Using restore bookmarks hangs firefox
So i accidentally started a restore bookmarks by a misclick, this caused my firefox to hang so i had to kill the process. now all my bookmarks were gone, i have tried to restore them using both the import and backup firefox has, ive tried to convert a previous json file into sql but that only worked partly, firefox just starts hanging indefinitely whatever recovery method i try. i tried deleting the sqlite and favicon files mentioned in other posts but that didn't help either
All Replies (6)
Look on your desktop. Do you see a folder called; Old Firefox? Look inside. Look for the folder with the latest creation date.
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
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-run-firefox-when-profile-missing-inaccessible
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recover-user-data-missing-after-firefox-update
If you have sync, and there is a problem anywhere, Shut Down Sync Immediately On All Devices to prevent the problem from spreading. Once the problem is fixed, perform the same repair on all computers/profiles before using sync again.
[v57+] Places Maintenance is built into Firefox.
Type about:support<enter> in the address bar.
You will find Places Database near the bottom. Press the Verify Integrity button.
If any errors are reported, check this link: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fix-bookmarks-and-history-will-not-be-functional
The places.sqlite file contains your History and Bookmarks. And it looks like it is corrupted.
Type about:support<enter> in the address bar.
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.
Locate the above file. Then rename or delete it. Restart Firefox. The browser should then create a new place.sqlite and recover your bookmarks from the backup files.
Note: Your history is not backed up and will be lost.
How many bookmarks are in the file and what is the file size ?
If the file size and the number of bookmarks is very large then it can take considerably more time to restore a JSON backup. You can try this at some spare time and let the restore process running for a long time.
FredMcD said
If you have sync, and there is a problem anywhere, Shut Down Sync Immediately On All Devices to prevent the problem from spreading. Once the problem is fixed, perform the same repair on all computers/profiles before using sync again. [v57+] Places Maintenance is built into Firefox. Type about:support<enter> in the address bar. You will find Places Database near the bottom. Press the Verify Integrity button. If any errors are reported, check this link: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fix-bookmarks-and-history-will-not-be-functional The places.sqlite file contains your History and Bookmarks. And it looks like it is corrupted. Type about:support<enter> in the address bar. 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. Locate the above file. Then rename or delete it. Restart Firefox. The browser should then create a new place.sqlite and recover your bookmarks from the backup files. Note: Your history is not backed up and will be lost.
there is no old firefox because this was not an update issue, and verify the integrity just gave me the following without doing anything:> Task: checkIntegrity + The places.sqlite database is sane + The favicons.sqlite database is sane > Task: invalidateCaches + The caches have been invalidated > Task: checkCoherence + The database is coherent > Task: expire + Database cleaned up > Task: originFrecencyStats + Recalculated origin frecency stats > Task: vacuum + Initial database size is 15360KiB + The database has been vacuumed + Final database size is 15360KiB > Task: stats + Places.sqlite size is 15360KiB + Favicons.sqlite size is 5120KiB + pragma_user_version is 54 + pragma_page_size is 32768 + pragma_cache_size is -2048 + pragma_journal_mode is wal + pragma_synchronous is 1 + History can store a maximum of 153003 unique pages + Table moz_origins has 5949 records + Table moz_places has 28442 records + Table moz_historyvisits has 23 records + Table moz_inputhistory has 0 records + Table moz_bookmarks has 28986 records + Table moz_bookmarks_deleted has 0 records + Table moz_keywords has 0 records + Table sqlite_sequence has 0 records + Table moz_anno_attributes has 1 records + Table moz_annos has 7026 records + Table moz_items_annos has 0 records + Table moz_meta has 4 records + Table sqlite_stat1 has 15 records + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_origins_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_inputhistory_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_bookmarks_deleted_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_keywords_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_anno_attributes_1 + Index moz_places_url_hashindex + Index moz_places_hostindex + Index moz_places_visitcount + Index moz_places_frecencyindex + Index moz_places_lastvisitdateindex + Index moz_places_guid_uniqueindex + Index moz_places_originidindex + Index moz_historyvisits_placedateindex + Index moz_historyvisits_fromindex + Index moz_historyvisits_dateindex + Index moz_bookmarks_itemindex + Index moz_bookmarks_parentindex + Index moz_bookmarks_itemlastmodifiedindex + Index moz_bookmarks_dateaddedindex + Index moz_bookmarks_guid_uniqueindex + Index moz_keywords_placepostdata_uniqueindex + Index moz_annos_placeattributeindex + Index moz_items_annos_itemattributeindex > Task: _refreshUI it does seem like firefox is restoring something from somewhere, but by itself and without my permission, if i delete all the bookmarks and sqlite fav+sqlite places it still brings back fragmented bookmarks from somewhere
cor-el said
How many bookmarks are in the file and what is the file size ? If the file size and the number of bookmarks is very large then it can take considerably more time to restore a JSON backup. You can try this at some spare time and let the restore process running for a long time.
this is what a 100% working file of my bookmarks is called: bookmarks-2021-06-10_28981_H9VgfFDHuEEJHbv91CiYqw==.jsonlz4
the issue is to get firefox to accept the restoration, but it seems to disregard it and use some other source or just hang, i left it restore this overnight and some weird version of it came back, like firefox is using some other source to restore from.
That file contains 28981 bookmarks, so it shouldn't be a big surprise that it takes a long time to process the bookmarks and you will have to wait a lot longer to see whether the restore finishes.