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Lost all the bookmarks in Firefox Developer Edt. when uninstalling Firefox 26 Edt. - how is that possible?

  • 2 replies
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  • Last reply by John99

FabSpi
FabSpi
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Hello Sirs,

I am using the last version of Firefox Developer Edition as my default browser. Today, just for study reasons, we were asked to install an old Firefox 26 vs. to be running the JMeter testing app. I then performed the following:

1. installed Firefox 26 as a 'standard' install 2. the teacher told me "better to make a 'custom' installation, so to modify the installation path and sync it with JMeter" 3. I then uninstalled the Firefox 26 4. and I reinstalled the Firefox 26 vs. as a 'custom' install

I then realized that this old version of Firefox 26 re-installation caused the loss of all the bookmarks in my current Firefox Developer Edition default browser; when I opened the Developer Edition it behaved like if it was being installed for the first time.

I checked on the C: Program Files (x86) directory, and there are 2 separate folders for the Firefox 26 and the Developer Edition.

How is that possible that uninstalling that F. 26 version erased all the bookmarks from the F. Developer version?

Is there a way to recover all the bookmarks ? even if now there is NOTHING left into the 'bookmarksbackup' folder and it seems that the places.sqlite file is the default one (I opened it with a sqlite db browser app).

I lost 6 entire months of bookmarks from university lessons at once! and that's a catastrophe.

Thank You, Best Regards

Hello Sirs, I am using the last version of Firefox Developer Edition as my default browser. Today, just for study reasons, we were asked to install an old Firefox 26 vs. to be running the JMeter testing app. I then performed the following: 1. installed Firefox 26 as a 'standard' install 2. the teacher told me "better to make a 'custom' installation, so to modify the installation path and sync it with JMeter" 3. I then uninstalled the Firefox 26 4. and I reinstalled the Firefox 26 vs. as a 'custom' install I then realized that this old version of Firefox 26 re-installation caused the loss of all the bookmarks in my current Firefox Developer Edition default browser; when I opened the Developer Edition it behaved like if it was being installed for the first time. I checked on the C: Program Files (x86) directory, and there are 2 separate folders for the Firefox 26 and the Developer Edition. How is that possible that uninstalling that F. 26 version erased all the bookmarks from the F. Developer version? Is there a way to recover all the bookmarks ? even if now there is NOTHING left into the 'bookmarksbackup' folder and it seems that the places.sqlite file is the default one (I opened it with a sqlite db browser app). I lost 6 entire months of bookmarks from university lessons at once! and that's a catastrophe. Thank You, Best Regards

All Replies (2)

the-edmeister
the-edmeister
  • Moderator
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other thread here - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1151432

All versions of Firefox use the same Profile. Merely uninstalling Firefox, even more than once, shouldn't have caused your Bookmarks to be lost or removed. Other files in the Profile folder could have gotten broken by being run in Firefox 26, but Bookmarks haven't changed that much between Firefox 26 and the current Developer Edition, AFAIK.

But the Developer Edition has two Profiles! So try switching to the 2nd Profile and see if your Bookmarks are there. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Developer_Edition Chances are that by installing that older version of Firefox your Profile got "toggled" to the other one, which hopefully wasn't the one that has / had your Bookmarks.

John99
John99
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I make and control firefox profiles manually, but I am aware that unlike the Release channel that the Developer Edition (Previously Aurora) does install by default with an additionsl profile. We even wrote a help article

Try searching the whole computer for places.sqlite because any Firefox profile should contain such a file, and of course that is the database that includes bookmarks. What do you find  ?

Please take care. Remember restoring bookmarks will overwrite & destroy the pre-existing bookmarks, so backup profiles and work with spare copies, or you could really and permanently lose 6 months of work.

I believe Windows 8 may recover previous versions of files, and potentially that may include places & bookmarks but again be careful to back up original files first. The firefox profile should have multiple snapshots of bookmarks anyway so coruption or loss of places is not normaly a disaster.