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Can't restore bookmarks. "Unable to process the backup file." I have tried every solution I can find online.

  • 5 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 20 views
  • Last reply by joegally

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I am running W7 and FF 14.01. My admin account FF works fine. My working account has the problems. In the past I have been able to get the bookmarks back but not this time.

The bookmarks were there yesterday morning and gone in the afternoon. Nothing changed between the AM and PM to my knowledge. I tried every solution I could find online but still no bookmarks.

I am running W7 and FF 14.01. My admin account FF works fine. My working account has the problems. In the past I have been able to get the bookmarks back but not this time. The bookmarks were there yesterday morning and gone in the afternoon. Nothing changed between the AM and PM to my knowledge. I tried every solution I could find online but still no bookmarks.

Chosen solution

Problems with bookmarks and history not working properly can be caused by a corrupted places.sqlite database file.

You can try to check and repair the places database with this extension:

Also make sure that the backup has the correct file extension (.json for restoring a JSON backup).

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All Replies (5)

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Hi,

Please see this.

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Hi,

I appreciate your replay. I followed the link and read the page but not sure how to proceed. During my troubleshooting efforts yesteday I renamed the places.sqlite files and rebooted. Nothing changed but a new places.sqlite in the folder.

Thx

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You can consider the Reset Firefox feature via Help (Alt + H) > Troubleshooting Information. Once reset, copy and overwrite the bookmarkbackups from the previous Profile Folder into the newly reset profile folder after exiting Firefox. To do that type %appdata% in the Windows Run box (Windows key + R) and browse to the Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles folder. The *.default is the old profile, and the one with the random numbers is the newly reset profile. Once overwritten you can try to start Firefox in the reset profile and restore the backup. If this doesn't help you can also try to right-click the bookmarkbackups folder in the old profile > Properties > Previous Versions > Copy and then overwrite the copied versions into the newly reset profile folder.

(To revert to the previous profile you were using, close the new profile (i.e. exit Firefox), start Firefox and choose the Default User profile. While the Profile Manager is open, you can also delete the newly reset profile (the one containing random numbers), or the former profile, as the case may be). If the reset is okay, it would be a good idea to delete the old profile as otherwise it would be left intact with the previous data until deleted.

Managing profiles

Profiles Howto

Modified by dumdidadida

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Chosen Solution

Problems with bookmarks and history not working properly can be caused by a corrupted places.sqlite database file.

You can try to check and repair the places database with this extension:

Also make sure that the backup has the correct file extension (.json for restoring a JSON backup).

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The first thing I tried this morning after reading the latest replies was to install the maintenance add-on and run it using the deep check option.

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/places-maintenance/ See previous post

It found the data base to be corrupted. I was then able to use the add-on to repair the corruption. Finally I used the restore function to get back my bookmarks.

Thank you for your help!