426081 - lost bookmark folder in outside of personal bookmarks folder

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 404658

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Description

[j h]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b4) Gecko/2008030714 Firefox/3.0b4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b4) Gecko/2008030714 Firefox/3.0b4

I created a bookmarks folder outside of the personal bookmarks folder. It didn't show up on the menu but I could add bookmarks to it and see it in the organize bookmarks window. Upgraded from 3 beta 2 to 3 beta 4 and the folder is gone. If anyone knows how to get it back I'd be really happy. It's my fault for not realizing that firefox betas might screw up something important, but you should warn users to physically back up their bookmarks when they upgrade.

Reproducible: Didn't try

Steps to Reproduce:
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2.
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Comment 1

[j h]

I couldn't find the folder or bookmarks in bookmarkbackups. I thought it was stored in the bookmarks file, but I don't know where the folder was stored. Is there any other file that stores bookmarks? Now that it's lost I obviously don't know for sure if it was in the bookmarks file or not.

Comment 2

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

try looking if you have them in a .json bookmarks backup in your profile folder

this could be dupe of bug 417228

Comment 3

[j h]

(In reply to comment #2)
> try looking if you have them in a .json bookmarks backup in your profile folder
> 
> this could be dupe of bug 417228
> 
I don't see any .json files, but I found them. They are in places.sqlite. I don't have any way to export them to a bookmarks file because firefox 3 beta 4 doesn't show the missing folders, besides displaying the table in sqlite database browser.

I think 3 beta 4 doesn't display bookmark folders that aren't in personal bookmarks. I'm not going to try to find 3 beta 2 to reinstall it and check, but I think they just changed the interface.

I don't know if it was a mistake in beta 2 to let me create a folder outside of the menu, or a mistake in beta 4 not to show all the bookmarks folders. I hope someone can figure out the problem and fix it.

Comment 4

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

Bug 417228 will cause these bookmarks to be backed up and restored.

Bug 404658 will disallow adding bookmarks to the All Bookmarks folder.

For now, you could manually edit the sqlite file to patch those bookmarks back into the standard hierarchy:

Close Firefox, and with a SQLite editor, change the "parent" column of your folder to the id of the bookmarks menu folder, for example.

Comment 5

[j h]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Bug 417228 will cause these bookmarks to be backed up and restored.
> 
> Bug 404658 will disallow adding bookmarks to the All Bookmarks folder.

Thanks. At least I didn't lose anything. I didn't see those bugs but maybe I searched for the wrong keywords.

Comment 6

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Bug 451915 - move Firefox/Places bugs to Firefox/Bookmarks and History. Remove all bugspam from this move by filtering for the string "places-to-b-and-h".

In Thunderbird 3.0b, you do that as follows:
Tools | Message Filters
Make sure the correct account is selected. Click "New"
Conditions: Body   contains   places-to-b-and-h
Change the action to "Delete Message".
Select "Manually Run" from the dropdown at the top.
Click OK.

Select the filter in the list, make sure "Inbox" is selected at the bottom, and click "Run Now". This should delete all the bugspam. You can then delete the filter.

Gerv