Hi King Ray, it sounds as though your "Places" database, which stores bookmarks and history, might have become corrupted. Once that happens, changing your version is very unlikely to help.

Sometimes you can fix it using the "Verify Integrity" feature and sometimes you just need to start a new one. If you make regular backups of your Firefox data, that would be a third option.

Database Maintenance

You run this from the Troubleshooting Information page. Either:

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help > Troubleshooting Information
• (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
• type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

Use Find (Ctrl+f) to search for verify and Firefox should bring up the "Verify Integrity" button. After you click that, there's usually a delay of several seconds, and then Firefox starts reporting information about the database. You can copy/paste that into a reply for comment if you like.

New Database

If that didn't help, this article describes how to rename places.sqlite (or move it out of the profile folder) so that Firefox generates a new one. History is lost in this process.

Fix "The bookmarks and history system will not be functional" error message

Firefox should recover the last bookmark backup into the new database. Unfortunately, there is no way to rebuild history.

jscher2000 said

Hi King Ray, it sounds as though your "Places" database, which stores bookmarks and history, might have become corrupted. Once that happens, changing your version is very unlikely to help.

Well, I've never had this happen before, I have thousands of bookmarks, for over 2 decades, and no I don't back them up regularly. I backup other things, because this was stable until the last update. It was after I rebooted my computer, opened Firefox, everything was awry. The browser works, but a bunch of bookmarks are outside/inside of folders and duplicated. UGH

Your instructions are unclear, as I'm not used to trouble-shooting this browser due to bookmark mishaps. I also have many toolbar items, but only a couple of them are duplicate (when I clicked on >>). There's a bunch of bookmarks in 'Other Bookmark' folder, that weren't there before. Seems like this update just started throwing bookmarks willy-nilly all over the place, and I did see other people complaining that syncing multiple devices created a total mess as well.  :( I have so many better things to do than untangle this type of thing. I'm a busy guy. Sigh

King Ray said

Your instructions are unclear...

I try to write them step by step. Where did the steps stop matching your Firefox?

Just to confirm that Sync isn't active:

Do you see "Sign in to Sync" at the top of the "3-bar" Firefox menu button drop-down list or do you see an email address?

The latter would indicate that you are connected to Sync.

jscher2000 said

You run this from the Troubleshooting Information page.

Neither the raw data or text is fitting in here, so I'm not sure how to save it. Text files can't be uploaded, and there's too much to turn into an image file. Perhaps PDF?

I will be verifying today, but I need to backup 1st in case something goes wrong with the verification process. I'll get to the other responses in here later. Need to go pick up my car. Thanks.

King Ray said

jscher2000 said

You run this from the Troubleshooting Information page.

Neither the raw data or text is fitting in here, so I'm not sure how to save it.

Just share the part that appears in the table after you click Verify Integrity, not the whole page.

jscher2000 said

King Ray said

jscher2000 said

You run this from the Troubleshooting Information page.

Neither the raw data or text is fitting in here, so I'm not sure how to save it.

Just share the part that appears in the table after you click Verify Integrity, not the whole page.

Gotcha:

> 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 15360KiB + The database has been vacuumed + Final database size is 15360KiB > Task: stats + Places.sqlite size is 15360KiB + Favicons.sqlite size is 10368KiB + 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 56578 unique pages + Table moz_places has 11119 records + Table moz_historyvisits has 11853 records + Table moz_inputhistory has 8 records + Table moz_hosts has 0 records + Table moz_bookmarks has 26865 records + Table moz_keywords has 0 records + Table sqlite_sequence has 0 records + Table moz_anno_attributes has 7 records + Table moz_annos has 134 records + Table moz_items_annos has 4 records + Table sqlite_stat1 has 18 records + Table moz_bookmarks_deleted has 0 records + Table moz_meta has 9 records + Table moz_origins has 2747 records + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_inputhistory_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_hosts_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_keywords_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_anno_attributes_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_bookmarks_deleted_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_origins_1 + Index moz_places_hostindex + Index moz_places_visitcount + Index moz_places_frecencyindex + Index moz_places_lastvisitdateindex + 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_places_url_hashindex + Index moz_places_guid_uniqueindex + Index moz_bookmarks_guid_uniqueindex + Index moz_keywords_placepostdata_uniqueindex + Index moz_annos_placeattributeindex + Index moz_items_annos_itemattributeindex + Index moz_bookmarks_dateaddedindex + Index moz_places_originidindex > Task: _refreshUI

Hi King Ray, those results look good. However, if the "verify" process didn't straighten out the mixed-up bookmarks -- did you notice any improvement? -- you still might need to restore an older bookmark backup or start a new database.

The steps for those are in:

• Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer
• Fix "The bookmarks and history system will not be functional" error message

cor-el said

Just to confirm that Sync isn't active: Do you see "Sign in to Sync" at the top of the "3-bar" Firefox menu button drop-down list or do you see an email address? The latter would indicate that you are connected to Sync.

Yes, my email address is in there, even though I've never set that up! I'm telling you, these updates are grabbing things and turning them on by default ... with no regard what it can do to our browser!

jscher2000 said

Hi King Ray, those results look good. However, if the "verify" process didn't straighten out the mixed-up bookmarks -- did you notice any improvement? -- you still might need to restore an older bookmark backup or start a new database. The steps for those are in:

• Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer
• Fix "The bookmarks and history system will not be functional" error message

Yes, well, it's not that I have any bookmarks missing ... the update took a bunch of them out of folders and put them underneath all the folders. Without checking each one, they could exist inside a folder, inside a folder, inside a folder, etc. AND on the Bookmarks Menu. I'm pretty pissed, because starting all over is unacceptable, as is checking each of those bookmarks to see how many places they exist. Not to mention duplicates I never created. I told you, I have decades worth of bookmarks, so starting over fresh, when I am relying on many of them, won't cut it. MOZILLA BLEW THIS UPDATE! That's all I can say.

King Ray said

I told you, I have decades worth of bookmarks, so starting over fresh, when I am relying on many of them, won't cut it.

Yes, obviously! As mentioned previously, if you rename the places.sqlite database to hide it from Firefox, Firefox will start a new one by restoring your last bookmark backup to an empty database. You will lose all your history, but you should have your bookmarks.

Please back up your backups, since they get pruned over time:

Open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help > Troubleshooting Information
• (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
• type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

In the first table on the page, on the Profile Folder row, click the "Open Folder" button. This should launch a new window listing various files and folders in Windows Explorer.

Right-click the bookmarkbackups folder and click Copy

Then open a user folder (a non-Firefox folder) such as Documents, right-click a blank area, and click Paste

jscher2000 said

Yes, obviously! As mentioned previously, if you rename the places.sqlite database to hide it from Firefox, Firefox will start a new one by restoring your last bookmark backup to an empty database. You will lose all your history, but you should have your bookmarks

Yes, I've backed them up, and will look for that file. I'm sure I'll find it easily, and see what happens. I can always rename it back and start the silly process of identifying all those bookmarks in that menu. Thank you! Will be back after I'm finished.

jscher2000 said

King Ray said

I told you, I have decades worth of bookmarks, so starting over fresh, when I am relying on many of them, won't cut it.

Yes, obviously! As mentioned previously, if you rename the places.sqlite database to hide it from Firefox, Firefox will start a new one by restoring your last bookmark backup to an empty database. You will lose all your history, but you should have your bookmarks.

Okay, I guess I can't find the correct file, because I searched my hard drive, found 1 file named places.sqlite, and renamed it. Firefox didn't create a new file. I just added .old to the file. It must be using it. So, I should take it out of the folder it's inside of?

Note that the profile folder is in a hidden location.

• C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>\

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.

• Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> Profile Directory:
  Windows: Show Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox

cor-el said

Note that the profile folder is in a hidden location.

• C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>\

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.

• Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> Profile Directory:
  Windows: Show Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox

Okay, there is a long hairy file with many folders inside. I searched, and there are 3 files with that name:

places.sqlite places.sqlite-wal places.sqlite-shm

So, I only rename the first one? Oh, and I don't hide system folders on my computer. LOL

After you Firefox you can rename places.sqlite to placesOLD.sqlite. Remove the places.sqlite-shm and places.sqlite-wal SQLite temp files if they are still there after you closed Firefox.

cor-el said

After you Firefox you can rename places.sqlite to placesOLD.sqlite. Remove the places.sqlite-shm and places.sqlite-wal SQLite temp files if they are still there after you closed Firefox.

I moved the file onto my desktop, and interestingly enough, it made no difference. Same bookmark mess as before. Any other ideas? Sigh

Oh, the other 2 files are only present after I've opened Firefox.

The -shm and -wal files are journaling files, which are temporary files used by the SQLite database engine software to optimize performance. They should be reconciled with the main file and removed during shutdown.

If generate a new file and automatically restoring the last backup did not solve the problem, the mess may have been in your last backup. Please try restoring earlier backups and see whether any of them are in good shape. Same process: Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer.

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.

So what happens after one Verifies Integrity? My Bookmarks list continues to show duplicate and triplicate folders. I sync 4 devices (2 laptops, one Kindle Fire and an iPhone). I suspect that everytime I add a bookmark in one of them, they receive a unique "identity" related to the device and hence the folder is duplicated. In most cases multiple folders have identical content but not in other situations. Can't find a pattern here. But its driving me crazy trying to clean up this s*** daily! There must be a solution for this.