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bookmark documentation

  • 12 odgovori
  • 1 ima ovaj problem
  • 14 views
  • Posljednji odgovor poslao cor-el

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Hi there,

I am a long time Firefox User and occasional donor. I also work in Open Source for my day job.

I am just going to ask here for someone to point me to some documentation on bookmarks for Firefox. I cannot understand the logic of bookmarks that appear in 2 different bookmark folders at once when adding a bookmark to only 1 of them.

Also as of late, every time I open firefox, my bookmarks are rearranged or "missing," but a long hunt usually finds it sitting in the unsorted or other bookmarks folder - somehow.

The more i try to fix the issue, the more wonky it gets and I seem to have an ever growing lists of duplicates in unsorted/other bookmarks. I know that its officially Other Book marks now, but i see the old name still being used in the support pages and posts.

Can someone provide a simple, non-engineer, non-developer grandma can understand it place to fix this issue before i just move to another browser to save myself the now daily hunt for my lost bookmarks?

Steve

Hi there, I am a long time Firefox User and occasional donor. I also work in Open Source for my day job. I am just going to ask here for someone to point me to some documentation on bookmarks for Firefox. I cannot understand the logic of bookmarks that appear in 2 different bookmark folders at once when adding a bookmark to only 1 of them. Also as of late, every time I open firefox, my bookmarks are rearranged or "missing," but a long hunt usually finds it sitting in the unsorted or other bookmarks folder - somehow. The more i try to fix the issue, the more wonky it gets and I seem to have an ever growing lists of duplicates in unsorted/other bookmarks. I know that its officially Other Book marks now, but i see the old name still being used in the support pages and posts. Can someone provide a simple, non-engineer, non-developer grandma can understand it place to fix this issue before i just move to another browser to save myself the now daily hunt for my lost bookmarks? Steve

Izabrano rješenje

The first profile in the screenshot profile is a profile created by a Firefox Developer Edition and still appears to be actively used. Both profiles have a time stamp that indicates you used a refresh (reset) to create a new profile. There aren't any errors reported by "Verify Integrity", so this might only happened by using Sync.

Do you remember when this duplicate Bookmarks Menu folder under Other Bookmarks appeared?

Can you delete the duplicate Bookmarks Menu folder under the Other Bookmarks folder? If that isn't possible then you either have ot try to restore an older JSON backup or remove all places.sqlite database files and let Firefox create a fresh database.

Make sure to disconnect Sync temporarily when trying to fix this and close (Quit/Exit) Firefox.

The name of an automatically created JSON bookmarks backup in the bookmarkbackups folder includes a total item count (folders and separators included) and an hash value to prevent saving the same backup more than once. You also see this count in the Restore menu drop-down list.

  • bookmarks-YYYY-MM-DD_<item count>_<hash>.jsonlz4.
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All Replies (12)

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You can use this search of the Firefox Support Knowledge Base for articles that mention "bookmarks" - as a starting point. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/search/advanced?q=bookmarks&language=en-US&product=firefox&sortby_documents=relevance&a=1&w=1


More specifically, some answers: The Unsorted Bookmarks folder and "Other Bookmarks" folder are basically the same; the name was changed with Firefox 57 Quantum when a few minor changes were instituted. When users upgraded from Fx56 to Fx57 they ended up with both folders; before and after the changed from Australis to Quantum versions. Those folders contain bookmarks that weren't saved to a specific folder, like a miscellaneous folder of bookmarks that the user didn't categorize when the user initially saved each bookmark.


As far as "duplicate bookmarks", Firefox won't allow the user to actually save duplicates. A person would have to open the Library window and create a copy of each duplicate they would want via the "Organize" feature in the Menu bar of the Library; or "drag'n'drop" a URL into the bookmarks menu to effect a duplicate. But the Recently Bookmarked folder could be taken a a listing of that appear to be duplicate bookmarks. That folder has caused a great amount of consternation to users since Quantum came out in November 2017, when it was placed in a more prominent location in the UI vs. the former "Most Visited" bookmarks which was used before Quantum, in the Australis UI.

Recently Bookmarked a "Smart" folder which effectively displays recently saved bookmarks and does that automatically; which could make the bookmarks in that folder appear to be "duplicates"- IOW, NOT the real bookmark. The contents of Recently Bookmarked will change as more bookmarks are saved, with the older ones dropping out of that folder. And according to what I have read, when the user deletes a bookmark which appears in that folder it also is deleted from the actual folder it was sitting within; be that "Other Bookmarks" of a folder that the user placed it within. Basically Recently Bookmarked displays "recent activity of saving a new bookmark" - I don't use that folder and don't use it for anything and I hide it in the UI to save the space it would have otherwise occupied in the UI.

I hope that helps you. It is complicated and I can't come up with a better explanation, as I have entered the first year of my 8th decade on this planet - almost too old to keep up with frequent changes in software. Or as I am wont to say, I was born in the last year of the first half of the previous century. riddle that

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Sounds like this is a big and known issue among users and dev needs to revisit it soon. I am seeing a lot of confusion.

If one moves from the new and troublesome, Other Bookmarks folder, would that DUPLICATE folders? That might be where the duplicates are coming from - User error because it Looks like I need to MOVE something to its correct Position.

The Mozilla Docs i am not finding helpful; too much bouncing around with the links and not actually finding what i am looking for, unfortunately. I was hoping to see an outside source perhaps that is organized differently, perhaps some youtube Vids?

The image below ic my cleanest restore copy i could find. Prior to this i had about 4 different Other Bookmarks folders showing it that same view. I don't get it, now all these problems 16 years into using it?

Izmjenjeno od strane Stevo

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All lists that have recent in the names are smart folders as posted above and show the result of a database query and aren't real existing folders. You shouldn't perform copy/paste/move actions on items in such a list in case the list is not read-only. These lists are merely to keep track of recent activity.

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From the screenshot you applied above it looks that places.sqlite is corrupted as I see two Bookmarks Menu folders. This issue can be caused by using Sync to sync bookmarks to a mobile device (you appear to have a Mobile Bookmarks folder).

The Recently Bookmarked and Recent Tags folders are probably left over smart folders from older Firefox versions (current Firefox releases no longer include them) and you can remove (delete) them via the right-click context menu in the Bookmarks Manager (Library).

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Over my head there on knowing the places.sqlite on sight alone. What would i do to fix it.

Izmjenjeno od strane Stevo

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If you use Sync then best is to disconnect Sync temporarily during troubleshooting.

You can check for problems with the places.sqlite (bookmarks and history) and favicons.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder.

  • use "Verify Integrity" button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page
    in case errors are reported close and restart Firefox and retry

See also:

If "Verify Integrity" button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page cannot repair places.sqlite then remove all places.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder. Firefox will rebuild places.sqlite and restore the bookmarks from a recent JSON backup in the bookmarkbackups folder.

You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.

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Hi @cor-el

Hmmm, looks like i have 2 Firefox profiles. Not sure if there is a corrupted file. I got this output from verify integrity:

> Task: checkIntegrity + The places.sqlite database is sane + The favicons.sqlite database is sane > Task: invalidateCaches + The caches have been invalidated > Task: checkCoherence + The database is coherent > Task: expire + Database cleaned up > Task: originFrecencyStats + Recalculated origin frecency stats > Task: vacuum + Initial database size is 5120KiB + The database has been vacuumed + Final database size is 5120KiB > Task: stats + Places.sqlite size is 5120KiB + Favicons.sqlite size is 6944KiB + pragma_user_version is 52 + pragma_page_size is 32768 + pragma_cache_size is -2048 + pragma_journal_mode is wal + pragma_synchronous is 1 + History can store a maximum of 112348 unique pages + Table moz_places has 459 records + Table moz_historyvisits has 97 records + Table moz_inputhistory has 0 records + Table moz_hosts has 0 records + Table moz_bookmarks has 470 records + Table moz_bookmarks_deleted has 0 records + Table moz_keywords has 1 records + Table sqlite_sequence has 1 records + Table moz_anno_attributes has 4 records + Table moz_annos has 2 records + Table moz_items_annos has 2 records + Table sqlite_stat1 has 20 records + Table moz_meta has 6 records + Table moz_origins has 303 records + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_inputhistory_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_hosts_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_bookmarks_deleted_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_keywords_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_anno_attributes_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_origins_1 + Index moz_places_url_hashindex + Index moz_places_hostindex + Index moz_places_visitcount + Index moz_places_frecencyindex + Index moz_places_lastvisitdateindex + Index moz_places_guid_uniqueindex + Index moz_historyvisits_placedateindex + Index moz_historyvisits_fromindex + Index moz_historyvisits_dateindex + Index moz_bookmarks_itemindex + Index moz_bookmarks_parentindex + Index moz_bookmarks_itemlastmodifiedindex + Index moz_bookmarks_dateaddedindex + Index moz_bookmarks_guid_uniqueindex + Index moz_keywords_placepostdata_uniqueindex + Index moz_annos_placeattributeindex + Index moz_items_annos_itemattributeindex + Index moz_places_originidindex > Task: _refreshUI

Izmjenjeno od strane Stevo

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Odabrano rješenje

The first profile in the screenshot profile is a profile created by a Firefox Developer Edition and still appears to be actively used. Both profiles have a time stamp that indicates you used a refresh (reset) to create a new profile. There aren't any errors reported by "Verify Integrity", so this might only happened by using Sync.

Do you remember when this duplicate Bookmarks Menu folder under Other Bookmarks appeared?

Can you delete the duplicate Bookmarks Menu folder under the Other Bookmarks folder? If that isn't possible then you either have ot try to restore an older JSON backup or remove all places.sqlite database files and let Firefox create a fresh database.

Make sure to disconnect Sync temporarily when trying to fix this and close (Quit/Exit) Firefox.

The name of an automatically created JSON bookmarks backup in the bookmarkbackups folder includes a total item count (folders and separators included) and an hash value to prevent saving the same backup more than once. You also see this count in the Restore menu drop-down list.

  • bookmarks-YYYY-MM-DD_<item count>_<hash>.jsonlz4.
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@cor-el & @the-edmeister -

The extra folder called Bookmarks Menu was the culprit. That and me dragging links back up to "put them back." The sync came into play as to, as i was synching the "user-corrupted" json file and continually making duplicates.

So that issue is solved now.

Is there any way to Lock the Bookmarks? It is really too easy to accidentally sweep over and click/drag entire bookmark folders without noticing. I mean backing up is easy enough, but man.....

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sstevo66 said

... Is there any way to Lock the Bookmarks? It is really too easy to accidentally sweep over and click/drag entire bookmark folders without noticing. I mean backing up is easy enough, but man.....

No there isn't a way to "lock bookmarks". There is other data, such as browsing & download history stored in the places.sqlite file and locking the places.sqlite file might break Firefox in multiple ways.

As far as "backing up bookmarks" goes, Firefox creates a bookmarkbackups file every day that Firefox is used; 14 backups are retained and the is a pref that can be edited to save a larger number of bookmarkbackups files. browser.bookmarks.max_backups by default is 15 (today's plus 14 from the past)

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Thanks @the-edmeister,

At this point i am just stoked to have my beloved Firefox working perfectly again with all my customizations and layout.

Now that i fully understand the other bookmarks function and to stay away from clicking and dragging & when maintaining disconnect from Sync!

Steve

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Note that you can use "Organize -> Undo" in the Library to undo changes to bookmarks made during the current session (Firefox keeps an undo stack).