Firefox: форум сообщества

I'm using Firefox in Windows. I lost all of my bookmarks... never mind how, I think I can prevent it from happening again... and I'm trying to figure out whether there is a way to recover them.

Looking in the profile folder, I see three profiles. One is listed on the about:profiles page, and is identified as the default. The other two aren't listed there at all.

I need to select each of those other two and see whether my bookmarks can be recovered from them. But how. The about:profiles page has a button for creating a new profile, but not for adding an existing profile to the page. Either it's listed there or it's not.

It seems to me that I could create a new profile and make it the default folder, then quit Firefox and replace it with a copy of one of the profiles I want to investigate. However, I lost my bookmarks by doing something similar to that, so I'm wary of doing it again.

Can someone explain what is happening here--why there are three profiles in the default profile's folder but only one list listed, and why there's apparently no provision for making Firefox list the others?

Mozilla, in their infinite wisdom, sent me a note about something new in firefox, by displaying it in a new instance of Firefox.

It wasn’t until I closed my normal session, that I realised a new instance of firefox was also running, and shut it down on.

In shutting the new instance down after my usual session, it overwrote all my normal tab settings🤬

Q1. Are my normal tab settings recoverable? Q2. Why did Mozilla think it a good idea to open a new instance of Firefox to send me information, rather than simply open a new tab.

NB This is in Windows 11

My Win10 & Win11 pc's updated to this version and they all have the same problem: The bookmarks have disappeared. Including my pinned bookmarks on FF's opening page.

I also just noticed that there are no "toolbar items".

I've been searching for three days now for a solution that will work to restore my profile from a crashed windows-7 machine to my new windows-11. Nothing listed in any forum or help desk works as described. I used to be able to just rename the folder to the exact file name on the new PC, but windows 11 won't let me do anything. It always needs admin permissions and even after I activated the admin account and assigned a password, I still cannot copy to the folder or rename the folder. Every attempt to do this on W-11 fails. It shouldn't be that hard and I'm tired of wasting days playing with this. I have important bookmarks, passwords etc. I want restored, and I need help. Nobody wants to pick up a phone anymore to assist!

I have never used "sync" because I have multiple PCs and each used for different applications and yes some go back to W-7, the operating system that actually worked well. Each PC has Firefox and a distinct bookmark file.

I went to "about:profiles" and created a new profile thinking I could copy to the new folder, but when i switched profiles I couldn't get back to the original default! HELP!

Sam

FireFox browser closed and when I opened it all my bookmarks are gone, all of my history is gone everything is gone as though I never ever used firefox in my life.

In my Win 10 PC, Firefox has been set to update automatically as it is recommended.

136.0.2 (64-bit) is the most recent one that updated automatically.

Now all my extensions have been wiped out, my workspace changed.

That is such a breach of integrity, and a lack of respect for the user, and his carefully set up work environment, when an Auto-Update just molests my work environment. And then I have to take out hours from my busy routines, to devote to restoring everything to how it was.

There is no rollback feature for Updates, esp when Updates do the havoc they do.

There is no proper Session Management, and a standard protocol for saving, aggregating sessions across different installs, rollbacks, etc, and having the most updated, and complete one, where the onus is on the user not losing data.

Now I have to go hunt around for the past profiles, and name the present one as old, and hope that Firefox functions with integrity, and completeness to restore my whole work environment from the last profile. I'll of course be losing whatever work I happened to do in the new profile now. One never knows how complete these profiles are to reconstruct things exactly the way they were.

Strange. I always believe that stability, and integrity, and a dedication towards that on behalf of the user would be the primary goal. Now it's all about chasing something else, some bells and whistles, and faster performances, and throwing stability, and data integrity under the bus.

Installed 134.0.2. Bookmarks disappeared. Went to restore backups, receive message "unable to process the backup file". All of my bookmark backup files receive this message when I try to restore.

When I do this:

Click the menu button Fx89menuButton to open the menu panel. Click Bookmarks and then click the Manage bookmarks bar at the bottom. In the Library window, click the Import and Backup button and then select Restore.

I get a blank slate. No files listed.

When I go into the Profile, I see C:\Users\whatt\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\shgdgxn6.default-release-1752271533405\bookmarkbackups

How do I restore bookmarks from that file?

The method of putting an older jsonlz4 and naming it sessionstore. It's not working. I've also tried session history scrounger and it's just saying "session history file contents couldn't be read". Any ideas, I've lost a LOT of tabs to it forgetting the previous session.

I've tried all files from the session backup folder including the update backups and I used shadowexplorer to get my session files from the 18th.

Dear Mozilla Geeks—

As practically every other Firefox user, my bookmarks evolved into a lengthy file system that uses folders to segregate categories of bookmarks.

That is, it used to have this feature.

After the last update all or most of the bookmarks (I can't tell by scrolling down the long list) are devoid of their organizing folders. This puts a great deal of information beyond easy reach. In Mozilla Help topics one is advised to click on the library icon in the toolbar ... only there is no such icon on my copy of Developer's Edition.

Can someone suggest a method or methods to recover the folders?

Some passwords have been lost as well.

Yours Sincerely,

Glen

I asked a question about a week ago. I can't even see the question anymore. While this was going on I received these emails. All times are in Australian CST.

Thu 2025-07-31 11:04 PM Your Mozilla Support request has been updated 305857

then I got tha same message again

Thu 2025-07-31 11:04 PM Your Mozilla Support request has been updated 305857

the next day I couldn't get in so I had to reset my password

Fri 2025-08-01 11:18 AM Forgot your password? Fri 2025-08-01 11:25 AM Your password has been reset

Then this appeared about 50 minutes later

Fri 2025-08-01 12:14 PM Forgot your password?

I found out about Mozilla Monitor and thought it might help

Fri 2025-08-01 12:14 PM New sign-in to Mozilla Monitor

Fri 2025-08-01 12:21 PM Mozilla Monitor found no known breaches

Then I got:

Fri 2025-08-01 12:30 PM Approve sign-in to Mozilla / Did you sign in to Mozilla?

again

Fri 2025-08-01 12:31 PM Approve sign-in to Mozilla / Did you sign in to Mozilla?

and again

Fri 2025-08-01 12:31 PM Approve sign-in to Mozilla / Did you sign in to Mozilla?

and again

Fri 2025-08-01 12:33 PM Approve sign-in to Mozilla / Did you sign in to Mozilla?

Then I got

Fri 2025-08-01 11:32 PM Mozilla Support Request: Share your feedback with us

which contained a copy of my post [I have made a bit of a hash up with my mozilla related logins]

Thu Jul 31, 2025, 07:34 but was appartntly sent by "Anonymous User"

this email wanted to know if I was satisfied - how could I be, when the problem wasn't solved?

next I asked another question {Which I can't see in my Emails} which netted me this reply,

Sun 2025-08-03 08:52 AM Mozilla Support Forum<no-reply@support.mozilla.org>

next I was back to this again

Mon 2025-08-04 03:59 PM Approve sign-in to Mozilla / Did you sign in to Mozilla?

and again just this morning!

Thu 2025-08-07 10:08 PM Approve sign-in to Mozilla / Did you sign in to Mozilla?

I am as much a believer in security as the next person but I don't understand what is going on,

I have had no response to my original ticket, which I beleive was number 305857 which I can no longer find any refernce to in my account, and I still have a completely blank Library! and I can't even make any new bookmarks!

Plaes help, Yours sincerely, Ms Jacq Felis (AKA Kaelkitty).

This is not so much as a help request as a suggestion, if someone can forward this along....

I depend on containers since they were introduced. I see now that they can vanish and are not synced nor can they be easily backed up. I have lost customer accounts now because of my dependence on containers. Had I known they could vanish, I would have continued using different profiles.

Please add a warning for those who depend on containers so that they do not end up in my predicament or remove them entirely or at least do not add them by default.

I posted a question in here two days ago because my firefox wouldnt open anymore i got a follow up answer telling me to give the crash id but never got a follow up after i sent it . i tried shuffling between profiles and in the end got it working but today my pc had a crash while firefox was open and it had to restart when i tried to open firefox its as if i just installed it and i dont have any backups to be honest i tried checking the appdata folder and there is a profile folder that seems big enough that it might be mine but it doesnt seem like firefox is reading it for some reason i tried switching the data in the profile folder that firefox is considering but it didnt work .

EVERY TIME I CLOSE FF WHEN I REPOPEN IT, I END UP BACK AS IF I JUST INSTALLED IT. ALL MY BOOKMARKS ARE GONE, ALL MY EXTENSIONS ARE GONE, LIKE I JUST INSTALLED IT.

I'VE TRIED UNINSTALLING AND REINSTALLING AND IT STILL DOES IT.

This has happened several times in the last 4 months or so, it had never happened prior to that and I've used Firefox for years. It now occurs when I open Firefox after my computer has either been shutdown, or the computer does a restart. I am signed in to my Mozilla account.

Hi, I recently purchased a new laptop and want to bring over the bookmarks I had from my old laptop. I had copied what I thought was the profile from the old one and copied it into the new laptop - but I'm not sure of the next steps :(.

I have recently purchased a new Windows 11 computer, and want to install Firefox there and transfer all my bookmarks, passwords, etc. There are obviously quite a few Support articles on this topic, and seemingly quite a few methods to use: copy and paste profile folder, sync, the backup/restore function within Settings, etc. I'm a bit reluctant to use sync, as some users report it can be an incomplete transfer. My current profile also may contain some "corruption", so I'm reluctant to copy the entire profile folder to the new computer.

Comments by esteemed and superb contributor cor-el in this Support article: [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/que.../1454070] therefore may be my best option. He wrote:

Note that best is to avoid restoring a full profile folder and only restore important files that are safe to restore/transfer.

   bookmarks and history: places.sqlite
   favicons: favicons.sqlite
   bookmark backups: compressed .jsonlz4 JSON backups in the bookmarkbackups folder
   cookies.sqlite for the Cookies
   formhistory.sqlite for saved autocomplete Form Data
   logins.json (encrypted logins) and key4.db (encryption key/primary password) for logins saved in the Password Manager
   cert9.db for certificates stored in the Certificate Manager
   persdict.dat for words added to the spell checker dictionary
   permissions.sqlite for Permissions and possibly content-prefs.sqlite for other website specific data (Site Preferences)
   sessionstore.jsonlz4 for open tabs and pinned tabs (see also the sessionstore-backups folder) 

My questions are: 1. Why is it "best is to avoid restoring a full profile folder"? 2. Is this the complete list of "important files that are safe to restore/transfer"? 2. In my profile folder, there are several files that start with the same file name, but then have different file extensions. For example: cookies.sqlite, cookies.sqlite.bak, cookies.sqlite-shm, cookies.sqlite-wal. Should I restore ALL these files, or just "cookies.sqlite"? 3. Is the correct procedure to copy the selected files from the "old" profile, and then paste them to the "new" profile, which presumably would overwrite files of the same name in the "new" profile? Thanks!

(Apologies for any formatting, bold text, and italicized test oddities. I selected these options for parts of this text, but am not sure I did that correctly. It would be very helpful if a question/message could be previewed prior to sending!)