Why does sync delete, create duplicates and relocate bookmarks randomly?
I have 4 devices A, B C and D. They were using the old sync without a hitch, but when I updated to the new sync, things started to go haywire.
Specifically some bookmarks are gone altogether, some are relocated and some seem to be hidden. The result is that now I have (when looking at the 'Show all bookmarks'/Library) in:
- A 3 copies of 'All Bookmarks/Bookmark Toolbar' with various level of content
- B I have a single copy of 'All Bookmarks/Bookmark Toolbar' without the newest additions
- C I have likewise a single copy of 'All Bookmarks/Bookmark Toolbar' but part of the directory structure is missing, and instead can be found in 'All Bookmarks/Unsorted Bookmarks'. There are also some bookmarks which are apparently invisible, eg. a bookmark should be located under 'All Bookmarks/Bookmark Toolbar/dir1/dir2/dir3', but that directory is empty. I can not locate it anywhere by browsing the directory tree, but it is found when I use the search functionality. It is of no help that the location of the bookmark is not shown in any way when eg. looking at the properties of the bookmark
- D which has an outdated bookmark tree some 2 (older than B) weeks ago despite it claiming to be synced
A, C and D are all FF 32.0.2 on 64bit Fedora 20, B is FF 32.0.2 Win7 64bit.
Is going back 4 weeks and abandoning all changes since the only way to get any coherence back to the sync?
Poltsi
All Replies (7)
There is a similar question posed earlier, what with fixing the places.sqlite, but that does not solve the issue.
I can 'fix' the places.sqlite, but as soon as I reconnect to the sync, everything becomes messed up again, now i have two browser setups with a large amount of the bookmarks in 'All Bookmarks/Unsorted Bookmarks' and when I tested for the invisible file mentioned previously, it now shows up twice, one is in 'All Bookmarks/Unsorted Bookmarks' and the other still invisible.
Just to verify what is coming from the sync, I took in a fifth firefox (32.0.3 Windows 7 64bit), with no profile, started it and set up the sync. The result is that now I have 3 separate profiles where the bookmarks are all totally messed up, part of them in the original location, but most of them relocated into the Unsorted Bookmarks.
IMHO this means that the repository is FUBAR and the only way is to piece all the bookmarks (some 3000) manually back together, using a (hopefully intact) old backup. Likewise it is obvious that the Firefox sync functionality is not of production quality and should thus be avoided.
Modified by Poltsi
This seems to be an endemic problem with the Firefox sync.
What I did was removing all the profiles on all the devices, then reconnect one device, with an empty profile, to the sync.
What I got was a messed up bookmark tree (the bookmarks were dispersed all over the place, with copies and empty folders). I then reverted the bookmarks to last known good backup, had the sync do its job, and made sure no more crap was pushed from the server.
After this I created a new FF profile for each dev and made sure they got a clean bookmark tree from the server. This seemed to work.
However now the issue is back, and it is clear that the problem is when you add bookmarks from more than one device. This will result in the original folder in the folder tree to be empty, and all of its content ends up now in the Unsorted Bookmarks.
Needless to point out that this is not good, and indicates how badly the sync implementation was tested.
Did you create a new Sync account when you created a new Profile for all those devices?
And, where did that "clean bookmark tree" come from - which "server"? Hopefully not from the flummoxed Sync account.
Did you create a new Sync account when you created a new Profile for all those devices?
No, I used the same one.
And, where did that "clean bookmark tree" come from - which "server"? Hopefully not from the flummoxed Sync account.
If it was 'flummoxed', then why was the initial bookmark tree ok, as seen from the browser, when I reattached the empty FF profile to the existing sync account? Sync messed up the bookmark tree (BMT) only after making additions to the BMT from multiple devices.
Is there some metadata attached to the sync account which affects how the bookmark sync is handled, which can not be erased, and that would require the creation of a totally new sync account?
This problem is still present in the latest FF. I now constantly get crapped bookmark tree from the sync server on one of the installations (Windows 7 64bit), even if I altogether remove the profile, create a new one and connect it to the sync. The result is that hundreds of bookmarks as well as some subfolders end up in the 'Unsorted Bookmarks'. This does not happen on the other devices (Linux/Android) It appears that FF on Windows can not properly handle the data coming from the server, but instead drops bookmarks randomly to the 'Unsorted Bookmarks' folder.
This is, mildly said, very annoying, because it means that I need to resort to manually export the bookmarks from one installation, and then import it to another.
Poltsi
Please create a new Sync account and see if Sync works properly. Be patient when adding new devices to the new account; maybe wait a day after adding each "new device" to the new account.
Done:
- removed the account
- cleansed the bookmarks
- exported them (one for the Windows-based, another from the Linux-based they were largely identical with some bookmarks existing in one, and others in the other. For testing purpose)
- removed the Firefox profiles
- Imported the bookmark backups, one for Linux, other for Windows
- Created sync-account on one Windows machine
- Wait 2 days
- Create a FF profile on another Windows, connect it to sync
- Remove the unecessary bookmarks/folders which are by default on an empty profile which now got synced
- Waited 3 days
- Create profile on a Linux-machine, import the Linux-bookmarks
- Connect Linux FF profile to sync
Result (2mins and going as I write this message): ~70 bookmarks are now in the Unsorted Bookmarks-folder. These bookmarks are present and identical in both L(inux) and W(indows) bookmarks, both by value as well as location, so there should be no reason for these to become 'Unsorted'.
Poltsi