306184 - bookmarks permanently deleted if "clear-all" used. -sometimes it happens - sometimes it doesn't

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Description

[Steven Biars]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050716 Firefox/1.0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050716 Firefox/1.0.6

I added many bookmarks to Firefox, used "clear-all" in a random test, rebooted
my computer, and when I returned, my bookmarks were gone. This has happened
several times, but doesnt always happen. I have been able to reproduce this
result on 2 seperate computers, 5 times all together. 3 times on one pc, 2 times
on the other.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. click "tools", then the "privacy" tab, then "clear-all"
2. reboot pc
3. restart firefox

Actual Results:  
I've tried the steps above several times, sometimes my bookmarks are still
there, other times they arent.

Expected Results:  
bookmarks should have remained in-tact

Default configuration used. Microsoft Windows XP Professional w. service pack 2.

Comment 1

[Peter van der Woude [:Peter6]]

I was tempted to dupe this agains Bug 249150, except that clear all doesn't come
into play.
I'm not really sure this should be duped at all.
In FF1.5 your old bookmarks should/will be recovered.

CC->mconnor
any thoughts Mike ?

Comment 2

[Steven Biars]

I've figured out what happened here, atleast, in theory. I think it was a bad
patch from Microsoft because I rebooted after a patch. The I've subsequently
re-patched with the latest internet security patches.

The problem occured with the previous patch set, which I had forgotten to
consider. After trying to yield the same results again, I did a roll back of
exactly one month and attempted to achieve the bookmark error by re-installing
patches one at a time between tests.

The results lead me to believe one of my patches may have became corrupted and
caused the error. Im still unsure why this happened, but its the best theory I
currently have.

Comment 3

[Steven L.]

Actually, I'm on a Mac running OS X, and this just happened to me.  It would seem it's something in Firefox, not the OS.  When I started the app this time, it asked if I'd like to import bookmarks.  Not knowing why it came up, I said no... and it gave me a first-run startup.

In my profiles folder, I have two folders now (though only one profile appears in the profile manager).  One is 4gj45yv6.default, and it appears to be the new one (it's complete, but everything is set to defaults).  The other is 6t3h33kd.default, and it has my older (correct) versions of these files:
bookmarks.html, formhistory.dat, localstore.rdf, and prefs.js.

I'm going to make a backup of this folder, but will it work to just copy these four files back to the new folder?  And/or should I submit a new bug?

Comment 4

[Steve England [:stevee]]

Reporter, do you still see this problem with the latest Firefox 2? If not, can you please close this bug as WORKSFORME. Thanks!

Comment 5

[Samuel Sidler (old account; do not CC)]

Steven, it sounds like you're running on a second profile somehow. I'd recommend moving aside your ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox folder and starting from scratch, importing the things you want from your old profile (bookmarks, history, whatever else).

I'm not sure how you got in this state, but if you can reproduce using Firefox 2.0.0.6 or later, please comment in this bug. In the mean time, I'm going to close it as WORKSFORME since it works for me.