801037 - Firefox Sync empties all folders with same (default) name on the Source

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Sync, defect)

Description

[robin_cremer]

When setting up Sync between my Desktop Browser and my mobile devices running Firefox for Android (newest version, up-to-date through the google play store), all Bookmark-Folders with duplicate names on my Desktop machine were completely emptied. For quick saving of multiple tabs, I mostly just skipped through the dialog for the creation of a bookmark-folder, so I had a large number of folders called "[Ordnername]" (german for "[Foldername]" or similar). As I'm using Android Firefox since yesterday, I set up Firefox Sync for the first time and just noticed, that all my "[Ordnername]"-Folders got moved to the bottom of the list and no longer contain any bookmarks *at all*. (So... several hundred bookmarks that accumulated over the years were destroyed by this process)

I chose "critical" as Severity, as this bug is destructive to the userdata.

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

btw: You know that Firefox keeps Backups of your Bookmarks and that you easily restore an old version of your bookmarks ?

Comment 2

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

Also, in the worst case your bookmarks should now be in "Unsorted Bookmarks" (or the equivalent in German).

Sorry you're having problems!

Comment 3

[firzen2510]

I think I've just had a similar issue.
Before I started using sync I had similar folder names on different computers, let's call them Foo. After Sync ran the first time I merged the folders (with the same name) manually and deleted one of them so I had only one Foo left with all bookmarks I need. However, today I found Foo empty and apparently Firefox had appended another Foo directory (with all my bookmarks) to the end of my bookmarks bar. So I deleted the empty Foo and moved the filled one to where it's supposed to be. After a restart I have still only one Foo, but it's empty now.
Apparently Firefox/Sync is quite confused (and confusing) when it comes to directories with the same name so maybe it'd be a good idea if it automatically renamed such collisions (e.g. by appending a number) so there won't be any loss of bookmarks.

Comment 4

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

In the process of migrating remaining bugs to the new severity system, the severity for this bug cannot be automatically determined. Please retriage this bug using the new severity system.

Comment 5

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:markh, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 6

[Mark Hammond [:markh] [:mhammond]]

We've fixed many bookmark sync bugs over the last few years.