Earlier today I visited one of my favorite websites only to find it formatted strangely. Thinking it was a problem with one of the many Firefox (v 19.0.2) addons I had running I had Firefox restart with all addons disabled. Something popped-up, and I just clicked “Yes” without reading it.
Well, it appears that pop-up was asking if I wanted to reset Firefox to its default state with NO ADDONS, and NO BOOKMARKS! So, it basically deleted ALL my bookmarks!
Afterward, when I learned what had happened I tried to do a system restore (Win7) thinking THAT might bring them back, but NOGO!
I’ve already started re-installing all the plugins that were removed, but can someone PLEASE tell me that there’s a way to get my COUNTLESS bookmarks back. (Note that my last .JSOD backup was probably over a year ago.)
Thanks!
It sounds like you started Firefox in Safe Mode, explained here. You might also have reset Firefox, explained here, but note that it saves your profile to a folder called Old Firefox Data.
I use Xmarks and Lastpass ( both owned by the same people). Saved my ass many times. Xmarks is for bookmarks and Last Pass is for passwords. Great stuff and I think you can use it free, but I pay a whole 12.00 a year for the paid version. Worth while investment.
Yeah, first off, close Firefox, and make sure you do not hold down shift while opening it again. If you see another warning, close it, don’t click either option (one will reset your profile, the other will put you in safe mode.)
If that doesn’t work, Firefox helpfully keeps an automatic backup of all your bookmarks. To restore your bookmarks, open the Bookmarks menu and choose Show All Bookmarks. Click the “Import and Backup” button, move the mouse down to the “Restore” menu item. Then choose the most recent date from the menu provided. Click “OK” on the box asking if you’re sure. Tada! Instant bookmark recovery.
THANK YOU ALL for showing me where Firefox automatically stores its backups! I had no clue!
I was able to restore them all from yesterday’s auto-saved JSOD file. Thankfully, I hadn’t added any new bookmarks in the last 24 hours, but even if I had, oh well.
Again, thank you all for your help…
(And yes… I’ve already backed up my current JSOD. )
I use FEBE to back up my browser. All your extensions, themes, bookmarks, preferences, passwords, cookies, etc. It also makes switching to another machine a snap.
If you happen to already use Gmail and/or have an Android phone, you should really look into using Chrome as a web browser. Not only will it sync your bookmarks, themes, and extensions over multiple devices, but also allow you to open tabs from your PC to your phone, or from PC to PC.
I switched from Firefox to Chrome about 2 years ago and haven’t looked back. Of course, I also use Gmail, Google Drive, and multiple Android devices, which may make it more alluring for me. YMMV.
It doesn’t sync search engines (“keywords” to FF users) due to a bug that’s been unfixed for the last year. It also doesn’t sync passwords or autocomplete to mobile devices.
Firefox does all that across its supported device.
This is the only reason I’m not using Chrome… grr. Firefox is slow and clunky as hell, but until Google fixes the sync issues, bleh, it’s unusable.
And neither one syncs extension settings across devices, so you have to manually configure every extension everywhere.
Ah yeah, I meant to mention that I to use Lastpass for login syncing, which I couldn’t agree more is worth the few bucks a year. Would be nice if Chrome did this.
Chrome could definitely be better, but it’s the best option out there for using minimal resources. Unfortunately, over the last couple of days they’ve been taking ad-blocking extensions off of the extension store, which is a questionable move at best.
Also, Chrome definitely does sync extensions if you’re logged in with a common Google account.
You may be right on that, I don’t guess I’ve ever had to worry about the settings, since I use an extremely limited set of very basic extensions (ie AdBlock, Gmail notifier, things like that).
Hopefully they’re working on getting some of those features worked in, as they’re reasonably close to becoming one-stop-shopping for my needs.
Yeah, I hope so too. My usage requirements probably represent <1% of users. I heartily recommend Chrome to everyone (else) who asks. Great browser overall; showstopper bugs for me.
As an alternative to keeping (and worrying) about losing your bookmarks, consider Delicious.com. Install the bookmarklet button in your viewer and then whenever you need to bookmark a site, just mash the button and rest assured your bookmark is safe in the cloud regardless of which browser you are currently using. Alternatively, you can login to the site, and cut / paste the URL into your bookmark stack.
In addition you can tag your bookmarks or share them with others to get related information.
The price is right (free) and I’ve not lost a bookmark in years regardless of browser brand and version du jour.
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