Look on your desktop. Do you see a folder called; Old Firefox?

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles

Thanks. Yes. I had already established that the data appears to be there and I have since copied the old bookmarks file to My Desktop for convenience, The only issue so far I appear to have is finding and opening the "new Firefox profile folder" in order to "paste" the old files in!

I had already tried the two links you sent. It is section 5 of the first one where I am stuck. How do you find and open the "new Firefox profile folder" in order to paste the old bookmarks etc there? I can find no explanation as to how to do this anywhere. The "window with your profile files" opens at stage 2, but right clicking does not open a "paste" option!

I have now found the file. Instructions, as usual, are written by people who already know that answers as so assume all users do also! However, on pasting it says file used by another process. I have tried creating another clean Firefox profile, but find the same result.

Type about:support in the address bar and press enter.

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

I had tried all of this, found the folder and used cut and paste with the bookmarks folder. It said it was loading it, but in the event it just wiped out the few new bookmarks I had put into the new installation and nothing else. I am now totally at a loss. The old bookmarks folder is now saved as copies in various places, but I am unable to load it into the new Firefox profile for some reason.

Copy the places.sqlite file. History and Bookmarks.

That is exactly the file I copied and tried to paste into Firefox. It showed that it was doing this, but instead simply wiped out the few new bookmarks I had temporarily set up and put nothing in their place.

I find it difficult to understand why software companies make things so difficult. It would have been relatively easy for Firefox to design their refresh button with an option to reinstall the bookmarks at the same time and so avoid these complications.

I am now reluctant to try again in case this crazy software wipes out the new bookmarks. Is there a way to reinstall the old bookmarks without deleting the new ones now?

Thanks.

I would add that Firefox does not make it clear what the Refresh button really does. I am sure others would have done this without realizing that there could be problems saving and reinstalling their bookmarks. Even if the correct procedure they state had worked, their instructions are not simple or intuitive and assume a knowledge of computer operation which many users would not have. That said, it still does not work!

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/refresh-firefox-reset-add-ons-and-settings

Firefox will save these items:

   Bookmarks
   Browsing history
   Passwords
   Open windows and tabs
   Cookies
   Web form auto-fill information
   Personal dictionary 

The above is copied to the new profile during a normal refresh. But sometimes, something goes wrong.

duckhelp said

I would add that Firefox does not make it clear what the Refresh button really does. I am sure others would have done this without realizing that there could be problems saving and reinstalling their bookmarks. Even if the correct procedure they state had worked, their instructions are not simple or intuitive and assume a knowledge of computer operation which many users would not have. That said, it still does not work!

Please provide that feedback to Mozilla here: https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/feedback

I agree that feature should be documented better than it is, especially the internal warning when Firefox is making the determination and recommending that a "reset" is needed.

Replacing places.sqlite or restoring a JSON backup will always replace all current bookmarks. You would have to create an HTML backup before restoring the bookmarks tat way. Since you are on Windows XP there are no backups created by Windows as part of a system restore point.

When you use the Firefox Refresh feature then a new profile is created and some personal data (bookmarks and history, form data, tabs) is automatically imported. The current profile folder will be moved to an "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop. Installed extensions and other customizations (toolbars, prefs) that you have made are lost and need to be redone.

It is possible to recover data from the "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop, but be cautious not to copy corrupted files to avoid carrying over problems.

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Recovering+important+data+from+an+old+profile
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox

I filed this a long time ago;

Please do not comment in bug reports. Bug 1141385 - Users are told to Refresh Firefox without being warned of results https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1141385

I think this is the source of the issue. It is the lack of a warning about the possible consequences of using the Refresh button, and even the name itself is misleading as it is more than just a refresh. The old bookmarks should be in the relevant old file even though, for some reason, they were not ported over. However, to try to just install them into Firefox now as before would clearly risk the new ones I have now created and it does get rid of a lot of redundant bookmarks. Unless there is a way of ensuring that the old data can be reinstalled without risking wiping out the new it is not worth risking. I will have a look at the links though just in case.

For the future, what is clearly needed is at least better warning and stated advice to and how to make a backup before using the Refresh button. The "Refresh" button looks like an innocuous option, but clearly this may not be the case!

Thanks.

Follow these instructions carefully:

• 1 On the current (new) profile,

To open the Bookmarks Manager, press the Alt or F10 key bring up the tool bar, and select Bookmarks. Hot key is <Control>(Mac=<Command>) <Shift> B.

Once the window is open, at the top of the page, press the button labeled Import and Backup. Select Export Bookmarks To HTML, and follow the prompts and save it to a HTML file.

Close Firefox

• 2 Copy the old places.sqlite file to the new profile.

• 3 Now you can merge the new bookmarks to the old.

Open the Bookmarks Manager. Repeat the instructions above, BUT select Import Bookmarks From HTML,