Firefox Reset Itself

Orizio

Not sure where to put this but anyway - just put on my XPS M1530 laptop, and then firefox but for whatever reason all my bookmarks and the history of my browsing have dispeared. Extremely annoying - can someone explain why this happened and how I can get my bookmarks back?

tpotter

You should check Firefox's Profile Folder to see if your old profile is still there.

In Linux: ~/.mozilla/firefox
In WIndows:C:\(Documents and Settings || Users)\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox

You should have a file called profile.ini as well as one or more profile folders. The profile.ini file tells firefox which profile folder to use. So, open profile.ini and check to see what profile is selected. You can explore the profile folders and if you find your old one, just update the profile.ini file.

If you can not find your old profile, than you are probably out of luck.

More Info: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Profiles

Orizio

tpotter wrote: »

You should check Firefox's Profile Folder to see if your old profile is still there.

In Linux: ~/.mozilla/firefox
In WIndows:C:\(Documents and Settings || Users)\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox

You should have a file called profile.ini as well as one or more profile folders. The profile.ini file tells firefox which profile folder to use. So, open profile.ini and check to see what profile is selected. You can explore the profile folders and if you find your old one, just update the profile.ini file.

If you can not find your old profile, than you are probably out of luck.

More Info: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Profiles

Thanks, but these don't seem to work, I'm pretty sure I use Vista?

TouchingVirus

Orizio wrote: »

Thanks, but these don't seem to work, I'm pretty sure I use Vista?

The correct path is probably this: (note the addition of local settings)

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

You may have to type in all or part of this path manually, I think the Local Settings folder is hidden and/or OS protected and usually doesn't appear in Windows Explorer

If you don't find two folders in there then you probably can't get the data back because the one folder that would be the profile you are currently using that is blank.

You could use the Firefox Profile Manager as another way to see if you've got another profile. Sometimes profile corruption can occur and the old data is left behind and a blank slate is created which I guess is what happened.

It's also possible that if you didn't shutdown your machine properly and let scandisk/chkdsk run on boot up that it could have truncated some corrupted files. This happened to me once

Orizio

TouchingVirus wrote: »

The correct path is probably this: (note the addition of local settings)

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

You may have to type in all or part of this path manually, I think the Local Settings folder is hidden and/or OS protected and usually doesn't appear in Windows Explorer

If you don't find two folders in there then you probably can't get the data back because the one folder that would be the profile you are currently using that is blank.

You could use the Firefox Profile Manager as another way to see if you've got another profile. Sometimes profile corruption can occur and the old data is left behind and a blank slate is created which I guess is what happened.

It's also possible that if you didn't shutdown your maching properly and let scandisk/chkdsk run on boot up that it could have truncated some corrupted files. This happened to me once

I have a feeling this is exactly what happened. My music library on iTunes has also disapeared.

TouchingVirus

Orizio wrote: »

I have a feeling this is exactly what happened. My music library on iTunes has also disapeared.

If it's sync'd up to your iPod then you can rebuild the iTunes library using Sharepod or other 3rd party tools.

Might I suggest you use a tool like MozBackup to create locally stored backups of your Mozilla software? It can do Firefox and Thunderbird.

Another idea is to use Xmarks, which allows you to store bookmarks and firefox website username/passwords (encrypted) on their server to sync up between a laptop and PC so you'll always have the same bookmarks on both. I use this method myself, an absolute lifesaver!

Alanstrainor

I decided to move this to comp and tech, it's not really a laptop specific problem. Hopefully you'll get some more advice here.

Dorsanty

c:\Documents and Settings is dead as of Vista. It is now simply C:\Users

Application Data is now AppData

I'm sure there's more too.

Anyway official docs for finding your profile are here, http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Profiles#Windows_Vista_and_7

Orizio

Dorsanty wrote: »

c:\Documents and Settings is dead as of Vista. It is now simply C:\Users

Application Data is now AppData

I'm sure there's more too.

Anyway official docs for finding your profile are here, http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Profiles#Windows_Vista_and_7

Thanks a lot, have it sorted now.

Now I need to get my music from my iPod to my blank iTunes...

Dorsanty

Orizio wrote: »

Now I need to get my music from my iPod to my blank iTunes...

Try http://www.getsharepod.com/. Will restore a iTunes library from an iPod/iPhone

Orizio

I've sorted out my iPod/iTunes, but now its not scrobbling music on to my Last FM?

ethernet

Have you tried reinstalling the Last FM scrobbler?