Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Sync not working after Windows reinstall

more options

I had to reinstall windows on my desktop. All seemed to go well, but in Firefox my Bookmarks have not synced. They are all intact on my laptop though.

Both devices show as connected to my FF account.

What is the best way to get the bookmarks that are on my laptop to my desktop?

I had to reinstall windows on my desktop. All seemed to go well, but in Firefox my Bookmarks have not synced. They are all intact on my laptop though. Both devices show as connected to my FF account. What is the best way to get the bookmarks that are on my laptop to my desktop?

All Replies (10)

more options

hi, you could use the export/import functionality in the firefox library in order to move your bookmarks form one device to another...

Export Firefox bookmarks to an HTML file to back up or transfer bookmarks

more options

Thanks for this Philipp.

I have tried this already, but only a few of my bookmarks transferred and they all went into the bookmarks menu rather than following my folder structure.. Do I have to open each folder one at a tine and do them individually?

more options

does this also happen when you're not using the export to html route but back them up as a json file...?

more options

Have not tried that! I'll do this later and report back.

Thanks for your help.

more options

Is there a Sync error log in case there is a problem with syncing the bookmarks?

You can open about:sync-log via the location bar to see if there are recent error logs available. You can upload a recent log if the log is too big to put in a reply.

more options

I've now tried saving a backup file from my laptop and restoring it on my desktop, and although I do now have a lot more bookmarks than before, and I do have some of my folder structure, it has not replicated the layout nor has it captured all of my bookmarks. This does make me wonder if it is worth making backups if it is not going to replicate the original layout and bookmarks.

cor-el - I don't have any error messages but will try to find the log file and report back.

Thanks for the help guys.

more options

Just tried to find the sync log with no success! Can someone tell me where it is please?

more options

Hi there,

To see your sync logs - type the following in the address bar

about:sync-log

Please don't include http, www etc before typing it in.

It will show you a list of Firefox sync log files which you can open, copy etc.

Tim

more options

Thanks Tim. Got it now!

Here is a link to a word document that can be viewed or saved

https://1drv.ms/f/s!Aj3_hrd-0sk-gYFn9EJDQt8lCM_1-A

I've also put it in the pastebin as per the above post by cor-el.

more options

I have a development now. Firefox has updated itself to the quantum version - even though I have been rejecting the update pop-up as I wanted to try to sort out this issue first in case the update affected what I've been doing.

The new interface has replaced the colour coded bookmark icons and now they are all grey. Makes it more difficult to find the one you want so I decided to have a tidy up to delete the redundant ones. The bookmarks panel exceeded the screen on my monitor,and as I removed the unwanted bookmarks right at the bottom and in a very different place in the list was a folder and in this folder were all of the other folders that were in my previous structure!!

I don't think that this was due to the sync working as the list still is very different in appearance to the original layout, so it must have been one (or both) of the backups I made from my laptop.

I'm obviously very pleased to have them back and I couls live with it now, but I'd still like to sort out the sync issue. If I made a new profile on my laptop and then synced the desktop to the new profile, would this do it?