Firefox bookmarks disappeared

[Cunjo]

They vanished! gone! All 300+ of them, along with all folders, live bookmarks and the bookmarks toolbar.

The weird thing is, that this time, the profiles are all still the same - it was ONLY the bookmarks that disappeared... my saved form info, history, passwords, plugins, tweaks, even live session cookis... all that other good stuff - it's all there. But the bookmarks are nowhere to be found.

Last time I used firefox, everything worked normally... since then, I had exited firefox (normally), had the computer hard lock and crash while trying to open the MSN Messenger window from the taskbar, rebooted, installed windows update, rebooted again... and now my bookmarks are gone.

Any help (like how I could get my bookmarks back... since I can't replace them) would be GREATLY appreciated, thanks.

 

[Law]

Your bookmarks are backup, I believe you can locate the original bookmarks.html in C:\Documents and Settings\users name \Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\****.default

File call bookmarks.html is there, if you don't see the file or directory, make sure to enable hidden file in folder option.

You can recover it if the bookmarks.html is not there, the backup is in bookmarkbackups folder, just bring it up one directory and rename the most recent backup to bookmarks.html

There's also a file call bookmarks.bak, that's another backup.

Should be that simple.

 

[Cunjo]

****, there are 5 backups of the bookmarks from since they disappeared a few days ago, and only ONE backup from before that, and it's 9 months old... most of the stuff I need isn't in it... any other ideas?

 

[Trotter]

Welcome to to wonderful frustrating world of Windows crashes.

Odds are that they are gone. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

 

[Cunjo]

The profanity in this place is really thick right now...

only remaining backup is early december of 2005... it has none of the bookmarks I need in it.

 

[Law]

****, there are 5 backups of the bookmarks from since they disappeared a few days ago, and only ONE backup from before that, and it's 9 months old... most of the stuff I need isn't in it... any other ideas?

Nope...I don't know where else, Firefox may have backup your most recent but it might not be that "recent" for you.

Is there a file call bookmarks.bak in the same folder as bookmarks.html?

 

[Cunjo]

bookmarks.bak is a 1kb (empty) file created the day my bookmarks went missing. My bookmarks.html and all backup files in the backup folder are also 1kb (empty) files created since then.

I have one bookmarks file in an older profile folder which predates the destruction of my bookmarks, and it is december of 05... with nothing even remotely useful or relevant in it.

I'm currently scanning my computer and all backups for ANY .htm or .html files created or modified in the last month... if my USB thumb drive (which I KNOW contained a backup of my bookmarks) hadn't been stolen last week, I might say there was some hope of finding it... but since I can't find it manually in any of the places it SHOULD be (the backup I had manually made near the beginning of this summer is also nowhere to be found) I'm thinking I've just been f'd in the a' by Microshaft.

 

[Jam3s-Zer0]

If they are that important you will remember them
That what I say.

#Another reason users should have good backups#

 

[Cunjo]

The important ones I need are things with long IPs and URLS that search engines will not turn up... database access points, etc...

What REALLY ticks me off though, is that I had a bunch of bookmarks in my toolbar folder which were there to remind me to do things, and not only are they all gone, but Firefox goes all apeshit crazy bouncing the window around every time I load it up now, because it keeps reverting to show the bookmarks toolbar when the folder isn't there.

 

[Trotter]

Have you tried uninstalling/reinstalling FF to see if it helped? I know I have seen it bring back bookmarks in situations similar to this.