tag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:/discussions/problems/6477-bookmarksTenFourFox: Discussion 2018-09-21T21:21:39Ztag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-08-13T16:11:15Z2015-08-13T17:07:36ZBookmarks<div><p>That happened to me also. All my work related bookmarks are
gone...poof! Grrrrrrrrrrrrr. I notice the backup file from
yesterday is still there, but tenfourfox will not access them</p></div>Bradtag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-08-13T16:31:58Z2015-08-13T17:07:36ZBookmarks<div><p>I'm sorry to hear that, but this would have been a showstopper
bug, and we had no reports of anything like this from beta users or
on the test systems.</p>
<p>That said, if you have a backup in your profile, you may be able
to restore it using these instructions: <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/restore-bookmarks-from-backup-or-move-them">
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/restore-bookmarks-from-backup-...</a></p></div>Cameron Kaisertag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-08-13T16:33:28Z2015-08-13T17:07:36ZBookmarks<div><p>(Also see <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recover-lost-or-missing-bookmarks">
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recover-lost-or-missing-bookmarks</a>
)</p></div>Cameron Kaisertag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-08-13T17:01:39Z2015-08-13T17:07:36ZBookmarks<div><p>Ok! That seemed to work! When will the bug be fixed?</p>
<p>Dan Nourie</p></div>Dan Nourietag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-08-13T17:09:12Z2015-08-13T17:09:12ZBookmarks<div><p>I should make it clear: currently, I have no bug to fix. This
never manifested on the test systems or any of the beta user sites,
which have long since migrated. If I can't reproduce an issue
locally, I can't do anything about it, and right now I can't say
that there's not something about your and Brad's systems different
from other users'.</p></div>Cameron Kaisertag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-08-13T17:22:33Z2015-09-02T17:50:33ZBookmarks<div><p>OK! I will let you know if it happens again!</p>
<p>Dan Nourie</p></div>Dan Nourietag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-08-16T23:11:42Z2015-08-16T23:11:43ZBookmarks<div><p>I have to agree with Dan & Brad's observations. I too loose
all my bookmarks every time I restart TenFourFox 38.2! But I can't
get it to restore them. I have to open Firefox (v 3.6.2) and
restore them in Firefox. In Firefox they stay fine. Restart
TenFourFox 38.2 & they're gone!</p>
<p>I'm running OS 10.5.8 on a Power Mac G5, Quad 2.5 GHz (Late
2005, PowerMac11,2)</p>
<p>The problem didn't exist until I upgraded to TenFourFox G5
v38.2. I just went back to 38 & everything's back to
normal.</p></div>Phil Wrighttag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-08-17T01:53:41Z2015-08-17T01:53:41ZBookmarks<div><p>Phil, you're going to need to pick one or the other. The profile
format is too different between Firefox 3.6 and TenFourFox 38 and
that's probably why your bookmarks disappear. Running back and
forth between them will corrupt your profile sooner or later, which
is why we don't support doing so. If the other users here are doing
the same thing, you've got to choose the version you will use.</p>
<p>If you need a browser like Firefox 3.6 for certain features
(which I don't recommend, but your funeral, of course), you
probably should use Camino, which has a completely separate profile
and is otherwise Firefox 3.6 under the hood. You can even have it
running at the same time.</p></div>Cameron Kaisertag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-08-17T02:55:21Z2015-09-02T17:48:56ZBookmarks<div><p>Cameron,<br>
Thanks for your response. I'm running a machine that is way past
it's supported life. Only Ten Four FoxG5 has continued to support
it. Thank you....</p>
<p>Camino is also obsolete and no longer being developed, but I'll
give it a try.</p>
<p>The only point of my entering in this conversation was to concur
with the others that the disappearing bookmarks started for me
immediately after upgrading to TenFireFoxG5 v38.2 from v31.8.0
(which I will keep using).</p>
<p>Keep up the good work.</p>
<p>Thanks again,</p></div>Phil Wrighttag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-08-18T20:57:12Z2015-08-18T20:57:12ZBookmarks<div><p>Hi<br>
It happened to me too. Very disturbing. Tenfourfox 38 doesn't
import bookmarks from Firefox and it's impossible to restore them
("Unable to process the backup file") Bookmarks were also lost with
Firefox when restarting it after closing Tenfour. Bookmarks.html
was still there as well as the back-up files. Firefox could restore
the bookmarks.</p></div>Jeantag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-08-18T23:24:43Z2015-08-18T23:24:43ZBookmarks<div><p>It seems Tenfourfox cannot read the file(s) where Firefox stores
bookmarks and history. In turn Firefox cannot read its own files
once Tenfourfox has updated them. It sounds silly. Why use the same
files if there is an incompatibility? Its a bug all right. And I
like reverting to Firefox when I have to browse actuality on
Google, because Google is much more convivial under Firefox —
many more options. Could you fix that? Thanks.</p></div>Jeantag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-08-19T02:03:45Z2015-08-19T02:03:45ZBookmarks<div><p>No, it's not a bug. It's a change in the file format. Mozilla
has never supported going back on the format, and neither do we.
The fact that it worked for awhile doesn't mean it was ever
intended to.</p>
<p>You need to pick one or the other; if Firefox 3.6 meets your
needs, then you need to use it, and only that. As I said, Camino
may also be an option if you need the Firefox 3.6 engine for
specific sites. Either way, however, I'm not going to do this for
TenFourFox.</p></div>Cameron Kaisertag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-08-19T03:33:18Z2015-08-19T03:33:19ZBookmarks<div><p>Cameron,<br>
I've lost my reply to you of 8/16/15, but no loss. I'm glad that
Jean just confirms the bookmark problem and you acknowledge
why.</p>
<p>It was my impression that the mission of 10/4/fx was to provide
& maintain a browser that supported the early Macs that have
been left behind by others, including Firefox above v3.6.2. I
understand your need to keep progressing with the 10/4/fx, but
v3.8.2 has advanced beyond your original mission statement. It is
not compatible with the bookmarks of its predecessor and you cannot
migrate your previous bookmarks into it.</p>
<p>The problem is related to your changing the bookmark format in
10/4/fx v3.8.2. I don't know the reasons why, but the reality is
not to follow Firefox beyond it's v3.6.2 compatibility with the
early Macs without providing an import bookmark bridge from the
earlier formatted versions. V3.8.2 may be great, but not without
ability to migrate years of collected bookmarks. So, in the
meantime, I'm sticking with TenFour Fox v31.8.0 & Firefox 3.6.2
and live with any consequences that may arise. (no Funerals!)</p>
<p>As far as Camino goes, it was a good Browser, but lost
development support several years ago. Not a good step forward.</p>
<p>Thanks for your help & good work.</p></div>Phil Wrighttag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-08-19T18:39:03Z2015-08-19T18:41:05ZBookmarks<div><p>Cameron has always maintained that old FF versions shouldn't be
used because they can damage your user profile. See FAQ:</p>
<p><a href="https://code.google.com/p/tenfourfox/wiki/AAATheFAQ#Will_10.4Fx_use_all_my_Firefox_settings">
https://code.google.com/p/tenfourfox/wiki/AAATheFAQ#Will_10.4Fx_use...</a>?</p>
<p>The browsers are 35(!) iterations apart by now and are
effectively two completely different programs.</p>
<p>The workarounds I can recommend in addition to what's in the
FAQ:</p>
<p>1) Export and then import bookmarks to/from html at each switch
because this is what all versions can do. Will be slow, though, if
you have many bookmarks, and you're still risking other problems
with the profile.</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>2) Use the Profile Manager and maintain separate user profiles
for FF and TFF. Technically, you'll need a profile for each major
version you want to use. Advantage: You'll be able to keep
different sets of add-ons, too, because many add-ons that work in
FF 3.6 naturally don't work anymore in TFF 38 and vice-versa.
Profile Manager (GUI version) is a bit tricky and will involve
editing the profiles.ini file by hand on 10.4 initially (not 10.5),
but I'm willing to help. You can also use the Terminal as described
in the FAQ, however I will be unable to help you with that.</p></div>Chris (chtrusch)tag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-08-20T05:03:13Z2015-08-20T05:03:13ZBookmarks<div><p>I just want to add to something Jean said about failing to
restore bookmarks. I had a moment of the stupids with Firefox Sync
and deleted all my bookmarks, and when I tried to restore them from
the backups, I got "Unable to process the backup file", too. This
was in a TenFourFox only profile, no mixing with Firefox 3.6. I
then created a fresh profile and encountered the same error.</p>
<p>I didn't lose anything because I periodically export an html
backup to my hard drive, but there was a brief moment where I saw
"Unable to process the backup file" and thought, "I had these
backed up, right?" :))</p></div>Dan DeVototag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-08-20T15:55:48Z2015-08-20T15:55:48ZBookmarks<div><p>I think you're looking at this specific issue: <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1044287">https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1044287</a></p></div>Cameron Kaisertag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-08-23T12:23:46Z2015-09-02T17:35:22ZBookmarks<div><p>I have the same problem with the "Unable to process the backup
file" is there any way to A.) locate the backup file and/or B.)
export it to HTML? I had no idea switching would be be volatile and
I wish TFx had duplicated the bookmarks separately or automatically
created separate profile with the bookmarks duplicated.</p></div>butch.arringtontag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-09-02T17:39:09Z2015-09-02T17:39:27ZBookmarks<div><p>The backup files are stored in your user profile:<br>
Macintosh HD/Users/[unsername]/Library/Application
Support/Firefox/Profiles/[profile]/bookmarkbackups/</p></div>Chris (chtrusch)tag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-09-09T15:39:23Z2015-09-09T15:39:24ZBookmarks<div><p>My bookmarks have also disappeared, when will this bug be
fixed?</p></div>Tomtag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-09-09T15:51:55Z2015-09-09T15:51:55ZBookmarks<div><p>Please, folks, before piling on in this thread, if you are
jumping between Firefox 3.6 and TenFourFox, we had long warned this
would be a problem. If that's what you're doing, you're on your
own. I'm not going to support that.</p>
<p>If you're not, I don't have a bug to fix because none of the
test systems had this problem, nor any of the beta testers. I'm
trying to look into the restoration issue without destroying my own
profile, but because of my hard disk failure I haven't had any time
to do much of anything on TenFourFox.</p>
<p>More reports of this happening don't help me and just add noise.
If you want to help, try to find out under what circumstances it
occurs or whether certain bookmarks cause it. Most of all, however,
please be consistent with the version you're using. Simply saying
"it occurs when I upgrade" doesn't help, because I already can't
make it happen on my own systems that way, and if I can't reproduce
it I'm not going to take shots in the dark.</p></div>Cameron Kaisertag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-09-17T04:30:44Z2015-09-17T04:30:45ZBookmarks<div><p>This might help some others who tripped over this quirk as I
did.</p>
<p>I use Firefox on my newer computers so out of habit I
accidentally hit the original Firefox icon in the Dock on my older
G4 and when it started I realized my mistake and closed it. But
when I opened TenFourFox I lost all my bookmarks like the others
above. I also could not restore from the recent backups and got the
"Unable to process backup file". Browsing in the Firefox folder I
noticed that the backup files that were created after the
installation of 38 were not the same size as the earlier ones and
had a different file extension. It seems the prior backups were
.json but the newer ones were .jsonlz4 which are compressed
files.</p>
<p>The later files can't be restored but the earlier ones can. When
you get the window to choose the file to restore, pick one that is
prior to the upgrade to 38 (early August? or before) and is a .json
file. I have removed the old FF icon from the Dock to avoid this
problem in the future.<br>
Hope this helps.</p></div>Kristag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-09-19T16:37:46Z2015-09-19T16:37:47ZBookmarks<div><p>When I go to restore from older dates it says unable to restore.
Very frustrating.</p></div>CHristiantag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-09-20T09:57:11Z2015-09-20T09:57:11ZBookmarks<div><p>The problem with restoring bookmarks from backup files is now
tracked as issue 307.</p></div>Chris (chtrusch)tag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-10-02T13:32:06Z2015-10-02T13:32:07ZBookmarks<div><p>I can only concur with the general wails and anguish. Things
were fine on the '31' version but both '32' and '33' loose their
bookmarks every time reopened. I am fortunate that I am able to
restore the bookmarks. When I open all bookmarks I go to the 5 star
symbol, if I choose 'Restore' it opens up a list of dates to choose
from, going down to the bottom of that list arrive at a simple
'Choose.' This allows me to browse and open saved exported
bookmarks.</p></div>Ritzyfiztag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-10-08T10:30:59Z2015-11-03T08:10:13ZBookmarks<div><p>Maybe it will help to use Mozilla's SYNC feature to backup
bookmarks, once you have managed to restore them (which is no
longer compatible w/ FF3.6 though).</p>
<p><em>Just a hint to previous commenters: it's not Cameron's
TenFourFox implementation that has changed the bookmark file
format, it's the Mozilla Firefox code base that has since
changed.</em></p></div>funtooshtag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832015-11-17T22:11:13Z2015-11-17T22:11:14ZBookmarks<div><p>I have tried all the updates but the Bookmark issue has forced
me back to version 31.2. There is a way to avoid the problems, if
you have exported your Bookmarks as HTML you can simply go to 'Open
File' select your Bookmarks and they will appear in your browser
window. If you keep this window open during your travels through
the internet and use 'New Private Window' when you want to go to a
Bookmarked site then this can be an effective workaround, if not
the actual fix that we all would wish.</p></div>Robin Harristag:tenfourfox.tenderapp.com,2012-01-07:Comment/376512832018-09-21T21:21:36Z2018-09-21T21:21:39ZBookmarks<div><p>Not all is lost. I recently switched rather belated from 3.6.28 to the current TFF and say what, experienced drama as described above</p>
<p>The old bookmark files are still present, access the hidden "profiles" folder as described<br>
<a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/952418">https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/952418</a><br>
(Info: <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data">https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-...</a>)</p>
<p>Suggest to make a complete copy of the now visible "profiles" folder, outside of any ff/tff related area, perhaps in a appropriately named folder on the desktop.</p>
<p>Inspect 3.6.28 profile folder: will note that TFF could not import some old files and marked them as corrupt, like<br>
places.sqlite.corrupt<br>
content-prefs.sqlite.corrupt</p>
<p>Recent .json files are stored in the folder "bookmarkbackups".</p>
<p>Now how to access these .json files (de facto jsonlz4 compressed versions)</p>
<p>What solved my 3.6.28 lost bookmarks problem for the moment is</p>
<p><a href="https://jsonlint.com/">https://jsonlint.com/</a></p>
<p>Actually this is a programmers tool for evaluating general .json files, giving sort of basic debugging info.</p>
<p>Good for us 3.6.28 victims: it decompresses the jsonlz4 files and converts them into programmers lingo, line by line.</p>
<p>Copy the entire file from the drag-and-drop window of jsonlint, then paste into a text file.<br>
--> All the inaccessible/gone-forever bookmark URLs are: there. Use simple text search for Your URLs, like "http".</p>
<p>Yes, this is not a kings way to simply import all yesteryear bookmarks.<br>
But one can access them now.</p>
<p>A set of tools like those by Jefferson Scher would be preferable, but they work from ff45 onward only:<br>
<a href="https://www.jeffersonscher.com/ffu/bookbackreader.html">https://www.jeffersonscher.com/ffu/bookbackreader.html</a><br>
Compressed files get decompressed and clean .json or .html ready for importing elsewhere can be created.</p>
<p>(Used Mac: ppc G4 1.42ghz aka "late 2005" with OSX 10.5.8)</p></div>Minato