Hi Mac, this is strange, there's no built-in feature to delete bookmarks. Top Sites tiles that you "pin" should be saved in prefs.js, while others that are from your history could be cleared with history.

When do you lose the data? For example:

• It's there when you close Firefox and gone when you start it up again
• It's there when you close Firefox and shut down Windows, but it's gone when you start Firefox after restarting Windows
• At the stroke of midnight or some other time of day
• Other pattern (if there's a pattern)

Normally you wouldn't have a user.js file. If you find one, consider it suspicious.

Hey jscher2000,

I'll be monitoring the problem but what happens is I'll randomly open FF again - middle of the day, next day right after a simple startup, some other time - and tiles, bookmarks, history and I think homepage and other settings are wiped. As if I had just installed fresh and not done anything. I'll monitor and see if my uBlock Origin is also gone. Should happen anytime now.

Thanks for your assistance BTW, I'm no expert so I'd be lost w/o you pros from Dover. Longtime FF user, only other browsers I'd trust are Opera or Pale Moon.

Thanks again,

Mac

Hi Mac, in preparation for the next time, could you set Windows to show hidden files and folders:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14201/windows-show-hidden-files

And keep this "shortcut" path handy, it leads to the folder that should contain your Firefox profile folder(s). It's possible there are old folders here that Firefox was using before but abandoned for some strange reason.

%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

Windows Explorer will expand that to:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

Apologies for being so late, smartphone and hurricane issues. I have not had a single problem w/FF since the fresh install (that somehow found my uBlock also installed). Only odd thing is the tiles will never show Bing.

Only thing I did was change setting 'keep cookies until they expire'. Must have fiddled with that and set 'until FF closes' but that would still not explain losing bookmarks, etc. previously.

As the song title says Oh Well. Happy days.

Thank you,

Mac

.... And Volia, back to hosing me.

I can now see the first few tabs have uBlock Origin off, newer bookmarks are gone (and as usual I needed some of those), dark theme was reset, save cookies was reset to 'until FF closes', history only goes back a few hours. Can't tell if tiles are the same.

I'm thinking it must have something to do with uBlock at this point. I'm following jscher's instructions above, too late maybe.

Losing bookmarks is usually a problem with the places.sqlite database. If the problem returns then check for issues with places.sqlite.

If you use Sync then best is to disconnect Sync temporarily during troubleshooting.

You can check for problems with the places.sqlite database (bookmarks and history) in the Firefox profile folder.

• use "Verify Integrity" on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page
  in case errors are reported close and restart Firefox and retry

If "Verify Integrity" on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page cannot repair places.sqlite then remove all places.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder. Firefox will rebuild places.sqlite and restore the bookmarks from a recent JSON backup in the bookmarkbackups folder.

• keep a backup copy of places.sqlite in case a new places.sqlite database has to be created
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Unable_to_process_the_backup_file_-_Firefox

See also:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Locked_or_damaged_places.sqlite
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/Bookmarks+not+saved#w_fix-the-bookmarks-file

You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.

• Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> Profile Directory:
  Windows: Show Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox

Well I clicked the Verify button under Places database and don't see anything re: error. Looks like all steps completed aok.

So I'll monitor again and save bookmarks outside FF.

Thanks for the help,

Mac

Well what I think is happening is FF resets itself every 7 days. After using the Verify button again I see the following lines:

> Task: checkIntegrity + The places.sqlite database is sane + The favicons.sqlite database is sane > Task: invalidateCaches + The caches have been invalidated > Task: checkCoherence + The database is coherent > Task: expire + Database cleaned up > Task: originFrecencyStats + Recalculated origin frecency stats > Task: vacuum + Initial database size is 5120KiB + The database has been vacuumed + Final database size is 5120KiB > Task: stats + Places.sqlite size is 5120KiB + Favicons.sqlite size is 928KiB + pragma_user_version is 52 + pragma_page_size is 32768 + pragma_cache_size is -2048 + pragma_journal_mode is wal + pragma_synchronous is 1 + History can store a maximum of 112348 unique pages + Table moz_places has 465 records + Table moz_historyvisits has 498 records + Table moz_inputhistory has 1 records + Table moz_hosts has 0 records + Table moz_bookmarks has 242 records + Table moz_bookmarks_deleted has 8 records + Table moz_keywords has 0 records + Table sqlite_sequence has 0 records + Table moz_anno_attributes has 6 records + Table moz_annos has 102 records + Table moz_items_annos has 77 records + Table sqlite_stat1 has 16 records + Table moz_meta has 3 records + Table moz_origins has 154 records + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_inputhistory_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_hosts_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_bookmarks_deleted_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_keywords_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_anno_attributes_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_origins_1 + Index moz_places_url_hashindex + Index moz_places_hostindex + Index moz_places_visitcount + Index moz_places_frecencyindex + Index moz_places_lastvisitdateindex + Index moz_places_guid_uniqueindex + Index moz_historyvisits_placedateindex + Index moz_historyvisits_fromindex + Index moz_historyvisits_dateindex + Index moz_bookmarks_itemindex + Index moz_bookmarks_parentindex + Index moz_bookmarks_itemlastmodifiedindex + Index moz_bookmarks_dateaddedindex + Index moz_bookmarks_guid_uniqueindex + Index moz_keywords_placepostdata_uniqueindex + Index moz_annos_placeattributeindex + Index moz_items_annos_itemattributeindex + Index moz_places_originidindex > Task: _refreshUI

As per cor-el's instructions and links I renamed the 3 places.sqlite files to placesOld, and reopened FF. I only find one new places.sqlite file, in the subfolder that has default in it's name.

I will monitor FF again. Is there anything else I might do to help find a solution?

Thank you,

Mac