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Trying to recover Firefox bookmarks, when it's crashed and won't respond/open

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  • Last reply by cor-el

swagata
swagata
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Lately my Firefox application (I use a Mac) has been acting strangely. I can't use it more than once without having to quit and restart it, and it constantly freezes and comes up with the "application not responding" message. I was trying to delete my history, and now it won't even start up. However, I have almost two years worth of bookmarks saved on it, and I was hoping there was a way to extract them or save them without actually needing to open Firefox... such as the terminal or something? Or is there a way to force it to open? By the way, I can't access the preferences for it.

Lately my Firefox application (I use a Mac) has been acting strangely. I can't use it more than once without having to quit and restart it, and it constantly freezes and comes up with the "application not responding" message. I was trying to delete my history, and now it won't even start up. However, I have almost two years worth of bookmarks saved on it, and I was hoping there was a way to extract them or save them without actually needing to open Firefox... such as the terminal or something? Or is there a way to force it to open? By the way, I can't access the preferences for it.

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cor-el
cor-el
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Try to delete the file places.sqlite.

A possible cause is a problem with the file places.sqlite that stores the bookmarks and the history.

Create a new profile as a test to check if your current profile is causing the problems.

See "Basic Troubleshooting: Make a new profile":

There may be extensions and plugins installed by default in a new profile, so check that in "Tools > Add-ons > Extensions & Plugins" in case there are still problems.

If that new profile works then you can transfer some files from the old profile to that new profile, but be careful not to copy corrupted files.

See: