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Why are some of my bookmarks empty (nothing but name) and have to recover them every few days recently?

  • 4 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 7 views
  • Last reply by Terry

Terry
Terry
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Recently when I will go to the bookmark toolbar, many of my bookmarks are empty with no link in them and just a generic globe icon. You can click the link but it doesn't do anything because there is nothing there. I have been restoring them every few days the last 3 or 4 times, but would like to know what is the cause of it. Sometimes some of them are gone entirely. It's like they are dying. Many of them are pretty old, maybe 30 years or so, but I don't want to loose them. Thanks in advance for any help.

Recently when I will go to the bookmark toolbar, many of my bookmarks are empty with no link in them and just a generic globe icon. You can click the link but it doesn't do anything because there is nothing there. I have been restoring them every few days the last 3 or 4 times, but would like to know what is the cause of it. Sometimes some of them are gone entirely. It's like they are dying. Many of them are pretty old, maybe 30 years or so, but I don't want to loose them. Thanks in advance for any help.

All Replies (4)

Wesley Branton
Wesley Branton
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The first thing I'd recommend doing it exporting your bookmarks to an HTML file.

The problem could be used by a corrupt database file. You can try opening your Firefox profile folder and renaming the places.sqlite file to places.old. Then, when you open Firefox, you can import your bookmarks from the HTML file that you created.

This will force Firefox to rebuild that database file and hopefully will stop your bookmarks from disappearing.

Another possibility to consider is that maybe an add-on you have installed on Firefox is causing the issue. The best way to determine if that's the issue, is to disable all of your add-ons for a while to see if the issue still occurs. If it doesn't, then there's a good chance an add-on is to blame.

Hope this helps.

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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If you use Sync then best is to disconnect Sync temporarily during troubleshooting.

You can check for problems with the places.sqlite and favicons.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder.

  • use "Verify Integrity" button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page

In case errors are reported with "Verify Integrity" close and restart Firefox and retry.

If "Verify Integrity" cannot repair places.sqlite, rename/remove all places.sqlite and favicons.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder. Firefox will rebuild places.sqlite and restore the bookmarks from a recent JSON backup in the bookmarkbackups folder.

  • keep a backup copy of places.sqlite in case a new places.sqlite database has to be created

See also:

You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.

Terry
Terry Question owner
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Thanks for the help, I will try you guy's suggestions. I wondered if it wasn't maybe something to do with sync, so I turned it off, and it didn't seem to help.

Terry
Terry Question owner
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Also, I noticed that it said "Launcher Process Disabled due to failure" on the troubleshooting page. I don't suppose that has anything to do with it, but I found it odd. Thanks again.