Hi, correct they are gone. I do wish there was better notification for people.

Below is going to Help --> About --> what's New

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/62.0/releasenotes/?utm_campaign=whatsnew&utm_medium=firefox-browser&utm_source=firefox-browser

Removed the description field for bookmarks. Users who have stored descriptions using the field may wish to export these descriptions as html or json files, as they will be removed in a future release.

I'm sorry. That's unacceptable ... not your response, Pkshadow - you have been helpful, thank you - but Mozilla's actions. What use is the warning after the fact? I take it that it's too late for me to "export these descriptions as html or json files" now. You should have told me that BEFORE you made the change. After the fact is useless to me ... and I lost A LOT of information.

So, is there any way to recover this information? Or do I just have to live with it ... and maybe switch to Chrome ;-/

The notes are there, but the box to view and edit them is gone. (It is expected they will be deleted by Firefox 64, so this is a good time to export them.)

Export Bookmarks to a locally saved Web Page (HTML File)

Please see this article: Export Firefox bookmarks to an HTML file to back up or transfer bookmarks. That creates a web page, so you can open it in a Firefox tab, or in any browser. You'll notice the descriptions nested below the linked titles of the bookmarks that have descriptions.

Optional: Migrate Bookmarks to Zotero

There probably are a number of tools you could use to manage notes and annotations on your bookmarks. This is one of them.

Zotero is an open source bibliographic/research tool for collecting references. Zotero knows how to read a Firefox HTML bookmarks file and will preserve the descriptions. You can keep your storage purely local, or you can optionally sync with the Zotero cloud.

This is a one-way trip: you can send new references to Zotero from within Firefox using a Zotero add-on, but you won't be able to read/edit bookmark descriptions from within Firefox.

If you want to try it:

The Zotero research tool is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux from https://www.zotero.org/

When you import a bookmarks.html file, it creates entries for each page but it flattens the folder structure, so it comes out like this:

• bookmarks.html, with top-level Bookmarks Menu items
  • Bookmarks Toolbar folder
  • Folder1
  • Folder2
  • Other Bookmarks folder

When you click a bookmark, Zotero displays the Title, URL, and "Abstract" which contains the imported Description. (Screenshot #1) Double-clicking the item will launch the page in the default browser.

Zotero also has an optional Firefox Connector webextension, which allow saving new pages to a Zotero collection (either under the bookmarks structure, or other folders the user created in Zotero). (Screenshot #2)

(I didn't look at cloud sync.)

Using a second program is less convenient than using Firefox features or a fully self-contained Firefox extension. However, it might suit your needs.

Okay, so now Firefox is just being a butt!

I open up my bookmarks and click on "Export bookmarks to HTML", the save dialog opens, then Firefox immediately crashes and closes before I can do anything. Doing it repeatedly, even after rebooting.

Suggestions?

Actually, it's crashing any time I try to save. I tried downloading Zotero (I have it on my other computer) and same thing - save dialog crashes the browser.

Whoa, that definitely should not happen. I'm not sure what's causing that. Does the Mozilla Crash Reporter pop up to gather information about the crash, or does Windows steps in at that point and show it's crash dialog (sometimes it asks if you want to search the web for information)?

"Plan B" is to convert a backup file. These are files that Firefox creates nearly every day if you add a lot of bookmarks.

First, let's open the folder that contains these files in Windows Explorer. Then we'll drag-and-drop it onto the converter.

Open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help > Troubleshooting Information
• (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
• type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

In the first table on the page, on the Profile Folder row, click the "Open Folder" button. This should launch a new window listing various files and folders in Windows Explorer.

Double-click into the bookmarkbackups folder. Resize this window so you can see Firefox behind it, then click back to Firefox.

Open

https://www.jeffersonscher.com/ffu/bookbackreader.html

Then drag a recent bookmark backup onto the white box to decompress it and enable the export buttons.

Note: for some reason, very large bookmark files destroy the performance of this page. I suggest saving the HTML export and then closing the tab, otherwise, it seems to keep using more resources.

If you open the resulting HTML file in a Firefox tab, does it seem to have all your bookmarks?

Whoops, our posts crossed. It sounds like Firefox may be having privilege issues saving files. Maybe restarting Windows will help with that? Otherwise, you could try the steps in my previous reply using Microsoft's Edge browser.

No error message or pop up. Firefox simply closes. When it reopens it gives me the "restor session / new session" option. I've tried both. Nada.

I've restarted the computer ... nope.

I'll try the backup route you suggest. I'll let you know. Thanks.

I think they are thinking of speed and stability. Dealing with people that have 300-400 tabs open at the same time, is a lot of fun.

So you have the bookmark one, now you have the Profile where everything is stored that is yours (sorta)

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/export-firefox-bookmarks-to-backup-or-transfer

also :

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data

Once open a Profile outside of Firefox as do not open it when it is running your info will be here :

• bookmarks and history: places.sqlite
• bookmark backups: compressed .jsonlz4 JSON backups in the bookmarkbackups folder
• logins.json (passwords) and key4.db (58+) or key3.db (57 and older) (decryption key) for Passwords saved in the Password Manager
• if you only have key3.db then make sure to remove an existing key4.db
• sessionstore.jsonlz4 for open tabs and pinned tabs (see also the sessionstore-backups folder)

So can get your bookmarks this way or can trust in the Bookmarks and uninstall Firefox and Reinstall :

• https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/

Or a Refresh which will put Profile on desktop in folder called OldFirefoxData :

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/refresh-firefox-reset-add-ons-and-settings

Which ever you pick you have the location, go get a copy of the Profile then do 1 of the above.

jscher2000 I imported a backup file into your site, and ... same problem unfortunately. I can't export/save without Firefox crashing.

I did, however, copy and paste the raw data into a text file, and my missing info is there. So, if nothing else, I can sift through it can recover what I need.

I'll keep trying to resolve the crashing browser issue (because I don't really want to have to sift through all that data), but if nothing improves at least I have the raw data. If I can get the browser to stop crashing I'll try some of these other solutions. But I basically can't do anything else until Firefox starts working properly.

Thanks.

I'll be back if I need more help.

If Firefox can't save a download, we have some really severe issue to fix. But meanwhile, the converter page should work in Chrome or Edge (it might not work in Internet Explorer).

Actually, Chrome is doing the same thing - closing if I try to save something.

It is sounding a bit malware-ish.

Yeah. I'm starting to wonder. Did a clean boot - didn't help.

MS Edge isn't crashing, but chrome and firefox both are.

One thing that troubles me is the applications behave as though they are exiting normally, with no crash dialogs.

Could you test in Firefox's Safe Mode? In its Safe Mode, Firefox temporarily deactivates extensions, hardware acceleration, and some other advanced features to help you assess whether these are causing the problem.

If Firefox is not running: Hold down the Shift key when starting Firefox. (On Mac, hold down the option/alt key instead of the Shift key.)

If Firefox is running: You can restart Firefox in Safe Mode using either:

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help button > Restart with Add-ons Disabled
• (menu bar) Help menu > Restart with Add-ons Disabled

and OK the restart.

Both scenarios: A small dialog should appear. Click "Start in Safe Mode" (not Refresh).

Any improvement?

Another thing to check would be the Windows Event Viewer, although information overload and inscrutable codes may lay ahead.

The Event Viewer is one of the little programs that comes with Windows. If you type event into the search box, Windows should show Event Viewer as one of the potential matches. If you click that, it should show a multi-pane window with a number of different categories. Under Windows Logs, you should find Application Logs. As a lot of events are generated, it's normal for that log to take a long time to display. The most recent events are displayed first, so start checking from the top for any events related to Firefox. Maybe you can find some information here?

Running in Safe Mode didn't change anything - same problem.

I looked at the Application Logs. There are multiple error records for both Firefox and Chrome. I'm not a computer techie, so I can't decode them.

The latest one was this ( I can post others if you want)

firefox.exe 
  62.0.0.6816 
  5b880efd 
  ntdll.dll 
  10.0.17134.228 
  6d15b6d7 
  c0000409 
  000000000008a90f 
  3654 
  01d447f3ebe17098 
  C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe 
  C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll 
  8f923487-64ea-4ce1-8b6b-2c7828ddbf02

All the error logs I found for either Firefox or Chrome mentioned ntdll.dll

Hmm, hardly any results for that combination -- https://www.google.com/search?q=%22c0000409%22+%22000000000008a90f%22

Possibly this code/offset varies from crash to crash and doesn't help us identify a particular cause.

Were there lines of data above firefox.exe that are the type of event?

Here's everything I get on that error:

Faulting application name: firefox.exe, version: 62.0.0.6816, time stamp: 0x5b880efd Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.17134.228, time stamp: 0x6d15b6d7 Exception code: 0xc0000409 Fault offset: 0x000000000008a90f Faulting process id: 0x3654 Faulting application start time: 0x01d447f3ebe17098 Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll Report Id: 8f923487-64ea-4ce1-8b6b-2c7828ddbf02 Faulting package full name:

- System

 - Provider 

  [ Name]  Application Error 

 - EventID 1000 

  [ Qualifiers]  0 

  Level 2 

  Task 100 

  Keywords 0x80000000000000 

 - TimeCreated 

  [ SystemTime]  2018-09-09T04:17:03.588893700Z 

  EventRecordID 13935 

  Channel Application 

  Computer Cowie1 

  Security 

- EventData

  firefox.exe 
  62.0.0.6816 
  5b880efd 
  ntdll.dll 
  10.0.17134.228 
  6d15b6d7 
  c0000409 
  000000000008a90f 
  3654 
  01d447f3ebe17098 
  C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe 
  C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll 
  8f923487-64ea-4ce1-8b6b-2c7828ddbf02 

_________

I'm also getting a couple other frequent errors - don't know if they're related

- System

 - Provider 

  [ Name]  MsiInstaller 

 - EventID 11316 

  [ Qualifiers]  0 

  Level 2 

  Task 0 

  Keywords 0x80000000000000 

 - TimeCreated 

  [ SystemTime]  2018-09-10T01:16:36.258133200Z 

  EventRecordID 14029 

  Channel Application 

  Computer Cowie1 

 - Security 

  [ UserID]  S-1-5-18 

- EventData

  Product: Avast Update Helper -- Error 1316. The specified account already exists.  
  (NULL) 
  (NULL) 
  (NULL) 
  (NULL) 
  (NULL) 
   
  7B41393244414233392D344532432D343330342D394142362D4243343445363842353545327D 

Binary data:

In Words

0000: 3239417B 33424144 45342D39 342D4332 0010: 2D343033 36424139 3443422D 38364534 0020: 45353542 7D32

In Bytes

0000: 7B 41 39 32 44 41 42 33 {A92DAB3 0008: 39 2D 34 45 32 43 2D 34 9-4E2C-4 0010: 33 30 34 2D 39 41 42 36 304-9AB6 0018: 2D 42 43 34 34 45 36 38 -BC44E68 0020: 42 35 35 45 32 7D B55E2}

_________________________________

- System

 - Provider 

  [ Name]  Office 2016 Licensing Service 

 - EventID 0 

  [ Qualifiers]  0 

  Level 2 

  Task 0 

  Keywords 0x80000000000000 

 - TimeCreated 

  [ SystemTime]  2018-09-09T23:32:08.584669300Z 

  EventRecordID 14001 

  Channel Application 

  Computer Cowie1 

  Security 

- EventData

  Subscription licensing service failed: -1073422333

Hi dudabrad, is this from the Event Viewer? Normally there is an event type such as BEX which we can search for clues. This might be shown in the list/table view above the part you copy/pasted. If it just says "Application Error" that unfortunately isn't much to go on.

The Avast update and Office licensing don't sound like they are related, but perhaps there is a hidden connection I can't think of.