Bookmarks not saved
If you add, delete, or make other changes to bookmarks and those changes are not saved when you restart your Mozilla browser, try the solutions below. If bookmarks that were saved previously are now missing, see Lost bookmarks.
Read-only bookmarks file
Mozilla Suite/SeaMonkey and Firefox 2: If changes to your bookmarks are not saved when you restart the browser, the bookmarks.html or bookmarks.html.moztmp file in the profile folder may be "read-only" (Windows) or "locked" (Mac). Deleting or modifying bookmarks will also have no effect and the profile folder will fill up with multiple "bookmarks-<n>.html files, where <n> is a number. See Multiple profile files created for additional information.
Removing the "read-only" attribute or unlocking the file will again allow the bookmarks to be updated (bug 157152). To do so on Windows systems:
- Navigate to the profile folder
- Find bookmarks.html and (if it exists) bookmarks.html.moztmp
- Right-click on the file, choose Properties
- On the General tab, make sure "Read only" is not checked.
- Press OK.
Starting in Firefox 3, bookmarks and browsing history are both stored in the Firefox profile folder in the places.sqlite file. Make sure this file is not read-only or locked.
Places preferences - Firefox 3
If changes to bookmarks are not being saved after restarting Firefox 3, reset the browser.places preferences to the default settings: [1]
- Enter about:config in the Location Bar
- In the Filter box, type browser.places
- Context-click (right-click) any preference with a user-set status and select "Reset".
Corrupt bookmarks file
In Mozilla Suite/SeaMonkey and Firefox 2, bookmarks are stored in the bookmarks.html file. If this file is damaged, you may not be able to update your bookmarks. To replace a possibly corrupt bookmarks.html file with a backup, see Lost bookmarks - Replacing bookmarks with a backup file. (To create a current bookmarks backup file, simply export your bookmarks.)
places.sqlite file
Starting in Firefox 3, bookmarks and browsing history are stored in the "places.sqlite" file in the Firefox profile folder. If there is a problem with this file, bookmark changes can be lost when you next restart Firefox. If restoring a bookmark backup from within Firefox 3 does not help, you can "reset" the Places database by closing Firefox and then deleting (or renaming) the places.sqlite file. When you next restart Firefox 3, a new places.sqlite file will be created and the most recent bookmarks-(date).json backup from the bookmarkbackups folder will be restored automatically. (If no .json backup is found, Firefox will restore bookmarks from the profile folder "bookmarks.html" file, if it exists.)
You can reset the places.sqlite file and restore your current bookmarks as follows: [2]
- Export your bookmarks to an HTML file named "bookmarks.html" and place it in the Firefox profile folder (if a bookmarks.html file already exists, allow the exported file to replace it).
- To export your Firefox 3 bookmarks, go to "Bookmarks -> Organize Bookmarks -> Import and Backup -> Export HTML".
- Close Firefox completely
- Open the Firefox profile folder and delete (or rename) the "places.sqlite" file.
- It is probably also a good idea to delete localstore.rdf to remove the references to the old places file (you will need to add back any toolbar customizations).
- Open the bookmarkbackups folder and move away all the .json backups to another location.
- Restart Firefox.
Firefox will create a new "places.sqlite" file and automatically import the bookmarks from the "bookmarks.html" file in the Firefox profile folder. Note: You may also need to use about:config to reset all of the browser.places preferences to the default settings (see above).
Add Bookmark dialog not working - Firefox
Note: This dialog is named "Page Bookmarked" in Firefox 3.
- A corrupt localstore.rdf file in your Firefox profile folder can cause this problem. To fix it, see this article.
- The Bookmark Duplicate Detector extension may cause the Add Bookmark dialog to fail [3]. If updating the extension doesn't help you should uninstall it.
Other solutions
Try the standard diagnostic steps. Problematic extensions may be causing the issue. Try running Firefox in Safe Mode and disable all extensions, or create a new profile for testing purposes. [4]
