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I cannot retrieve former bookmarks on new computer

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 11 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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I backed up all the Firefox profile when my old computer started crashing, but Firefox must have been running. So when I import all the files back onto my newly installed Firefox on a new computer, I get a box saying that Firefox is already running. Is there one file that I can change or delete so that I do not get this error message? I did find the article listing the bookmark, password and cookie files, but when I imported just these files into my new profile, FF would not find my old bookmarks.

I backed up all the Firefox profile when my old computer started crashing, but Firefox must have been running. So when I import all the files back onto my newly installed Firefox on a new computer, I get a box saying that Firefox is already running. Is there one file that I can change or delete so that I do not get this error message? I did find the article listing the bookmark, password and cookie files, but when I imported just these files into my new profile, FF would not find my old bookmarks.

All Replies (3)

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if Firefox is shown as running just kill the process using for instance task manager.

If you backed up the old profile the database file you are looking for is places.sqlite use the old copy to overwrite the new copy and that will give you the Bookmarks and History you had.

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If you have created any bookmarks in the new profile first of all export them as HTML you will then be able to reimport them after you have overwritten them with the old ones. (HTML export then will import and append, or tagged on to existing bookmarks they do not overwrite them)

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If you made a copy of a Firefox Profile while Firefox was running, you probably have the parent.lock file in that old Profile. That file should only be present when Firefox is running, it "indicates" that the Profile is being used and will keep the Firefox program from trying to open using that Profile.

Simply delete the parent.lock file. Then try to launch Firefox.

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You can delete the parent.lock file from the current Firefox profile folder