Hi there,

Please see Fix "The bookmarks and history system will not be functional" error message.

First, thank you for responding. Second, I got that information yesterday and ran all over the links to no avail. Finally, I ran all over the website links and tried to figure out where in my laptop the elements referred to were located. I even went running around the rabbit hole to my AppData, but saw nothing I could do there. The fact is that nothing I did showed that anything was done to restore my Bookmarks. For that reason, I have no confidence that they won't suddenly disappear again. BTW, this is the second time my Bookmarks have suddenly disappeared and then magically reappeared recently. I hope Firefox can create a much more direct way for its users to locate and fix where the problem lies.

FYI, in the end, I just logged back on (for at least the fourth time) and VOILA! my Bookmarks are back!! That's exactly what happened the other day, too. I have absolutely no confidence that they will remain available so I've copied the instructions on how to save and reinstall them, hoping I can actually get that to happen.

Again, thank you for taking the time to respond to my question. I am marking your reply as having solved the problem although I went to that link yesterday and ran around all over the website in exactly the same way yesterday, to no avail. Blowing off steam here, Denys. I hope you understand my frustration.

Nicola

I'm really sorry to hear that. Thank you for responding here at least!

To clarify... Have you been able to locate your Profile Folder? If not, what was the point where something went wrong / the instructions were unclear?

PS I'll mark your answer as a solution, but we'll be able to continue chatting here.

Hi, Denys, I really appreciate your interest in trying to help me figure out what happened, but to be honest I have no idea at what point in my travels around the links the Bookmarks and History just popped up again the next time I logged. Maybe I got to where the idea if my having a Profile made its way into my brain and I unwittingly happened on it? (That's the kind of low-level user proficiency I sometimes display.) I was going from one to another link/level of the instructions and down the different menus to the point that I had no idea where I was.

This morning, I was surprised to find when I logged on to my laptop that Firefox covered the screen with the question for me to identify which Profile I was using. Apparently I had the choice of two. I decided to use the first one (can't recall what it was named; the other one wasn't named) and was pleased to see it got me in to get online. I guess from now on I'm going to have to go through that step instead of having Firefox start automatically when I log on to my laptop, but think I might be able to fix that in the place where one gets to set Firefox preferences (wherever that is!) once I find it.

I trust that's enough entertainment for you on a drizzly Thursday morning :-)

Many thanks for hanging in there with me, Nicola

Huh, you've just met our new profile management system :)

I believe there should be a check on the Choose a profile screen that says "Choose a profile when Firefox opens", and it should be enough to just uncheck it. Hope that will work!

PS And I'm really sorry to hear about all your struggles when trying to resolve the previous issue. Hope it won't happen again in the near future

It has happened again, Denys! I'm beyond frustrated because I don't know whence the problem originates. Microsoft is always doing stuff and wants me to use Edge/Chrome, which I refuse to do and CCleaner7 just arrived which seems to be an extremely un-user-friendly application.

Is anyone working now or has everyone gone away or taken a break for Thanksgiving? I hope I don't have to limp along without my bookmarks for days. Happy Thanksgiving to you! Nicola

Hi Nicola,

Well... Let's return to the support article then. In addition to trivial things, such as restarting Firefox/computer (but please try it if you haven't already!), it has something that's supposed to be an ultimate solution: creating a new places and favicon database. It's not as hard as it may sound: basically, all you need is open your profile folder and then rename/remove some files. Please try that and let me know if you face any difficulties.

PS To clarify, the people who answer questions here, for the most part, are other users volunteering their time (like me), not Mozilla employees or developers. When a Mozilla employee jumps into a discussion, you'll see the Mozilla staff label next to their name.

You're a luv, Denys! I haven't the time to do anything more right now but will definitely read your suggestion carefully when ready to try it out. I'm thinking the interference is with CCleaner 7, which I recently installed. I think I've already mentioned it, but my suspicion is that something about its entire make-over is doing it. I'm actually hoping to get the earlier version back or find a better cleaner.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nicola