stevenartigas, first it might be worth checking the integrity of your Places Database files, which are where Firefox stores bookmarks and their icons. To do this:

1. Go to Help menu (press alt+H).
2. Select "More Troubleshooting Information".
3. On the page that opens, scroll down to "Places Database" and press the "Verify Integrity" button.
4. Once the check has finished, Look for any lines in the report that startt with a "-" or that contain the term "error".

If any errors are reported, try restarting Firefox and re-running the integrity check to see if they were fixed by the first check. You may want to repeat this 'restart and re-check' process again if errors are still found.

Thanks for posting. Followed your steps, selected "check integrity", button acknowledged my click, waited for response, but nothing new displayed. Where should I look for error report?

Wish to have guidance on using the Library pop-up to restore saved bookmarks when they are missing.

You can find some information here:

• Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer
• Recover lost or missing Bookmarks

I also found this topic in the Linux Mint Forums, maybe it helps: Firefox bookmarks disappeared

Thanks for posting. The restore process gets stuck in the Library pop-up.

In the Library window, click the Import and Backup button and then select Restore.

Select the backup you want to restore from the list of dated automatic backups. There is no list generated from which to select an automatic or manual backup. Tried every data field there, no joy. Been attempting this over multiple FF updates. When FF opens with b/m's in place, I can save them in Library pop-up, which I am doing every day before shutdown in order to retain a current list. As mentioned above, FF is showing other random behavior as well. My attempt to completely remove FF and re-install via Synaptic did not in fact do a complete removal- the new FF install retained the complete profile. There is something off with this install, and my solution is complete removal and re-installation. New tar.gz file downloaded and sequence for complete removal via CLI on hand.

This OS installed with a stick used on two other machines also, all with Mint 22 and all add-ons the same. Those machines run as expected. Nuclear solution is an OS re-install, probably with the current Mint upgrade, 22.3.

stevenartigas, the results of the integrity check should appear on the page itself, close to the button that starts it. There is no new pop-up or separate window.

Again, thank you. This time around, the integrity check did issue a report, no problems found.

stevenartigas, the results of the integrity check should appear on the page itself, close to the button that starts it. There is no new pop-up or separate window.

My question re pop-up referred to the Library pop-up in which I was unable to direct the system to the backed up b/m's.

What happens when you click on "Choose File" within the library's Import and Backup / Restore menu? Does a new dialogue box open at all?

Or Does a new dialogue box open if you click "Import Bookmarks from HTML" within the main Import and Backup menu?

A couple of differences since earlier log-ins: just now this site accepted my p/w for the first time instead of calling for a p/w reset. (Raise the flag!)

Secondly, now also for the first time, when I open the Library pop-up (manage b/m's) and hover over Restore, a chronological list of previous backups displays. Since the b/m's are currently displayed correctly, I can't try this restore process, but the next time there is a problem, likely tomorrow, I will do that.

Perhaps the "check integrity" request made some corrections even while there were no "error" or "-" messages?

After two correct FF bookmarks displays yesterday, today back to missing bookmarks with the banner displaying a link to Library (manage bookmarks). As previously in the Library pop-up, there was again no path to the saved Bookmarks file and no other means to recover them. The history that appeared yesterday did not display. Also as previously, closing and restarting FF resulted in correct b/m display. This last strategy, which IIRC others have used, worked for me up until this week, when multiple FF display errors started in addition to lost b/m's.

FWIW, on scrolling thru the saved bookmarks.html file, I noticed that the list included bookmarks that I deleted over a year ago. Didn't check the whole 1000+ entries, but obviously it is an old list.

stevenartigas, sounds as if your profile has problems that are not going to be fixed by a simple re-importing of bookmarks. Especially as you have mentioned display issues, missing history and failed login attempts?

Perhaps it is time to consider refreshing your profile? Or alternatively you could create a new profile?

If you are not familiar with either process then here are some help articles. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/refresh-firefox-reset-add-ons-and-settings https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles

Note I personally would choose the latter if you do not mind having a blank profile where you will need to re-import / rebuild all data from scratch.

Refreshing however has the advantage of preserving most of the important user data, but then of course this might theoretically see problems get inherited from the old profile. So perhaps the simplest thing to do is to refresh first, re-import the bookmarks if they do not arrive on their own, and if that doesn't work then try a new profile?

I have never set a profile because I'm the only user. I assume FF is using current settings, add-ons, etc. as the default profile. Something is definitely corrupted with this FF instance- there have been other irregularities with a couple of sites that do not happen with Brave. And a test machine set up exactly like this one has no FF errors. Finally today I have time to try to resolve this. Seems the surest way is to remove and re-install FF, the only cloud on the horizon concerns those long-deleted bookmarks in the saved file- unknown whether that file does in fact include all the current b/m's. Recall that the OS here is Linux Mint- my previous effort to run a "complete uninstall" (or purge) using Synaptic wasn't in fact complete- the re-install retained all settings, b/m's, even open windows and tabs.

I have identified a series of CLI commands that are supposed to purge an app completely. I have the current tarball for FF 150.0. The only part of this process I can't fully verify is whether a new saved b/m file is truly current, see previous comments. My first move will be to export b/m's to Brave in this machine for safekeeping, and save them to a file as well.

Again, many thanks for your assistance.

stevenartigas, everyone has a profile. If you have not manually created one yourself then Firefox will be using a default profile that was created for you when you first started using it.

This profile is where Firefox stores all the bookmarks, history, settings etc that you see and use. Creating a new profile would have simply created a second profile with its own bookmarks and settings et al. It would not have taken you from a situation where you had no profile but now have one.

I am not familiar with Linux, but on Windows uninstalling might not delete user profiles. So a corrupted profile may still be there after a re-install of the application.

In fact this is likely what has happened here. You replaced (probably healthy) application files in the re-install, but Firefox chose to re-use the pre-existing local profile. Hence it opened with both the previous bookmarks and problems.

So a refresh of the profile / create a new profile approach will still help if this is where the fault lies. Not in the application files, but in that profile that was set up for you during the initial installation.

For more information on profiles see here. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data

Thank you.

One of the differences between Windows (used years ago) and Linux is that Linux systems facilitate deeper dives under the hood by users. Linux has a function called Terminal that goes beyond Command Prompt in Windows. I expect I would succeed in purging FF via Terminal, but no harm in first trying a new FF profile. If the issues persist, on to the purge and re-install. There's even a nuclear option- I can re-install the entire OS. In any case, I need to save 1000+ b/m's and as mentioned the b/m file saved via Library is not correct. Without going thru that file line by line I won't know if they are correctly saved, and even then I'd be relying on a geezer memory. Since they are in folders, I can copy them to a stick a folder at a time for an accurate up-to-date list. Hope to work on this today. As mentioned, I have another machine set up exactly like this one for testing purposes.

Spent a chunk of time on this today. First thing I found is that the bookmarks.html file apparently includes every bookmark I ever saved, including those deleted years ago. But also saved to .json file, transferred to test machine w/ stick, used Library>Restore>Choose file, got warning that any existing b/m's would be overwritten, clicked ok. Correct folders of b/m's displayed on b/m toolbar. A non-event.

Just to be sure, then removed the just-installed b/m's from the test machine in order to repeat the process. All went as before, accepted warning that old b/m's would be lost- but this time no b/m's were displayed. Checked all steps, all looked correct, but no joy. Checked the FF help site (after the fact) and the advice there was exactly what worked the first time but not on any later attempts.

Also been noticing for some time that FF takes maybe 3 times as long to load in the go-to machine even though both machines have similar specs. Other sites load promptly on the daily driver. Keep returning to the same conclusion, something is corrupted in this FF install.

This effort is going backward. Today I find that b/m's listed using the hamburger menu are all saved in triplicate, and the drag-and-drop to move a b/m leaves the original in place. However, the b/m's listed in folders across the b/m toolbar are not cloned.

Next move will be to try saving a new b/m file and re-trying the transfer by stick between the two computers. Will use a .json file because I already know that the .html variant includes b/m's deleted years ago. Need to be sure this will work before proceeding. No more time for this problem today.

Just some thoughts. Importing from a json file will replace all current bookmarks. Importing from a html file will add the imported bookmarks to the current set. And possibly under one of the pre-existing folders, rather than directly back into their original locations.

So if you have performed the latter a couple of times then that may explain the duplicates.

Also, the bookmarks toolbar shows the bookmarks that are in a specific location, namely "All Bookmarks / Bookmarks Toolbar".

When you import from html the bookmarks that were in the toolbar at the time of export might not go back there, as they could have been imported into a different location, as mentioned.

In otherwords, you may find duplicate copies of your toolbar bookmarks elsewhere in the library after a html-import, even if they are not currently showing in the actual toolbar at present.