Firefox playing up, lost all bookmarks, please help

Borden · 29 Jan 2006 at 09:12

Hi all,

Turned on the pc this morning to find that when i opened up firefox it came up with the dialog box for the google toolbar that you normally get when you've just installed google toolbar. I thought that maybe google toolbar had automatically updated to a newer version and i had to enter my settings again.

After going through that, i found that firefox loaded the 'Welcome to Firefox' webpage and the homepage was set to the firefox start page (the one with google). All of my bookmarks have gone and if i maximize the window, it flicks rapidly up and down

My brother was using the pc yesterday and he said that it freezed when he tried to turn it off. He doesn'treally know much about pc's and ends up downloading anything or clicking on popups etc. However, i've run virus, spyware and adware scans but nothing has shown up.

Any help would be great

dirtydog · 29 Jan 2006 at 09:28

I'm inferring from your post that you didn't back up your bookmarks?

Borden · 29 Jan 2006 at 09:32

dirtydog said:
I'm inferring from your post that you didn't back up your bookmarks?

Never thought i had to and only jujst found out that you can. lol

Just tried a system restore but it still happens.

marc2003 · 29 Jan 2006 at 09:50

i somehow corrupted my bookmarks file awhile ago....

but then i looked in the firefox profile folder and found that it keeps backups for you. it has backups for the last 4 days.... :cool:

find them here......

C:\Documents and Settings\YOU\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\RANDOM GIBBERISH.default\bookmarkbackups

Borden · 29 Jan 2006 at 09:52

Reinstalling Firefox didn't work

I might end up doing a reformat as i haven't done one in a while and it's getting a bit clogged up.

Yep i thought i should check out that directory and then saw your post

So i've got my bookmarks back but firefox still doesn't work properly.

Mason64 · 29 Jan 2006 at 10:24

i rebooted my computer once and all my favs and bookmarks went for good

gutted i was had so many fav's not sure what happened but i couldnt get them back.

Coolasmoo · 29 Jan 2006 at 12:10

I would recommend mozilla backup,

It not only backs up Bookmarks, but extensions, history etc.

It also backs up Thunderbird if you use that as a mail client

Borden · 29 Jan 2006 at 12:25

Coolasmoo said:
I would recommend mozilla backup,

It not only backs up Bookmarks, but extensions, history etc.

It also backs up Thunderbird if you use that as a mail client

Thanks, i'll give it a try as i use Thunderbird as well

Can't seem to get firefox to work properly even after more fiddling so i'm just going to take the easy way out and reformat.

Borden · 29 Jan 2006 at 15:59

Ok, it's decided to stop shaking now but i've noticed that when i press the 'Home' button, it opens up a new tab. This also happens when it loads my homepage when first starting firefox.

Does anybody know of any settings which will change this in 'about:config'?

Also, it now opens in the non maximized window (or 'restored' window) and still opens like this even when i change the shortcut properties to 'Maximized'. Any help with getting it to start normally would be great

marc2003 · 29 Jan 2006 at 20:04

backup your bookmarks away from the mozilla profile folder. then when firefox is closed, simply delete the mozilla profile folder altogether. of course you will lose preferences etc, but next time firefox starts it should be as new.

C:\Documents and Settings\YOU\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\RANDOM GIBBERISH.default\bookmarkbackups

delete the whole folder in red above.

knowlesy · 30 Jan 2006 at 09:59

this happend to me on several occasions....so ive got several backups now .....on the new portable firefox it has its own back up bookmarks ....did a profile selecter come up by any chance ????

Thomss · 30 Jan 2006 at 10:36

I had a odd thing happend the other, retarted my PC and my windwos account details had been deleted. it made a new account for called admin with a new app data folder etc. I was lucky the old account APP DATA folder was still there so I could drag it all over to the new account and have it sorted that way... weird though. My heart sunk as I booted firefox and it was default. Sorted now though

Borden · 30 Jan 2006 at 14:58

marc2003 said:
backup your bookmarks away from the mozilla profile folder. then when firefox is closed, simply delete the mozilla profile folder altogether. of course you will lose preferences etc, but next time firefox starts it should be as new.

delete the whole folder in red above.

Thanks mate, that worked

knowlesy said:
this happend to me on several occasions....so ive got several backups now .....on the new portable firefox it has its own back up bookmarks ....did a profile selecter come up by any chance ????

Nope, that didn't come up.

Thanks for all your help people