate of one of those, whichever you feel is most appropriate.

To help resolve your issue, try making a post on the forums or visit the
#mozillazine channel on irc.mozilla.org. Some questions that would be good to
answer are: Does it happen at a specific time every week? Does it happen
regularly? Do you use an antivirus program? You may also want to search your
hard drive for a file named "bookmarks.bak", as a backup file of the bookmarks
is normally created.

Provide as many details as you can, respond to questions, be patient, and be
respectful of other's time. Virtually everyone involved in bug QA and user
support is a volunteer giving their own time to help out.

Comment 4

[Abhishek Khurana]

Same thing happened to me... installed the driver for a new USB modem. Windows
XP gave me a BSOD. When I rebooted, my whole profile was gone (my preferences,
my bookmarks etc.). Bad thing is that one doesn't mind losing profile and
settings as they are recoverable but losing bookmarks is definitely a royal
pain. Whats worse is that firefox rewrote both bookmarks.html and bookmarks.bak.
I mean whats the point in having a backup file anyway if both are being written
at the same time? I know I should have backed them up and all but I also think
form the end user's point of view, this is bad design. I have also seen similar
problem reported all over the web. Guess its not too hard to fix.

Comment 5

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

dupe of bug 193749

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 193749 ***

Comment 6

[Kevin Riley]

I seriously doubt this is a problem specific to my configuration when there are
literally hundreds of users that have posted on your site that the same thing
has happened to them. 
This has been an on going problem in Netscape and now Mozzila.
I’ve done a little research and found 1000s of users were this has happened. 


(In reply to comment #3)
> I'm very sorry that you lost your bookmarks.
> 
> In all likelyhood, this is a problem that is very specific to your
> configuration. You may feel angry and blame Firefox, as I'm sure it can be very
> frustrating to lose your bookmarks. And that is understandable. 

Comment 7

[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