Lost bookmarks in Mozilla Firefox

Hi,

I turned off my computer yesterday as Firefox had stopped letting me access internet sites. I did it normally. When I logged back on, all my bookmarks had disappeared. I've tried things people have told me to do including checking to see if I have multiple profile, I read a page by one of the moderator about restoring them, but none of it worked or was applicable to my situation. Another big problem is that Firefox will not allow me to save any new bookmarks. What's going on? Is it corrupted? Are my bookmarks lost forever?

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

Hi pensierobello,

Welcome to the BBS!

You didn't say which version of Firefox you're using, but 1.5.x provides its own backup (bookmarks.bak) of the bookmarks.html file.
Both should be in your profile folder, normally found at C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles.

Application Data and its subfolders are hidden by default, so you'll have to go into Control Panel > Folder Options. On the View tab select "View hidden files and folders ". If neither of the two bookmarks files is present, I'd do a search of your hard drive for them.

A very handy extension is Bookmark Backup 0.4.1. It will backup not only your bookmarks (not really necessary since FF 1.5.x), but nearly any other FF file or folder you choose, and it updates itself every time you shutdown FF.

As to why FF will no longer let you save bookmarks, it sounds as though a configuration setting may have been changed. Or, your FF installation may have become corrupted, as you suggest. You could try uninstalling (be sure to save your profile) and reinstalling it.

 

My 1.5.0.4 has also a folder called "bookmarksbackup ", with daily backups of the past five days bookmarks.html file. If the old bookmarks.html file is still there, and, probably, it is, but corrupted, rename it to something different, and then rename either the .bak or one of the daily backups to bookmarks.html.
If it does not work, the problem may be elsewhere, as Jim suggested.
I would go with uninstalling/reinstalling the program, first. The profile unaffected.