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Its all gone!

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  • 5 have this problem
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  • Last reply by justinhart

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When I started my computer today everything on firefox was gone: my history, my bookmarks my downloads. I can not recover the bookmarks. When I try to recover the bookmarks a dialog box opens that says it is unable to process these request. Please help!

When I started my computer today everything on firefox was gone: my history, my bookmarks my downloads. I can not recover the bookmarks. When I try to recover the bookmarks a dialog box opens that says it is unable to process these request. Please help!

Chosen solution

they should be back in place once you go to firefox 54 after you copy the contents of your backed-up profile into the live profile (do it only while all firefox windows are closed). you won't be automatically updated to firefox 55 anymore until we have a fix for this issue in place (should be early next week).

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Many have reported problems with v55.

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

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-run-firefox-when-profile-missing-inaccessible


Type about:profiles<enter> in the address bar. How many profiles are listed? How many should be there?

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No unfortunately I do not

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I called for more help.

Start Firefox in Safe Mode {web link} by holding down the <Shift> (Mac=Options) key, and then starting Firefox.

A small dialog should appear. Click Start In Safe Mode (not Refresh). Is the problem still there?

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This unfortunately did not solve my problem. I still can not save favorites, or see any previous history.

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You can check for problems with the places.sqlite database (bookmarks and history) in the Firefox profile folder.

See also:

If the Places Maintenance extension can't repair the places.sqlite database then remove all places.sqlite file(s) in the Firefox profile folder to make Firefox rebuild the places.sqlite database from the most recent JSON backup in the bookmarkbackups folder.

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.

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Ok so I tried deleting the places file several with no changes. I also confirmed that the file is not read only. I also tried the add-on listed above without improvement. I have also tried deleting firefox and reinstalling. All to no avail. I cannot save bookmarks and the firefox sees no history. I would kill for any help.

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Try to create a new profile to test if your current profile is causing the problem.

See "Creating a profile":

If the new profile works then you can transfer files from a previously used profile to the new profile, but be cautious not to copy corrupted files to avoid carrying over problems.

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one more question: when you type "about:profiles" into your firefox address bar what is the full path of your profile shown in the root folder column?

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Unfortunately creating a new profile does not allow me to save bookmarks nor do I have any previous history I can see.

Here is the path you where looking for. I hope it helps. Thank you for all of the help.

C:\Users\Justin' Laptop\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\5o6jk4jx.default-1502318784885

One of the things I tried just recently was to delete all of the contents of the profile folder then remove and reinstall fire fox. That also did not help. Also I now there are no booksmarks listed to restore. Although I did keep a copy of the profile folder to pull bookmarks from should we ever get this resolved.

Again all the best. Have a good morning.

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great - we now think that the ' (apostrophe) in the path is playing into the problem and working on a fix for that. thank you for your help!

in the meantime you could downgrade to firefox 54 to alleviate the problem. you can find all language versions of the old builds here: https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/54.0.1/win64/

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Excellent thank you. I will install firefox 54 momentarily. Will there be a way recover my old bookmarks.

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Chosen Solution

they should be back in place once you go to firefox 54 after you copy the contents of your backed-up profile into the live profile (do it only while all firefox windows are closed). you won't be automatically updated to firefox 55 anymore until we have a fix for this issue in place (should be early next week).

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Thank you. That solved me problem! I installed Mozilla 54 then copied the contents of my old profile folder into the new installation and all bookmarks and history have returned. Thank you so much for your help!

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For some reason Netflix stopped working on Firefox a few weeks ago. Do you have any thoughts on the cause?

The error code listed by Netflix is F053-1803

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Clear the cache and remove the cookies from websites that cause problems via the "3-bar" Firefox menu button (Options/Preferences).

"Clear the cache":

  • Options/Preferences -> Advanced -> Network -> Cached Web Content: "Clear Now"

"Remove the cookies" from websites that cause problems.

  • Options/Preferences -> Privacy -> "Use custom settings for history" -> Cookies: "Show Cookies"

You can remove all data stored in Firefox from a specific domain via "Forget About This Site" in the right-click context menu of an history entry ("History -> Show All History" or "View -> Sidebar -> History").

Using "Forget About This Site" will remove all data stored in Firefox from that domain like bookmarks and history and cookies and passwords and cache and exceptions, so be cautious. If you have a password or other data from that domain that you do not want to lose then make sure to backup this data or make a note.

You can't recover from this 'forget' unless you have a backup of involved files.

If you revisit a 'forgotten' website then data from that website will be saved once again.

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Thank you for your help. I did clear the cookies and all the data firefox stores from Netflix, but unfortunately I still get the same error message. I am a little leery of deleting all cached information because I would loose passwords and the like. Do you have any additional suggestions?

Thank you

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Passwords are stored in the Password Manager.

Cache and cookies store information that other websites leave on your computer. If this information is removed, you may lose things like site settings and your login status.

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You can backup the logins.json and key3.db files in the profile folder. Then you can restore these files after having used "Forget About This Site".

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.

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I am hesitant to delete all of the cache. Some of that information makes web surfing easier. Do we know for certain that the cache is what is causing this problem? I recently uninstalled firefox 55 and installed 54. In that process I deleted all of the profile data in the profile folder. Would any cache information be saved from before this re installation?

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justinhart said

Do we know for certain that the cache is what is causing this problem?

The only way to know is to clear it. Sometimes the data in the cache or cookies gets corrupt. Clearing then removes the bad data.

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