Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

My bookmarks are gone and the automatic backup says "Unable to process the backup file"

  • 2 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 13 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

aril32
aril32
more options

Additionally, I cannot create new bookmarks, nor is a history created (or my old history shown) when I navigate to pages. I have the .jsonlz4 file that I want to use as the backup (as per several other answered questions), but I cannot figure out how to solve this problem. Please help.

Additionally, I cannot create new bookmarks, nor is a history created (or my old history shown) when I navigate to pages. I have the .jsonlz4 file that I want to use as the backup (as per several other answered questions), but I cannot figure out how to solve this problem. Please help.

All Replies (2)

FredMcD
FredMcD
more options

Bookmark / History Backups NOTE: If the backup files were contaminated, this will no help.

Type about:support<Enter> in the address bar.

Under the page logo on the left side you will see Application Basics. Under this find Profile Folder. To it’s right press the button Show Folder. This will open your file browser to the current Firefox profile. Now Close Firefox.

Enter the bookmarkbackups folder. This is where Firefox makes backups of your bookmarks. Look for the jsonlz4 file you want to restore (check the time / date / size). Right click on that file and select Copy. Now go back to the profile folder where you started. Rename the file places.sqlite by adding .old to it. Now right click in the folder and select Paste. The file you just pasted here, rename it to places.sqlite. After you are done, restart Firefox.

These can't get your data back, but will help in the future.

These add-ons can be a great help by backing up and restoring Firefox

FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup Extension) {web link} FEBE allows you to quickly and easily backup your Firefox extensions, history, passwords, and more. In fact, it goes beyond just backing up -- It will actually rebuild your saved files individually into installable .xpi files. It will also make backup of files that you choose.

OPIE {web link} Import/Export extension preferences

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

Make a backup copy of all the current JSON backups in the bookmarkbackups folder elsewhere just to be sure.

You can remove all places.sqlite file(s) including possible sqlite-wal and sqlite-shm in the Firefox profile folder to make Firefox rebuild the places.sqlite database from the most recent JSON backup (bookmarks-YYYY-MM-DD_<item count>_<hash>.json) in the bookmarkbackups folder.

If you need to restore an older copy of places.sqlite then either only leave that copy in the bookmarkbackups folder as the most recent or restore this copy in the Bookmarks Manager (Library)

  • Bookmarks > Show All Bookmarks > Import & Backup > Restore > Choose File.

See also: