can't get firefox sync to work. I keep getting 'Error While Syncing' message
I am on Mac OS X 10.6.4, Snow Leopard on a Mini Mac a year old. I got a message from X Marks telling me they were shutting down. As I use my bookmarks every day and have thousands of them all sorted into folders I definitely never want to lose them or lose access to them if my house burns down or my computer is stolen! I was using Firefox 3.6 and followed X Marks advise and downloaded Firefox Sync...but...won't work....kept giving me the 'Error While Syncing' message after trying to sync for a while. I looked at the blog and tried a few things like resetting password, restarting computer, checking my setting etc., but no deal. So, as the Firefox Sync download page told me that if I was using Firefox 4 beta the feature was built in and I didn't need the download, I then downloaded Firefox 4....which has removed my X Marks option, which was at least viable till after Xmas! and I still have the 'Error While Syncing' message beside the Sync button on my status bar....so now I am completely at a loss. The only thing I can do if I can't fix it up is go back to 3.6 and go on using X Marks while it is still available and pray that you get this sorted out before they dissappear. I also like to be able to get my updated bookmarks on the other browsers I use, like Chrome and IE, so I would really appreciate it if you would include this cross browser sync capability as soon as you can. I have pledged X Marks that I would even pay for their service to continue as it seems they are so ahead of anyone else in their service and it is a large pain in the you know where that they can't keep going. Thanks. and I hope you can help. From the blogs it seems that I am not the only one having this problem of getting the Firefox Sync working
All Replies (7)
This issue has been discussed many times in the following forum and you will have better chance to get help there:
Did you "Set up Sync..." in the Tools menu?
The first thing you have to do is to set up a Sync account.
I doubt if Mozilla will ever do cross-browser synchronization, as Xmarks does.
As far as Xmarks not working on 4.0 beta, very few addon developers update their product until a lot closer to the release date of the new version, which in the case of Firefox 4.0 is close to the time of the scheduled shut-down of Xmarks. Logic dictates that if Xmarks is shutting down, why would they update their Xmarks extension for Firefox 4.0 which may not even be released before Xmarks becomes history?
Since I installed Firefox Sync into Firefox on my personal computer, set it up with my existing Firefox Sync account, and first ran it, I have had this same error message in my Firefox status bar: "Error While Syncing." It never goes away.
I am running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 on a system with an AMD Phenom II X6 1090T processor and 8 gigabytes of 1866 RAM. My version of Firefox is 3.6.10 and my Firefox Sync version is 1.4.4.
Firefox Sync disgusts me. It is slow and freezes Firefox (the browser) for up to 30 minutes when it runs, which means I am not productive while Firefox Sync is out of sync.
If Firefox Sync is not made safely, efficiently, and productively usable before xMarks expires, I will switch to Google's Chrome browser with Chrome Sync and never look back. Firefox's failure will be evidence that Mozilla is a failed experiment that produces garbage and a serious setback for the open source community. It also will reduce hope for us freedom lovers.
I went into the sync settings and tried unchecking various options and resyncing. Once I unchecked Sync history (which I don't care about anyway) the error went away. I haven't tested from another computer yet to see if it actually has sync'd or not, but thought I would share the info....
Note to Firefox - to really score some points with your user base why not write a little migration app. that'll let us move our Xmarks info into Firefox. Or, better, buy Xmarks. I too would pay to keep using it....
@globaltruth
Thank you for your suggestion. I tried it. Unfortunately, the error message still sits on my statusbar, right after the Firefox Sync image.
I've got this error as well in Windows 7 and Firefox 6, I have tried a lot of other procedures outlined here in the support section. The only thing that work for me is login here; Services Account Mozilla
I clicked on "Clear Sync Data" I go to Firefox Sync and Click on Sync Now It failed on the first attempt but eventually a success on the second.
You might want to try that...
Following maverickz idea above seems to have worked for me. Go to https://account.services.mozilla.com/ and login, clear your sync cache (failed first time, then worked) and then do a manual sync. Seems like it working for me now.