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Lost bookmarks

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  • Igcine ukuphendulwa ngu cor-el

wuzupdc
wuzupdc
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Hello,

Relevant system referenced below:

MacBook Pro 2021 Mac OS 14.5 Firefox 126.0.1 (64-bit) Carbon Copy Cloner 6.1.11 (7673)

I have a case of vanishing bookmarks. I quit Firefox last evening with command-Q as I’ve done a thousand times before. When I launched it this morning I was greeted with Firefox with an empty Bookmarks Toolbar and “Getting started” message. I opened a Manage Bookmarks window and everything there was empty too. I found, as well, that all of my saved UIDs and passwords were gone except for three, two of which I haven’t used in months. Weird.

Next I opened Firefox Help and found information about Troubleshooting Mode; I restarted in troubleshooting mode but nothing had changed. After restarting in normal mode, I tried Restoring Bookmarks; I chose Manage Bookmarks from the dropdown and then clicked the button in the Library window. Restore showed only one file and it was created today with only 14 items. Selecting Choose File… showed Desktop with Old Firefox Data highlighted. In that folder was only w34y3u9y…628 folder. From there I selected bookmarkbackups and the only file there was bookmarks-2024-06-06_11…lz4, a file created at 3:33 today. I found the key4.db file and it was created at 3:33 today.


I have Carbon Copy Cloner and use it for a weekly backup to a remote SSD drive. There are a year's-worth or so of weekly backups on that device. I tried trashing Firefox and reinstalling it from last week’s backup. While this worked, it didn’t solve the issue; it was still like a fresh copy of Firefox with no bookmarks.

I’m hopeful that I can restore the bulk of the lost bookmarks from CCC but I have no clue as to which files/folders to restore and I don’t want to guess. If you think this is possible, please tell me which files or folders to replace. Should I delete the files to be replaced from the current system and if so where are they located? I’m comfortable using Terminal for basic purposes but need explicit directions for entering commands and navigating to locations or files.

Thanks for your time,

David

Hello, Relevant system referenced below: MacBook Pro 2021 Mac OS 14.5 Firefox 126.0.1 (64-bit) Carbon Copy Cloner 6.1.11 (7673) I have a case of vanishing bookmarks. I quit Firefox last evening with command-Q as I’ve done a thousand times before. When I launched it this morning I was greeted with Firefox with an empty Bookmarks Toolbar and “Getting started” message. I opened a Manage Bookmarks window and everything there was empty too. I found, as well, that all of my saved UIDs and passwords were gone except for three, two of which I haven’t used in months. Weird. Next I opened Firefox Help and found information about Troubleshooting Mode; I restarted in troubleshooting mode but nothing had changed. After restarting in normal mode, I tried Restoring Bookmarks; I chose Manage Bookmarks from the dropdown and then clicked the button in the Library window. Restore showed only one file and it was created today with only 14 items. Selecting Choose File… showed Desktop with Old Firefox Data highlighted. In that folder was only w34y3u9y…628 folder. From there I selected bookmarkbackups and the only file there was bookmarks-2024-06-06_11…lz4, a file created at 3:33 today. I found the key4.db file and it was created at 3:33 today. I have Carbon Copy Cloner and use it for a weekly backup to a remote SSD drive. There are a year's-worth or so of weekly backups on that device. I tried trashing Firefox and reinstalling it from last week’s backup. While this worked, it didn’t solve the issue; it was still like a fresh copy of Firefox with no bookmarks. I’m hopeful that I can restore the bulk of the lost bookmarks from CCC but I have no clue as to which files/folders to restore and I don’t want to guess. If you think this is possible, please tell me which files or folders to replace. Should I delete the files to be replaced from the current system and if so where are they located? I’m comfortable using Terminal for basic purposes but need explicit directions for entering commands and navigating to locations or files. Thanks for your time, David

All Replies (1)

cor-el
cor-el
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  • Top 10 Contributor
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You can copy certain files with Firefox closed to the current profile folder to recover personal data. Note that best is to avoid restoring a full profile folder and only restore important files that are safe to restore/transfer.

You can use the button in "Help -> More Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page (Root directory).

  • 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)

Helpful?

Buza umbuzo

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