In some instances, changes made to your preferences or configuration may not be remembered by Firefox. This article addresses how to fix the source issue that may result in one or more of the following browser behaviors:

• Changes that you made to your toolbars do not appear when you restart Firefox.
• Changes made to the browser window's size and position are not remembered when you restart Firefox.
• Firefox 2:
  Your personal bookmarks appear in the Bookmarks Manager, but they do not appear in the Bookmark menu and cannot be edited.
• You cannot save bookmarks.

Table Of Contents

• Cause
• Fixing the problem
• Method 1: Using Safe Mode
• Method 2: Delete localstore.rdf manually

Cause

The above symptoms are caused by a corrupted file, in your Firefox user data, called localstore.rdf. This file is maintained by Firefox to manage some of your local configuration information.

Fixing the problem

To repair this issue, the localstore.rdf file must be deleted. When Firefox is restarted, the file is automatically recreated. This issue can be fixed by using either of the following methods.

• No bookmarks are deleted or changed by these methods.

Note: If you have customized your toolbars, any unsaved changes are lost when you complete this fix and restart Firefox. Before you delete the localstore.rdf file, you may find it useful to take note of what you have on your toolbar.

Method 1: Using Safe Mode

1. Close down Firefox completely: At the top of the Firefox window, click the File menu, and select the Exit menu item.Close down Firefox completely: On the menu bar, click the Firefox menu, and select the Quit Firefox menu item.Close down Firefox completely: At the top of the Firefox window, click the File menu, and select the Quit menu item.
2. In Windows, click Start, open the All Programs list, and navigate to the Mozilla Firefox folder. In the Mozilla Firefox folder, select Mozilla Firefox (Safe Mode).
   Firefox 3, Mac OS:

   Hold down the Option key, as you start Firefox.
   Firefox 2, Mac OS:

   Go to the Utilities directory (in the Applications folder) and open Terminal, then run:

   /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -safe-mode

   Go to your Terminal and run:

   /path/to/firefox/firefox -safe-mode

3. Firefox should start up with a Firefox Safe Mode dialog.
   
   Note: You can also start Firefox in Safe Mode by clicking Start, selecting Run (or use the Start Search box in Windows Vista) and then entering the following in the text field:
   

   firefox -safe-mode

4. In the Firefox Safe Mode window, select Reset toolbars and controls.
   
   
   
5. Click Make Changes and Restart.
   
   
   

Method 2: Delete localstore.rdf manually

Caution: This method removes the copy of localstore.rdf in the profile folder. Do not delete the localstore.rdf copy in the Firefox program installation folder by mistake!

1. From the menu at the top of the Firefox windowbar, select FileFirefox and then select the ExitQuit FirefoxQuit menu item.
2. Go to your profile folder.
3. In the folder, delete the file localstore.rdf.

Based on information from Corrupt localstore.rdf (mozillaZine KB)