Firefox Sync messes up Bookmarks (sort order, multiple instances)
I have firefox on several windows machines and one linux machine. All are laptops and desktops, no mobile devices.
Sync messes up bookmarks. All the time. I have waited for a couple of years for this to be fixed, but to no avail. Every time I sort on one computer, the order messes up on other computers. Sometimes I move a bookmark from one folder to another, it appears twice everywhere, in its original and new locations. Deleted bookmarks often reappear.
What is going on? Sync is one of the biggest reasons I use Firefox, and the bookmarks are slowly but surely getting unusable.
All Replies (1)
Sounds like a corrupt places.sqlite database and Sync is propagating that corruption.
To fix that situation. 1. Disable Sync on all devices until all devices are fixed. 2. Run Places Maintenance on all devices, to effect a fix of the Places database on each device. see below for an alternate method https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/places-maintenance/ 3. Change your Firefox Account password (for Sync) to clear the corrupt data from the Sync server. 4. Then connect the first "desktop" device to the Sync server and let that device to stay connected to Sync for an extended period (IOW, keep Firefox on that device running for a long time). 5. The following day connect the 2nd "desktop" device to Sync and let that one run for an extended period. Make sure that your bookmarks are synchronizing correctly and you aren't losing any of them or seeing them getting corrupted in any manner.
Alternate option to using the Places Maintenance extension is a new feature in Firefox. In about:support below Important Modified Preferences and Important Locked Preferences is Places Database and a Verify Integrity button. I have tried that new feature, but I don't know if it is a full replacement for Places Maintenance or not; I haven't had a corrupt places.sqlite file that needed "maintenance" to do a complete evaluation of that new feature yet.
In conclusion: Disable Sync from a device where you are rearranging bookmarks. Firefox will send every change made to "bookmarks" to Sync immediately, but my understanding is that Firefox may stop sending those changes at some point and then do a "batch send" send when it thinks the changes have stopped. I haven't played with it enough to learn what the "trigger" is to stop doing an "immediate send".
Also, Firefox "works real hard" when bookmarks are being moved around, have the Task Manager open & minimized to see what I mean. The CPU meter in the System Tray "pegs" quite frequently; push too many changes too fast and bookmarks can be lost altogether. I have done that more times than I care to remember. I don't know WFT is going on with that, but dragging bookmarks seems to take more out of the processor than any other action that is done in Firefox. It has gotten better as I progressed from a single core processor to a dual core and then to a 4 core processor over the years, but it still takes a long time to move a lot of bookmarks around. And I have kept an eye on the CPU meter when rearranging bookmarks ever since Places can about in Firefox 3.0 back in June 2008. Patience and waiting until Firefox has "digested" changes before moving additional bookmarks is wise, IMO.