761639 - Live bookmarks will self-destruct after FF-Restart

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Description

[masterx244]

Attachment: An example of the bug with the "Aktuelle NAcjrichten" Livemark renamed to TS

THe livemarks wont save after a restart andshow upas a normal foöder which is not deletable. Adding of them works but after a restart the same happens.
about:support at pastebin:
http://pastebin.com/gQYhAw5m

Comment 1

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

you have far too many add-ons, surely one of those is responsible for the breakage, try in safe mode (http://support.mozilla.org/kb/safe+mode), if everything works try disabling bookmarks/feeds/livemarks related add-ons until you find the culprit

Comment 2

[masterx244]

Bad news: got this sucker even in safe-mode.
Seems to be a firefoxens-bug

Comment 3

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

are you still getting an empty folder without any icon in safe mode?
Afaict, I use livemarks every day, and everything works properly.
May you try a new profile? http://support.mozilla.org/kb/Managing-profiles

Livemarks have changed in Firefox 13 but you should not really see an empty folder without any icon.
Also feel free to ask help on the forums in http://support.mozilla.org/

Comment 4

[masterx244]

It works in a new profile but the data which had to be moved it is not very easy. (2 years of browsing history and all the addOns with its config and its datafiles.
(too bad that there isnt any history export/import feature)

Comment 5

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

well, I don't pretend you to move to a new profile, just that there's something broken in your old ones, not an actual bug.
Maybe you have some userchrome changes? or maybe some add-on creates issues even if it's disabled and should be uninstalled... I'd start from bookmarks/feeds related ones, uninstall is easy, as well as resinstalling them later. Then try to create a new livemark and see if it works properly.

Comment 6

[masterx244]

no userChrome.js I only have a some simple fixes in the USerChrome.css
Disaled some bookmarks-related addons. Still no luck.
Will check more addons

Comment 7

[masterx244]

I removed almost every addon but no chance of getting a better result.
the current about:config:
http://pastebin.com/p2A2wrXS

Comment 8

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

by chance, did you try just re-creating the not working livemarks? maybe they are just corrupt?

Comment 9

[masterx244]

yes on every try. Everytime the same.
Seems that the bug sits deeper.
Do you have another theory or tip in mind?

Comment 10

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

not off-hand, I suggest asking in the Supports forums, someone there may have further ideas.

Comment 11

[masterx244]

I copied the database toanother profile and the strnge behaviour appears, too.
Seems to be a bug in places.sqlite

Comment 12

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

it's possible, please, after making a backup of your current places.sqlite, try to do a full cleanup with this add-on:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/places-maintenance/

Comment 13

[masterx244]

Update: after importing an older one: same problem.
places-maintenance:didnt work, too.
Export bookmarks and immediately reimportm´make them temporary working but afterrestart of firefox: the same. it seems, that the data is stored correctly (because the backup-restore cycle works) but FF doesnt like the database

Comment 14

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

If you wish you may send me a copy of your places.sqlite attached to a private mail, for inspection.  Can't do much more than that.

Comment 15

[masterx244]

Small Update:
a) you should have gotten an email with the places.sqlite
and after a test with FF12 portable (the latestDB-File used) it works there.
Seems to be an bug which only appears under certain circumstances.

Comment 16

[masterx244]

I found a workaround to rebuild the databasw without history loss. Import in Chrome and then backimport to FIrefox with emptied database.
You have to import history archive of chrome, too if there are older parts missing

Comment 17

[Mihaela Velimiroviciu (:mihaelav)]

If you care that much about the history and bookmarks but not so much about (reinstalling) your add-ons or browser customization, you can also try to reset Firefox to its default state (with Firefox 13.0). This will create a new profile, persist your browsing history and bookmarks, but your add-ons and sync account will be removed, and also the browser preferences will be set to their default values.

Steps:
1. Use Firefox 13 (latest released)
2. Go to about:support
3. Reset Firefox

Note: This feature is currently broken in newer Firefox versions(15.0 Aurora, 16.0 Nightly), so I don't recommend doing the Firefox reset using these versions

Comment 18

[masterx244]

I think that wouldnt help because i used the other way because while looking around in the database i noticed that the database had some errors which began making trouble in this release.

Comment 19

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

(In reply to masterx244 from comment #15)
> Small Update:
> a) you should have gotten an email with the places.sqlite

I'll look at it asap, btw notice that if you ever touched the db directly through a third party software or add-on, it may have unrecoverable errors.
The only possible fix I may think about would then be to rename places.sqlite (while the browser is closed) and let Firefox generating a new one. It will lose history unfortunately, but should properly rebuild bookmarks (in any case you still have the old db backup)

Comment 20

[masterx244]

I used the solution which i described in # 16 which was a db-rebuild , too but with leeping the history by exporting it to another browser and then a back-import to firefox after renaming the database

Comment 21

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Unfortunately we don't know what caused this bug, and I don't think we've got enough information to fix it if it is still occurring. Hence, closing as incomplete.