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Firefox sync

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Sync is not working correctly for me.

1. Installed FF on my PC - no bookmarks yet 2. Installed FF on my tablet - no bookmarks yet 3. Setup FF sync on my PC and and accessed my sync account via the web. I cleared the sync data. 4. I then enabled sync on my tablet and received a boat load of old bookmarks which I cannot get rid of.

Why am I getting these bookmarks? There should be no sync data. I cannot select these bookmarks all at once on my tablet and delete them. There's no multi-select for bookmarks. I cannot get rid of these bookmarks. I tried recreating my sync account and I'm still getting them. I don't get them on my desktop. I would have thought that recreating my sync account would have cleared everything. Obviously deleting your account doesn't really delete it.

Does anyone know how to get the syncing to work correctly?

Thanks.

Sync is not working correctly for me. 1. Installed FF on my PC - no bookmarks yet 2. Installed FF on my tablet - no bookmarks yet 3. Setup FF sync on my PC and and accessed my sync account via the web. I cleared the sync data. 4. I then enabled sync on my tablet and received a boat load of old bookmarks which I cannot get rid of. Why am I getting these bookmarks? There should be no sync data. I cannot select these bookmarks all at once on my tablet and delete them. There's no multi-select for bookmarks. I cannot get rid of these bookmarks. I tried recreating my sync account and I'm still getting them. I don't get them on my desktop. I would have thought that recreating my sync account would have cleared everything. Obviously deleting your account doesn't really delete it. Does anyone know how to get the syncing to work correctly? Thanks.

All Replies (10)

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Thanks KUMARESAN.C.S,

I tried all of those links. Sync is setup correctly, it just doesn't work right. I keep getting old bookmarks that don't exist in either my desktop version or my tablet version. Somehow they are being stored on the sync server and I cannot clear them out. Every time I enable my desktop version I get the bogus bookmarks. It would really be nice if I could just delete all the bookmarks at once on my tablet version, but there is no option to do that. FF mobile really needs this functionality. I'm really surprised it's missing. Is there any other place where books marks are read from. I tried creating a new desktop profile also. I need some server side assistance to make sure my account has been toughly clean out.

- Jason

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Hi,

I'm sorry to read that you are having difficulties with Sync. From what I understand, you are getting old bookmarks in your main computer after you delete them.

Could it be that you have another device who is synchronizing your data? You can check the devices connected to the account by typing about:sync-tabs in your URL bar.

If you see that there's another device or profile connected, make sure that you unlink it to avoid its data to be synced with the server.

Let me know if that helps. Ibai

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Hi Jason,

It sounds like one of these three things is happening. I don't know exactly how you're setting up Sync, or exactly what you mean by "recreate my sync account", so forgive the imprecision.

  1. You still have a device alive somewhere that's connected to your Sync account. If it's still loaded up with bookmarks, it'll sync them back up if you wipe the server.
  2. The server wipe via the Account Portal is failing. That's not unexpected.
  3. One of the devices you're connecting has your bookmarks on it already.


Rather than trying to figure out exactly what's going on, I recommend doing the following:

  1. Connect your desktop to Sync. Make sure your bookmarks are correct, deleting them from the UI as necessary. Go to Preferences and choose Sync > Manage > Reset Sync > "Replace all other devices".
  2. Open Android Settings on your tablet. Find Apps, Firefox, tap it, choose Clear Data.
  3. Also in Settings, find your Firefox Sync account under "Accounts & sync", and remove it.
  4. Set up Sync again on your tablet.

Let me know how you get on!

Modified by rnewman@mozilla.com

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Hi All,

Thanks for all the help and suggestions. I ended up creating a new sync account with another email address. Still, the same problem. There's a couple of things that could be going on ...

Firefox sync stores your browsing data elsewhere and not in your sync account or there's a hidden place on the Android device where bookmarks are stored and is never cleared out even with a cache/data clear. I ended up removing all the book,arks one by one and then re-synced. They didn't come back. The other thing that is really annoying is the top sites list. That never goes away. If you deleted the last entry it's repopulated with another. This data never gets cleared out either which basically proves that Firefox is retaining web browsing info about you elsewhere. This is a terrible design ... period. As other users have noted, I wish there was a way to disable the top sites functional. I really like the desktop version, but after all this I think I'm going to switch back to Chrome. The interface is not user friendly at all and needs a lot of work. I respect the Dev team that is working on this, but they really need a good UI designer. I mean, how do you not allow a user to delete multiple bookmarks, create folders or close all the tabs at once. I keep on trying to use this browser and become disappointed each time.

Thanks again.

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Sync doesn't store your data anywhere apart from in DBs within a desktop profile, DBs in an Android profile (but different DBs), or the Sync server.

If you clear data on Android, your data on the device is gone.

Top Sites is a 'view' over your bookmarks and history. If you clear bookmarks and history, they should all disappear.

You can disable Top Sites as of Firefox 29, currently in Aurora: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=942231

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I FOUND A SOLUTION

In android, for whatever reason, the system wont bring you to a correct sync screen so to get there, (you may need to suit this information to your own situation depending on where you are in the account creation/sync stage)

Basically people are having the issue where the "Pair a Device" code wont show up. To fix this, dont set up the account within FireFox. Go to your home screen. Settings > Accounts > Add Account

Choose Firefox - as for me, I had to choose the option that said 'Firefox Sync (deprecated) ' which showed up the sync code dialogue which was not coming up before.

Hope this helps, I was swearing at my screen for an hour trying to get this working

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That gets you to the deprecated Sync account. Firefox 29 and higher includes Firefox Account-based Sync, which is much easier to set up.

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Great!

Using ...

Settings > Accounts > Add Account > 'Firefox Sync (deprecated)'

... worked for me but it's not the expected route to this functionality and the issue of 'Firefox Sync (deprecated)' still needs to be addressed!

How do I upgrade my 'Firefox Sync (deprecated)' account to the current account version?

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