bookmark help
Hello, I hope someone can help as I have a really big problem... As we all do.
I'm sorry this is probably going to be a long explanation but want all to have the full picture.
Over the years I would always back up my bookmarks as an html file whenever I reinstalled windows, got a new pc etc. One thing it seems I have missed and may be an issue is over the years I never made a firefox account. Just used the browser.
Recently like many I'm sure, I updated a windows 7 laptop to windows 10.
This one time, I forgot to back up the bookmarks as an html file, just the rest of my files on the pc. This might of been because of all the chaos at the holidays or because I had already learned that the new windows 10 install can save everything from windows 7.
I installed the windows 10 and selected the option to save all files and programs. When the install finished, there it was, what seemed to be my exact windows 7 laptop, files, and programs just with the windows 10 system now. FANTASTIC! All good!
Not good. A few days later the laptop would not boot up. It was frozen at the windows 10 logo part of the start up with the spinning and spinning but never opened.
Searched online for answers, found some, and tried all fixes. The laptop would also not start the auto repair feature.
At this point I had to take it somewhere. I have an online business and of course it was all in that laptop... and backed up from a few weeks earlier.
The place I would have taken it was closed for the week. took somewhere else.
I told them I needed two things only since the pc was backed up a couple weeks back.
The files on the desktop and my FIREFOX BOOKMARKS! Easy right?
They tried I'm sure the same methods I tried to get it to boot. They could not and said they would have to reinstall windows.
Fine, no problem, they were told clearly what to save and windows 10 can save it anyway during the install.
These idiots did not use the save all the files and programs option. They backed up files to their computers and wiped the laptop clean! Now what?
Well we know the installation makes a windows old file and we all know firefox saves bookmark back ups, saves around 15 or so but you'll always have the most recent.
This is the problem. Firefox didn't seem to saving the bookmarks or updating the backups.
In my brand new laptop I can see in the backup bookmarks folder that it is backing up everyday or so and in just under a week I already have several days of backup bookmarks in the folder.
On the old laptop, with the reinstall, the bookmark back up folder in the windows old folder has a list of backup json files but the last json file has a date created of September 2019 and then in the file name it seems to show a date of 12-22-19 which I thought was the bookmarks I needed seeing the December date in the file name. But it's not and they are what seems to be back from September. So why no back up json file for the last three months. I know that seems to be a short amount of time but first, the bookmarks seem to be older than september based on things I was doing at the time and in the last three months I have made major changes in my business and started a new one. EVERYTHING IS MISSING>
Hope I can find some help. I read an article about everything possibly being in sqlite file or something.
Thanks in advance.
Jon
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jdw6942 said
I never made a firefox account.
If you are talking about sync, that is an option to share profile data with other systems/profiles.
It is not meant as a backup.
Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles.{web link}
I use an add-on that makes backups of my user profile, Just In Case.
Unfortunately, it is not compatible with the current Firefox.
Every now and then, open the profile folder and create a copy of the current profile as is to another location on your hard drive. This way you will have a backup.
If you do this each day, you will not lose much data. This should be done with Firefox Closed.
Note: In case you need to restore from these backups, you may need to overwrite old or corrupted files.
So why no back up json file for the last three months.
Now knowing what your files look like . . . Bookmarks backups are created by Firefox every time there is a change. No changes, no new backups.
Does this help?
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Unable_to_process_the_backup_file_-_Firefox
jscher2000 has a tool on his website to extract out your bookmarks and save them to an HTML-format bookmark export file. If you want to try it, here is the page:
https://www.jeffersonscher.com/res/bookbackreader.html
To open the bookmarkbackups folder in Finder, use the "Open in Finder" button in the first table on the Troubleshooting Information page, and double-click into bookmarkbackups where you should see several dated files. From there you can drag and drop onto the conversion tool.
To import the HTML file, see the steps in this article: Import Bookmarks from an HTML file.
There were changes almost every day to the bookmarks during that time. This is my issue and my concern. The last three to four months there have been tons of bookmarks added as we are starting a new business and saved a lot of websites from, ideas, competitors, etc.
Most of what I see in response is what to do to prevent back up issues. I do understand that but is not really helpful at the moment because the situation has already happened. As stated above I used to always save my bookmark back ups myself any time I had a system change. This was a different situation where I took for the first time, a computer to a repair place and they wiped it clean.
So the thing Ireally need to know is if the json file back ups were not backing up for whatever reason, is there any other way to recover the bookmarks? A friend mentioned the fact that I was always mentioning the back up bookmarks and he asked since the reinstalled and you get the windows folder, wouldn't there actually be a working file? the bookmark file itself in the windows old folder somewhere?
There might have been a problem with the places.sqlite database, assuming that you always close Firefox properly via "File -> Exit/Quit" and not by clicking the close button.
Ok.........
There are many reasons this could have happened.
There are many things I can do in the future to prevent this.
Does anyone know how to get them back?