Hard drive crash, have manual backup of places.sqlite, substituting backup of places file does not restore bookmarks, what can I do to restore my bokmarks?
After restoring my hard drive (Windows 10) and reinstalling Firefox, I cannot recover my bookmarks. I probably outsmarted myself by manually backing up the SQLite files form my profile. I thought I could simply replace the default places.sqlite file in my new firefox profile, but the bookmarks don't show. How can I restore my bookmarks?
Chosen solution
File was apparently corrupt.
But I found an older .json file and restored from that. Only missing about a year of bookmarks instead of 15 years.
Lesson learned - don't think you are smarter than the software's backup program - just do what you're supposed to do.
Thanks for your help.
V/R, Chris
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I notice that you posted this same question under another name (ckwatson).
Did you have a problem with finishing the the registration with that name?
Did you also create a backup of the compressed .jsonlz4 backups in the bookmarkbackups folder?
Did you make sure to remove any other places.sqlite files, especially places.sqlite-shm and places.sqlite-wal, after restoring the places.sqlite file?
Did you previously had any (bookmark) problems with that profile?
I mis-typed my email the first try.
Strange thing, when I delete the places.sqlite file, (and the places.sqlite-shm and places.sqlite-wal are also deleted) and then copy the "old" places.sqlite file in to the profile folder, the size of the "old" file changes from 189KB to 10,240KB. Then, when I open Firefox the bookmarks are empty.
And no, I didn't copy the compressed .jsonlz4 backups - I didn't know I needed to because in years past just copying the places.sqlite file back into the profile worked.
The places.sqlite file is always created in a multiple of 10 MB chunks, so if the file you copied is only 189 KB then there is likely a problem and the file is corrupted.
You can try to check the file in a hex viewer or maybe a text editor to see if it is actually a valid places.sqlite file if you compare it with a valid places.sqlite file.
Chosen Solution
File was apparently corrupt.
But I found an older .json file and restored from that. Only missing about a year of bookmarks instead of 15 years.
Lesson learned - don't think you are smarter than the software's backup program - just do what you're supposed to do.
Thanks for your help.
V/R, Chris
You're welcome.
I see that the-edmeister marked your above reply as the solution.
Modified by cor-el