jayjonbeach said

Somehow FF updated on me, it is now version 36.0 and ALL MY BOOKMARKS AND HISTORY ARE GONE!!!! This is a huge problem, I need them back, help please!

Also, my Holaplus icon is missing from the icon spot, I tried disabling and re-enabling and no dice. Not good either.

All my preferences are gone, WTF kind of update is this? I also get the first run start page EVERY time I start FF, this is just horrible all around. The more I use it and look the more issues there are.

I REALLY NEED MY BOOKMARKS BACK

You can check for problems with the places.sqlite database file in the Firefox profile folder.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Bookmarks_history_and_toolbar_buttons_not_working_-_Firefox
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Bookmarks+not+saved#w_fix-the-bookmarks-file

• Places Maintenance: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/places-maintenance/

You can check if a new profile has been created. This can happen if there has been a problem with the profiles.ini file, possibly caused by security software on your computer. You can also check if there is a "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop as the result of a reset (refresh).

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/reset-firefox-easily-fix-most-problems

See:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recovering_a_missing_profile
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Recovering+important+data+from+an+old+profile

Thanks for the reply. I think you are on the right track here, what a mess it is. I have tried to save some changes like new tab opening to google, and then when I close FF and re-open it only SOME of these changes stick? (that one does not)

In one of the links you provided it showed where to find the profiles, I can only find one, called "woj2vacq.default". This looks really bad.

The only possible good news, is it looks like there are backups of the bookmarks, but I can't figure out what to do with them. I have one dated today, one yesterday and about 10 more. The file name is: bookmarks-2015-03-03_213_pABEVm3h2Ty5a9BcwcyiZw==.jsonlz4

Thanks for any help this is REALLY frustrating

The xxxx part in the file name bookmarks-####-##-##_xxxx_$$$$.json denotes the number of bookmarks in the file, so that file has 213 bookmarks including folders and separators. The file is in a special compressed compressed .jsonlz4 format and the only way to see what is in the file is to restore the file, possibly in another profile, because restoring a JSON backup replaces all current bookmarks.

Create a new profile as a test to check if your current profile is causing the problem.

See "Creating a profile":

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_-_Firefox#Profile_issues

If the new profile works then you can transfer files from a previously used profile to the new profile, but be cautious not to copy corrupted files to avoid carrying over problems.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox

THANK YOU, thank you and thank you. Profile definitely corrupted, in fact I think it was deleted not sure, but when I went to create a new one only the default was there. And nothing was working right with it, AT ALL.

So now with new profile, I restore the bookmarks, whew!

Only bummer I have to re-do all my preferences and re-install all the extensions I had :( but at least it seems to be working right, doesn't go to the first run page every time I restart, changes hold etc