Vanished ! ! ! Bookmark and History files

PANIC ATTACK ! ! ! 3 Years of saved Bookmark and History Files just up and DISAPPEARED without a trace. Nothing in my trash. Just Gone. Does anyone have any suggestions how I might be able to Locate and Recover Them. . .
I hadn't added any new software. I've had the File Vault on which also Stopped all on it's own.
I'm running OS 10.4 on an older G4. About a week ago a window appeared as I was saving a bookmark telling me my disk was getting full. I finished my session and neglected to take any action. The next day I went to save a link and everything was GONE completely Empty ! ! !

I lost a huge number of recently collected bookmarks last night -- in what sounds like a very similar way to you a while ago. Did you ever find the ones you lost? If so, where. Mine disappeared after 5 hour of gathering, and organizing them -- then Safari 'froze' and they were lost after having to Force Quit. Just prior I had a message about my disk being full. Had no idea that my bookmarks weren't just regularly being saved as I worked on them. Would appreciate any tips.

Similar Messages

"Bookmarks and history system will not be functional" with corrupt files found by Avast and websites loading slow ONLY in Firefox

Firefox is the only browser that lets me connect with my microphone. I need to use this feature for an online class. Earlier this evening, the message prompting me to allow or deny the class website permission to use the microphone stopped appearing, and without it the recording won't pick up any sound and I can't record anything.
I tried exiting and restarting Firefox. I had some extensions in use at the time, in particular Session Manager. The allow/deny message still wouldn't appear, so I restarted my computer.
Now when I open Firefox I see the "The bookmarks and history system will not be functional" error message. In addition, the browser loads websites extremely slowly; it takes several minutes to load each page or for me to be able to click on anything (the URL bar, the menus, etc) My other browsers (Internet Explorer and Chrome) are running normally and load websites at a normal speed. I tried downloading the latest version of Firefox but it didn't fix anything. I also tried restarting the computer again but that didn't help either.
I ran my Avast software system check and it turned up that the following files under "C:\Users\(me)\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\Irozixj7.default" are "corrupted and unreadable":
-cookies.sqlite-shm
-cookies.sqlite-wal
-localstore.rdf
-places.sqlite-shm
There was one more problem on the scan, but it probably isn't relevant: for the file "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Definition Updates\{9A2C6FA7-E04E-4819-B86A-8363A9D1E42A}\mpengine.dll" it says "The system cannot find the path specified." When I attempted to follow the path indicated, one of the folders (I can't remember which) said something along the lines of "You can't access this folder, do you want to permanently allow access to this folder?" I said yes and was able to access the folder.
I have tried to add the Places Maintenance extension but the speed is too sluggish to download anything. Trying to access any of the menus results in the browser freezing for several minutes then unfreezing but with the menu still unopened. Therefore none of the solutions found here (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fix-bookmarks-and-history-will-not-be-functional?esab=a&as=aaq) seem to work.
My questions are as follows:
-Is it possible to figure out what caused the problem in the first place?
-Is there a way for me to fix it without losing my bookmarks and history?
-How can I avoid this happening again in the future?

First, I recommend backing up your Firefox settings in case something goes wrong. See [[Backing up your information]]. You can copy your entire Firefox profile folder somewhere outside of the Mozilla folder. To quickly access this folder:
Help > Troubleshooting Information > "Show Folder" button
Next, keep this folder open, exit Firefox, and try moving the "corrupted and unreadable" files to a different folder. With the exception of localstore.rdf, which stores window positions, toolbar customizations, and other nonessential data, the other files appear to be session-specific files that hopefully are not critical. If you restart Firefox, does it behave more normally?
If not, try creating a fresh Firefox profile. It will have the Flash plugin, which is the control sites usually use to connects your camera and/or microphone, and other plugins, but otherwise will be a new setup. This article has the steps for starting up in the Profile Manager: [[Use the Profile Manager to create and remove Firefox profiles]].
If sites work normally in the new profile, you can import your bookmarks from your old profile, as well as copying over other files that don't seem to be causing the problem. Some trial and error might be required to determine that. This article has some tips: [[Recovering important data from an old profile]].
If the new profile is no better, you can exit Firefox and use the Profile Manager to switch back to your original profile.
Any improvement?

I get an error when starting firefox on several user profiles: the bookmarks and history are not functional something about the file being in use.

Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 7 workstations, the appdata folder is redirected to a network share at \\server\profiles and several users are unable to use bookmarks getting an error about the file being in use. I'm wondering if maybe my antivirus (Trend Micro) or my backups (Symantec) might be locking up the places.sqlite for these users? Though I don't understand why it would be for some users and not others. I can't be the first one and I'm not coming up with anything searching google endlessly. Anybody else run into this?

hello, yes this is likely caused by an external program locking access to the bookmarks/history database. you could try renaming the file in question & see if it is working when it is regenerated, this will clear bookmarks and the history though, so keep a backup...
[[Fix "The bookmarks and history system will not be functional" error message]]
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Bookmarks_history_and_toolbar_buttons_not_working_-_Firefox

How do I get back my bookmarks and history which disappeared after downloading critical Windows Updates?

On 10/16/14 I downloaded 11 critical Windows Updates (I have the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Pro).
All updates ran successfully, but after the updates, Firefox would not run. Instead I got the error “Couldn’t Load XPCOM”. Internet Explorer was working. I reinstalled Firefox . I did not delete it and then reinstall it, I just downloaded Firefox.
That worked and I can now use Firefox, but I have several other problems:
• I lost all my Bookmarks
• I lost some of my History. I can only view history for “Today” and “Yesterday” in the Library. I am missing “Last 7 days” (except for 10/16 and later) and “This Month” history view.
I have been trying to research how to fix this on my own for the past several days, even though I am very non-tech savy.
I tried the following, but none of these things has corrected the bookmarks or history problem:
• I did a System Restore to 10/13/14
• I tried to do a System Restore to 10/12/14. I got the error “Did not complete successfully. Unspecified error 0x8000ffff”.
• I reset Firefox to its default state.
• I tried to change the Privacy setting for Firefox history from “Remember History” to “Use custom setting for history” followed by checking “Remember my browsing and download history”, “Remember search and form history”, and “Accept cookies from site”. I am unable to change this. It always reverts back to “Remember History”.
I located only one Profile Manager, which I found by going through the Windows start menu with "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" –p.
I found "bookmarkbackups" under my Profile Folder. The oldest bookmark folder listed is from 10/16/2014.
Could someone please help me get all my Bookmarks and History back from before the 10/16/2014 updates? Thank you.

Hi askmozilla, yes, the Previous Versions tab in the Properties dialog for the places.sqlite files in the oldest of those folders.
I'm not sure whether Windows can match that file up with earlier restore points once the folder is moved from its original location to the desktop.
I wonder whether there is any way to access the restore point created on 10/16 just before Windows installed the updates. That really would be the best place to look if possible.

When a pop up window comes up it is - search bookmarks and history window! I cannot log into my bank as login button should open new window to log in but I get the search page. I cannot see larger images as again I get the search bookmarks and history pa

When a pop up window comes up it is - search bookmarks and history window! I cannot log into my bank as login button should open new window to log in but I get the search page. I cannot see larger images as again I get the search bookmarks and history page etc. Happens on all options that should open new page. I am so frustrated, this has been happening since Firefox updated itself 2 days ago to Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100722 Firefox/3.6.8 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET4.0C) was fine before that. using windows vista. Can you please advise what I should do? Also can you go back to previous version? Error console eg
Warning: Error in parsing value for 'cursor'. Declaration dropped.
Source File: https://ib.nab.com.au/nabib/styles/menu_nab.css?id=009
Line: 116
ib.nab.com.au : server does not support RFC 5746, see CVE-2009-3555 and Warning: Selector expected. Ruleset ignored due to bad selector.
Source File: https://ib.nab.com.au/nabib/styles/nabstyle.css?id=014
Line: 837
== This happened ==
Every time Firefox opened
== 2 days ago after update.

Do you have that problem when running in the Firefox SafeMode?
[http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode]
''Don't select anything right now, just use "Continue in SafeMode."''
If not, see this:
[http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes]

I have the "Bookmarks and history system will not be functional" problem and not FireFox will not open at all and my whole computer freezes if I try.

For a few weeks now, I've been getting the "Bookmarks and history system will not be functional..." message. When I clicked for more information, FireFox would freeze.
I found a solution about a new places database, but for the past few days I can't get FireFox to open at all. Then my whole system is frozen and I have to turn it off to get it going again, thus losing a lot of unsaved data.
How can I get FireFox back?

A possible cause is a problem with the file places.sqlite that stores the bookmarks and the history.
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Bookmarks_history_and_toolbar_buttons_not_working_-_Firefox
*https://support.mozilla.com/kb/The+bookmarks+and+history+system+will+not+be+functional

My bookmarks and history keep disappearing and the backup system isn't working (this has happened a half a dozen times in the last few weeks). Any ideas why?

I have manually recreated my list of bookmarks in Firefox several times now only to come back (days) later and find they have disappeared. Probably related (but less concerning) is the fact that the browsing history also seems to have been cleared.
My browser is set to remember my history and I haven't been using the private browsing option. The backup/restore option for the bookmarks doesn't seem to be functioning, either, because even when I select a day on which I know there were functioning bookmarks, "restoring" to that day does absolutely nothing.
The computer in question is my desktop at work, and I haven't been in the office much over the summer, so I didn't know what updates had been installed and when, so I was hopeful that updates were somehow responsible. However, the bookmarks I saved this past Friday were lost over the weekend, and according to the update history, no new updates were installed.
Before I left the office on Friday, I tried restarting the browser and the computer in an attempt to figure out what was triggering this deletion; neither of those two actions had any effect -- the history and bookmarks were all still in tact after the restarts.
Any thoughts?

Problems with bookmarks and history not working properly can be caused by a corrupted places.sqlite database file.
*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
You can try to check and repair the places database with this extension:
*https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/places-maintenance/

Followed the instructions in "the bookmarks and history..." article but cannot retrieve my bookmarks. Initial problem was caused by an AVG Free upgrade which was done this morning. How do I get my "stuff" back?

Upgraded AVG Free this morning. Next Firefox opening got the message "bookmarks and history system will not be functional" etc.
Followed the instructions in the article but no recovery occurred. Then spent 45 minutes on the phone with AVG, ending with them suggesting I re-install Firefox which I did (probably not wise). Still can't get back to where I was yesterday when I was a happy camper. How can I do that?

No, AVG did not remove places.sqlite from the profile. In following the instructions given by Firefox I renamed that file by adding .old. The instructions then told me to re-open Firefox, and that when it reopened "it would create a new places database. Your browsing history will be lost but Firefox will automatically import your bookmarks from the most recent backup file." This DID NOT happen. I have not yet tried the steps in the "Lost Bookmarks" article.
Yes, the folder "bookmarkbackups" is still in the profile folder, and time-wise it predates me renaming the places file.
I do not know whether it is possible to set AVG to ignore certain directions?

When I click on a picture to enlarge it on a web page ( any webpage),a new blank page opens with nothing.It only syas search bookmarks and history.What do I have to do to view an enlarged view says

Using Firefox to search a web page.
When I click on a picture to enlarge it on a web page ( any webpage),a new blank page opens with nothing.It only says" search bookmarks and history".
What do I have to do to view an enlarged view ? What settings do i have to enable in firefox.
Any help would be appreciated
Colincolin30

See:
* [[Images or animations do not show]]
* http://kb.mozillazine.org/Images_or_animations_do_not_load
Start Firefox in [[Safe Mode]] to check if one of your add-ons is causing your problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Tools > Add-ons > Themes).
See [[Troubleshooting extensions and themes]] and [[Troubleshooting plugins]]
If it does work in Safe-mode then disable all your extensions and then try to find which is causing it by enabling one at a time until the problem reappears.<br />
You can use "Disable all add-ons" on the [[Safe mode]] start window to disable all extensions.<br />
You have to close and restart Firefox after each change via "File > Exit" (Mac: "Firefox > Quit"; Linux: "File > Quit")

When I click on a link, firefox sometimes creates 100s of 'searching bookmarks and history' tabs until I cold power down.

If I restore Firefox to save existing tabs (including the 100s of 'searching bookmarks and history' tabs), I will receive approximately 3 times a day a 'Firefox terminated unexpectedly' message. What is triggering the proliferation of tabs?

See [[Firefox keeps opening many tabs or windows]]
You can have infinite tabs opening if you have selected Firefox as the application to handle a file if you get an Open with download window.<br />
Firefox should not be selected as the application to handle a file and you have to remove the action that is associated with that file type.
See also http://kb.mozillazine.org/File_types_and_download_actions ("File handling in Firefox 3 and SeaMonkey 2" and "Reset Download Actions")
You may need to delete the file [http://kb.mozillazine.org/mimeTypes.rdf mimeTypes.rdf] in the [http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox Profile Folder] to reset all actions or set that action in Tools > Options > Applications to 'Always Ask'.

My daughter deleted my bookmarks and history. Can I get them back? I have Firefox 3.0 and a Mac.

On July 1, 2010 on about 4:30 pm, my browsing and history files were erased by a member of my family. I had very important information and messages that were saved from February of 2010 up until June. Is there any way of retrieving my history back? I have gone to Firefox and done everything but it doesn't seem to be working.
I have Firefox 3.6 installed and my computer is a MAC. Please any kind of help would be very helpful. Thank you.

Hello Sandra.
You're using 3.6, actually.
Anyway, you can get your bookmarks back. See [https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Lost+Bookmarks?s=restore+bookmarks&as=s#Restoring_bookmark_backups this article].
As for the browsing history, I don't believe it's possible to recover it.
Unless something different happened. If that's the case, my above help won't help you. Please tell me so we can work from there. If it does help, that's as far as I can help, I'm sorry.

My daughter has loaded a security system, and has forgotten which one, and we have lost all bookmarks and history.

We cannot access any bookmarks or history since my daughter downloaded a security system to protect the computer files. She cannot remember what the file was she downloaded. How can I get the bookmarks and history back?

And does she have current backups of all her important files?
Operating a business with a computer and not keeping current backups is a very dangerous thing to do. Hard drives can fail at any time. Experienced IT people will tell you there are two kinds of hard drives - those that have failed and those that are going to fail. The only question is when.
Best of luck.

Bookmarks and history function will not function

i have tried all the ways to fix this and it has not fixed the problem. im not able to use either history or bookmarks. i do not use a security software so that was the other thing it suggested being the problem. please help

Problems with bookmarks and history not working properly can be caused by a corrupted places.sqlite database file.
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
You can use this button to go to the Firefox profile folder:
*Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Show Folder (Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder)

Added 3.6 last nite, all bookmarks and history gone th s A.M., how get back

Have 3.6.13 Windows XP

It depends on exactly what you did; or did not do; also on what backups you may have.
Firefox tries to automatically keep some auto restore copies of bookmarks and history. If you do an uninstall and reinstall of firefox it will give you the option to retain personal data.
If you have previously explicitly made backups of bookmarks etc by exporting them, it should be relatively straightforward to recommence using those files. If that option is not available, what about your ordinary backups , do they include the bookmarks.

In the Navigation toolbar, the Forward/back buttons are dimmed, and the URL bar has "Search Bookmarks and History"

The Forward and Back buttons are dimmed and don't work, and "Search Bookmarks and History" is in the URL bar. Also, I sometimes find blank pages with "Search Bookmarks and History" in the URL bar after visiting some websites.

No, no need to remove other SQLite files in the [http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox Firefox Profile Folder]
Start Firefox in [[Safe Mode]] to check if one of the add-ons is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Tools > Add-ons > Themes).
* Don't make any changes on the Safe mode start window.
See:
* [[Troubleshooting extensions and themes]]
* [[Troubleshooting plugins]]
If it does work in Safe-mode then disable all extensions and then try to find which is causing it by enabling one at a time until the problem reappears.
* Use "Disable all add-ons" on the [[Safe mode]] start window to disable all extensions.
* Close and restart Firefox after each change via "File > Exit" (Mac: "Firefox > Quit"; Linux: "File > Quit")

Vanished ! ! ! Bookmark and History files

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