Updates needed on article: Fix "The bookmarks and history system will not be functional" error message
Came across the article, but found a solution that allowed me to keep everything without losing my places file.
Removing places.sqlite-shm and places.sqlite-wal while firefox was not running allowed FF to start without a problem.
Wšykne wótegrona (2)
Note that places.sqlite-shm and places.sqlite-wal are SQLite temp files that shouldn't be there when Firefox isn't running.
- wal: Write-Ahead Logging
- shm: Shared Memory files
- http://www.sqlite.org/wal.html
Agreed, and fuser showed that the files weren't in use.
Using sqlite from the command line to access places.sqlite when the files were there seemed to work till I did ".schema" and then I got an error that indicated corruption.
Removing the files and then retrying ".schema" worked flawlessly.
Telling users about this possible solution would help them recover their history, etc. that they may have spent a lot of time creating.