Urgent Question about Mozilla Firefox

[golfnut]

I have been using Firefox for about a year now with no problems until now. This morning I clicked on the "Bookmark" icon where I have some 100+ sitles saved. This folder is now empty, not one of my sites is in the folder. I have no clue where they disappeared to. Is there any way to recover this info. Please help me if you can. Thank you very much.

[Faustus]

Goto your
~Firefox\defaults\profile\bookmarks.html

File and open it in IE find out if there is anything in there.

[golfnut]

Flaystus thank you for the reply, tried your suggestion with no luck unfortunately, any other ideas possibly? Thank you and have a great day.

[non-linear]

In the profile folder, there should be a folder with a random string of letters in the name (for example n02dqgrh.Default User); that is where your actual profile information is stored (including bookmarks, cookies, extensions, passwords, etc).

In XP, the default profile path is: C:\Documents and Settings\(name)\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

If you see two folders like that, then your bookmarks are probably in one of the folders, which would likely mean that your existing profile was in use (due to another instance of firefox.exe using the profile). If that's the case, then when you determine which profile is the right one (which would be the one with your bookmarks in it), then open the profiles.ini file and on the line that says Path=Profiles/, change the folder to the one that houses your profile.

If you manage to get back your bookmarks, you should occasionally back them up to another folder, just in case anything happens in the future and you lose them permanently. Just go to Bookmarks - Manage Bookmarks - File - Export, and export them to the directory of your choice.


Hope this helps.

[golfnut]

non-linear thank you for the reply, how do I find the "profile folder" you mention? Thank you.

[non-linear]

Go to the C: Drive (in My Computer) and go to this path:
C:\Documents and Settings\(name)\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

In that Profiles folder, you will see at least 1 folder with a random string of characters, as well as a "profiles.ini" file, as well as a "pluginreg.dat" file.

If you don't see the Application Data folder, then you have Windows set to not show hidden files; to show hidden files, go to Tools - Folder Options - View - select "show hidden files and folder".

Now assuming you have 2 folders with random strings (meaning a new profile was created), go into both of the folders and see which one has the bookmarks. Then edit the profiles.ini file to point to the original profile (refer to my above post).

[golfnut]

non-linear thanks once again for the reply. I found only 1 folder with random strings as you suggest. I can not find the profiles.ini file that you mention. When I click on the random file then it opens and to folder labeled "profiles", I then click on that and the only file I see then regarding bookmarks is one entitled "bookmarks.bak" and one entitled "bookmarks.html". When I click and open both these files I am taken to a forum website which tells me to run this file, "firefox.exe -p" to recover my lost files. I did this and still was unable to recover the bookmarks. I guess i am just about ready to give up, doesn't appear possible to recover. Thanks once again for your help.

[non-linear]

The 1 folder means that the problem isn't profile related (which 99% of the time, it is). I'm guessing your bookmarks got corrupt.

You could try looking at the bookmarks.bak file to see if perhaps your bookmarks are in there, although it's probably too late. If you have an eneraser type of program installed, you could try searching for any other instance of bookmarks.html and bookmarks.back to see if there are any previous versions still lurking on the hard drive.

Other than that, I don't have any other ideas; the best place to ask is over at MozillaZine.

If you do get them back, or if you create a new set of bookmarks, be sure to do what I said before and make a backup elsewhere so if they get lost/corrupt again, you have a backup to rely on.

[golfnut]

non-linear thanks again for the reply and help. Have tried all suggestions with no success and am now ready just to give up. Thanks again for all your advice and do have a great day.