All bookmarks deleted on automatic update; no articles helping--no Old Firefox Data, no old profiles.
Just what it says on the tin. Booted up my computer for the first time today, started up Firefox, got the ol' "Hey, we updated ourselves to version eight million five hundred thousand sixty four or whatever" page. Menu bar and Bookmarks toolbar missing. Brought them back to see only "Most Visited" and "Getting Started." Dug through Bookmarks, all empty. Checked through likely Help articles. There is no "Old Firefox Data" on my Desktop, and there are no additional profiles to choose from beyond the default. In File Explorer there's only one Firefox profile folder beyond the current one, but it has very little in it, and doesn't have any bookmark information I can find. As a shot in the dark, because the Help articles suggested it, I finally tried the refresh function, but all that did was create an Old Firefox Data folder of the current (empty) state of Firefox, not that I was expecting it to magic my old Bookmarks out of thin air. Is there some sort of a trail that gets left behind when an update obliterates everything it touches? I'd very much like the very large list of Bookmarks I have back; I need many of them for work and I will likely fail to remember all of them with my limited human brain.
Chosen solution
So as per your request I did try showing hidden folders, and I went looking for bookmarks again. Long story short, I have indeed found them (though I don't think showing hidden folders actually helped, weirdly).
For anyone who needs it, here is where I found them:
Originally, I had been looking for my profiles by (as other articles suggested) going through about:profiles and subsequently clicking "Open Folder", then going up one to the Profiles folder. None of the two profile folders therein contained the "bookmarkbackups" folder I was looking for. But, as I was looking to see what the exact name of that folder was in case I was overlooking it, I noticed a different way to get to the Profiles folders. I had assumed it was the same as the one I had been using because when you get far enough down the folder pathway they all start looking the same at the end (ie. ...Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles), but it turns out the one I needed was to go through Run with %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\
Same exact folder names as before, but HERE they have more stuff in them. Not an expert enough to know why, but the non-default folder had just what all the other articles said it was supposed to have: "bookmarkbackups." Used the Choose File function of the Bookmark restore thingy to grab the last batch of the 15 that were there since I finally knew where to send it to look for them and voila.
So all those articles that say go through About:Profiles will lead you astray. %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ is the way to go. Either that or there is a goblin running around swapping around folder contents when I'm not looking. Either is equally likely.
Thanks for the prod PKshadow. Even though your exact suggestion wasn't the solution itself, your input was enough to send me down the right path. Very grateful!
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Thank you in advance! Sorry if that-all sounded snippy. Not my intention.
HI, no that was fine and expected when loose your bookmarks. I would check that other folder out in Profiles in case it holds some of the missing bookmarks. No when they do a disappearing act like that they should be awarded for best magic show. They be gone, sorry.
In Windows have you set things to see hidden files and Folders just incase they are in plain site.
For the future please always :
- https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/export-firefox-bookmarks-to-backup-or-transfer
- https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles
Fyi : Windows 10 April Update ver 1803 released this date. If thinking about updating to it : update all programs 1st. You Have 59.0.3 Firefox which is compatible. https://www.windowscentral.com/how-get-windows-10-april-2018-update Use the Media Creation Tool to Update or wait.
Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance.
Chosen Solution
So as per your request I did try showing hidden folders, and I went looking for bookmarks again. Long story short, I have indeed found them (though I don't think showing hidden folders actually helped, weirdly).
For anyone who needs it, here is where I found them:
Originally, I had been looking for my profiles by (as other articles suggested) going through about:profiles and subsequently clicking "Open Folder", then going up one to the Profiles folder. None of the two profile folders therein contained the "bookmarkbackups" folder I was looking for. But, as I was looking to see what the exact name of that folder was in case I was overlooking it, I noticed a different way to get to the Profiles folders. I had assumed it was the same as the one I had been using because when you get far enough down the folder pathway they all start looking the same at the end (ie. ...Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles), but it turns out the one I needed was to go through Run with %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\
Same exact folder names as before, but HERE they have more stuff in them. Not an expert enough to know why, but the non-default folder had just what all the other articles said it was supposed to have: "bookmarkbackups." Used the Choose File function of the Bookmark restore thingy to grab the last batch of the 15 that were there since I finally knew where to send it to look for them and voila.
So all those articles that say go through About:Profiles will lead you astray. %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ is the way to go. Either that or there is a goblin running around swapping around folder contents when I'm not looking. Either is equally likely.
Thanks for the prod PKshadow. Even though your exact suggestion wasn't the solution itself, your input was enough to send me down the right path. Very grateful!
Firefox uses two locations for the Firefox profile folder, so make sure to look in the correct location.
Location used for the main profile that keeps your personal data in "AppData\Roaming" (Root Directory on about:profiles).
- C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>\
Location used for the disk cache and other temporary files in "AppData\Local" (Local Directory on about:profiles).
- C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>\
Yep, that was the issue in the end. Didn't realize there were two different locations.