430359 - Bookmarks missing everytime I start Firefox

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 462366

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Description

[Bharat Reddy]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-GB; rv:1.9b5) Gecko/2008041514 Firefox/3.0b5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-GB; rv:1.9b5) Gecko/2008041514 Firefox/3.0b5

I've had a look at all the other bugs to do with bookmarks and none of them is quite like this one. I only have about twelve bookmarks or so. The problem is that every time I close Firefox and reopen it, my bookmarks vanish, and the bookmarks toolbar displays just the "Smart bookmarks" and "Latest Headlines" feed buttons. I do have a backup copy of my bookmarks, and I use this copy to retrieve my bookmarks when I start Firefox again, but if I close Firefox, and reopen it (in the same session), my bookmarks vanish again.

I did try to set my Bookmarks.html file to "Read and Write" for everybody, but that hasn't worked either.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Have Bookmarks
2.Close Firefox Completely
3.Reopen Firefox
Actual Results:  
Bookmarks disappeared.

Expected Results:  
Bookmarks should have persisted.

I also notice that Firefox isn't "resetting" my bookmarks per se, because the first thing I did when I installed Ubuntu (Hardy) was to delete the "Getting Started" bookmark button on the bookmarks toolbar, and that hasn't shown up again.

Comment 1

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Lost_bookmarks
I don't know if there is something on this page that you didn't try.

Comment 2

[Bharat Reddy]

I've already Googled this problem and gone through that page several times. Maybe this is unique to my computer? I can't see anyone else having this sort of problem...

Comment 3

[Buckethead]

I suspect it may be system unique. A couple questions for you-

1. What distro/version are you using?
2. Do the bookmarks get written to bookmarks.html during the session?
3. If you create a new "dummy" user and create bookmarks in that profile, are they saved?

Cheers,
Buckethead

Comment 4

[Bharat Reddy]

Yes I suppose it is, and I brought it up just to see if there WAS a problem with Firefox at all.. Apparently not.. Oh well, my luck I guess :)

Anyway, I do have a small update, and that is that the bug partly fixed itself. Let me elaborate.. I used to keep restoring backups of my bookmarks every time I started Firefox. And then, one day, they were there when I started the browser, and I didn't have to backup. The problem is that although these bookmarks are permanently written, if I add any new ones, the new ones don't appear the next time I boot up. Strange eh? What's stranger is that the bookmarks.html file shows a last modification date of 20 Apr, 2008, and a last access date of 22 Apr, 2008.

Thanks buckethead, for looking into this problem... :) Here are the answers to your questions:

1. I'm using Ubuntu Hardy Heron (that would be updated till May), and my FF3 version is listed above. You can tell I'm not very good at typing out version numbers.
2. The bookmarks don't seem to be getting written to bookmarks.html during the session because of the above mentioned access date problem.
3. And yes, bookmarks made for new users are always saved, just not for the default user. Funny how I didn't think of that... Sorry!

Thanks again,
Bharat

Comment 5

[Buckethead]

I suspect your permissions may have gotten screwed up at some point. Can you sudo into firefox and write new bookmarks then?

Comment 6

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

can you check permissions on the places.sqlite file?

Comment 7

[Bharat Reddy]

@Buckethead:

I am currently using the new profile I created, and the bookmarks are getting written into that just fine. I opened the "default" profile again through profile manager, and wrote one bookmark in. I restarted Firefox, and the bookmark was there. Just to be sure, I bookmarked another page, and restarted, but this time it didn't save the bookmark (however, the one before this was still there)

sudo'ed into Firefox, selecting the 'default' profile from Profile Manager, and bookmarked another page. It wasn't there when I restarted it again. 

@Marco:

I checked the permission for places.sqlite, and permissions.sqlite just to be sure. Permissions for Owner (me) are Read and Write, while permissions for my group and others are Read Only. This is the same as the new profile where the bookmarks DO get saved.

Comment 8

[Linda Ewen]

I have the same problem intermittently; sometimes they open and sometimes they don't. When I log back in they show.

Comment 9

[Bharat Reddy]

Well, finally someone else who has this problem. What happens when you create a new profile and set that as default? Do your bookmarks save there?

Comment 10

[Linda Ewen]

Now they are appearing. 

I also had tried to restore a backup and it said it could not use the file (which I believe it created!).

I am not confident that my bookmarks will remain.  

I have tons of bookmarks so creating a new profile would have taken way too much time.

Comment 11

[Bharat Reddy]

Export them onto your desktop from the current profile, close firefox, create a new profile, open firefox in the new profile and import your bookmarks. Worked for me, and I haven't been losing any bookmarks since.

Give it a shot.

Comment 12

[myles7897]

Duplicate of Bug 428828?

Comment 13

[Linda Ewen]

It seems to happen more regularly when Foxfire intercepts the new add-on screen. When I log off and log back on they are all there. It is a pain, especially when I am cmnnected remotely to a client site.

Comment 14

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

I wonder if a transaction is opened at some point, and never committed, so thrown away at shutdown. For folks who experience this, can you check if your history for each session is lost as well?

Comment 15

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

sounds like bug 462366

Comment 16

[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