Help! My Firefox has lost Bookmarks Menu + the bookmarks!

[Curt]

I was trying Abelssoft AntiBrowserSpy, but got distracted from what I was doing. So when a corner of my brain said "Click Close!", my hand clicked "OK"! Sad story made short: When I reopened my Firefox 47.02 my Bookmarks > Bookmarks Menu was gone - and all the bookmarks are "empty"; they will tell the name of the Internet shortcut, but not the Internet address!!

The cripled, useless Bookmarks Menu is present in the left sidebar, and under Titelbar > Bookmarks > Show all bookmarks > Library:

Help! My Firefox has lost Bookmarks Menu + the bookmarks!


but it is no longer to be found, where I am used to find it: under Bookmarks in the titelbar - like a normal old timer roll-down menu. But it isn't there:

Help! My Firefox has lost Bookmarks Menu + the bookmarks!

^ it's completely gone! How on earth can that be? 

I have of course tried this and that. Uninstalled and reinstalled several different versions of Firefox and removed and reinstalled AntiBrowserSpy. Searched my PC for bookmarks for Firefox. Nothing. Is Bookmarks Menu even a normal part of Firefox > Titelbar > Bookmarks or was it just something that I had from an extension, maybe?     Do 'you' have Bookmarks Menu?

---

Regarding Abelssoft AntiBrowserSpy: In all fairness I should say that a new version was launched just today, but my license literally ran out yesterday, which was why I was testing the spy in the first place.

[antekgla]

You could try this:

https://support.mozi...storing-from-backups

[MilesAhead]

Curt, do you use Restore Points?  Depending on your version and level of Windows you may have a copy of the bookmarks as Previous Versions of Files.  If you do not wish to use a Restore Point and want to selectively restore the Bookmarks files you could try the free program Shadow Explorer.

The Gui is similar to an undelete program.  The files from existing Restore Points are in a dropdown labeled by date.  Select the folder or file you want and recover it to a different drive or partition.  When you are sure it is the right one, copy it over the existing corrupted profile folder or bookmark file.

It has saved my bacon a few times. 

[Curt]

Thank you, antekgla
Firefox's internal restore files were completely missing, except for the one from today.

Thank you, MilesAhead
I always use restore points, when I install (via Revo Pro)

but ... oops! Windows said half an hour ago that it had found an error in my disk, would I like to restart Windows, so the error could be fixed? Yes, please, I would like that, I said. What's that you're talking about, it said: Restore Points? No, you don't have any of such a thing. Not even one!

It looks as if I am in the market for new computer. Now!

[Shades]

Sounds like your hard disk is developing problems. So that will be the only thing you will need to change in your computer. A lot cheaper than a new PC. Unless you are fed up with your current computer, that is what would do. Actually, replace it with an SSD model and you will come to the conclusion your old(ish?) computer still has a lot of life in it. I did the same with my 9 year old system and is now more than adequate for the simple tasks I assign to it.

[Curt]

Hm... The situation is that my drive (120GB) really is too small for me; I am using 78% of the available space, but can easily use half a thousand percent more. So on one hand I might take up your idea, Shades, but on the other hand various test-programs all give praise to my, and I quote, excellent SSD drive. But, hey, they didn't foresee the fall of the Soviet Union, or even that a ginger knight would be the new trump card!

I recently lost my external almost new backup drive, and now this drive may have problems. Well, something might be wrong inside this old (year 2009) Dell Latitude Z 600 (http://www.pcworld.c...ude_z600_review.html) with 4GB RAM. I don't know what is wrong with this one, but it's far too often telling me to wait, "the program is not answering". I really want for once in my life to try to own a fast computer.

But for now I am not finally decided.

Anyway, this is hardly the reason Bookmarks Menu is gone.

Is Bookmarks Menu even a normal part of Firefox > Titelbar > Bookmarks or was it just something that I had from an extension, maybe?     Do 'you' have Bookmarks Menu?

-Curt (February 06, 2017, 02:35 PM)

[MilesAhead]

One more idea.  Do you use multiple browsers?  If you installed another type of browser it may have imported bookmarks from Firefox.  In which case you may be able to export to an html file, then import it into Firefox.  You might get back all the Firefox bookmarks you had up to the date you installed that other browser.

[Curt]

-yes, thank you, MilesAhead, I did that yesterday. Unfortunately I didn't think to tell about it, because 1) I am so frustrated with Bookmarks Menu not being both available and working, and because 2) I am unable to delete the old, empty bookmarks (they are (not) there, but won't go away!?), so I now have double of it all, except of what I ask for:

Dear Reader, Do 'you' have a Firefox > Titelbar > Bookmarks > Bookmarks Menu ?    I  don't!

[MilesAhead]

Do you have the old fashioned caption bar menu?  If not maybe you had Classic Theme Restorer installed.  That is what I use. Otherwise I would be stuck with the "ribbon" crap. 

[Shades]

Hard disks can be "fickle beasts" and when data resides in a spot that the hard disk has trouble reading/writing to, all kinds of strange things can happen in the software trying to read/write this data. Hence my suggestion of a bigger/better/faster drive. I also should have mentioned the cloning. You have types of cloning software that uses its own bootmedia (specifically not Windows) before it gives you options to clone your disk.

Usually this kind of software is able to retrieve data where Windows (even after using CHKDSK) fails to do so. Be also aware the when you use a different version of CHKDSK when you try to repair disks/partitions in the Windows GUI or when you use the command-line version. The command-line version is the most powerful of the two.

So if you haven't done so, I would suggest to use the command-line version to see if your data is moved to a more readable/writable spot on your hard disk. And then see if you can access/copy/move your bookmarks in the way you are accustomed to.
 

[Curt]

@MilesAhead^^yes, I am using CTR. For the sake of the case, I have just tried to remove it - reinstall it, click "restore default", uninstall it completely, reinstall it, change a lot of settings - but all to no avail, regarding the case of the missing Bookmarks Menu.

@Shades. Right now my pulse is a lot slower than six hours ago. I have Windows and all software programs on my Solid State C:Drive, but only a few documents. Every media files are on an external D-drive. So I will adapt the attitude that it all will go okay, no reason to panic. So far I have lost nothing - except that infamous Bookmarks Menu - so I will create a new backup (of add-ons and bookmarks) and totally remove Firefox, so I can start all over.

Any hardware related solution will have to wait until Christmas is over...

[tomos]

Any hardware related solution will have to wait until Christmas is over...

-Curt (February 07, 2017, 09:21 AM)

that last Christmas or next

[Deozaan]

Dear Reader, Do 'you' have a Firefox > Titelbar > Bookmarks > Bookmarks Menu ?    I  don't!

-Curt (February 07, 2017, 07:32 AM)

This is what I have in Firefox 51.0.1:



I don't really know what the Bookmarks Menu is supposed to be or look like, since I don't really use bookmarks at all in Firefox. When I open all bookmarks (Ctrl+Shift+B) I do see a menu item called Bookmarks Menu but it just shows a list of bookmarks, not unlike the Bookmarks Toolbar. So I'm not really sure what the difference is. I guess the menu is what shows up when you click the Star | Clipboard icon?

If you want the Bookmarks Sidebar to show up, click on the clipboard side of the Star | Clipboard icon then click on View Bookmarks Sidebar.

If you want the Bookmarks Toolbar to show up underneath the address bar, click the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines near the top-right corner) and then click Customize. Then select the Show / Hide Toolbars dropdown near the bottom left, and enable Bookmarks Toolbar.