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Why aren't imported Bookmarks displayed?

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  • Last reply by ebob2k

ebob2k
ebob2k
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I installed Firefox and wanted to import the settings from my old laptop. For that, I installed MozBackup on my old, Win2k laptop, used it to back up my complete profile to my flash drive, then moved the flash drive to the newer Toshiba laptop with Win7, installed MozBackup on the Toshiba, and used its Restore a profile function to import the saved profile from the flash drive. That, even though it was on a Win7 system, worked like a champ. However...... I later tried to import the same profile into Firefox on my WinXP tower, but I saw no results after the import: Blank Bookmarks, blank Bookmarks bar, even the home page wouldn't display when Firefox was opened. 

   When I realized that everything was set OK and everything else was working, but nothing in Firefox (v32.0) was working as it should, I used Revo Uninstaller to completely uninstall v32, then I installed version 23. That Firefox version happily accepted the profile import, the Bookmarks & Bookmarks toolbar displayed the imported Bookmarks, and the home page displayed when Firefox opened.

Does anyone have a better fix or workaround?

I installed Firefox and wanted to import the settings from my old laptop. For that, I installed MozBackup on my old, Win2k laptop, used it to back up my complete profile to my flash drive, then moved the flash drive to the newer Toshiba laptop with Win7, installed MozBackup on the Toshiba, and used its Restore a profile function to import the saved profile from the flash drive. That, even though it was on a Win7 system, worked like a champ. However...... I later tried to import the same profile into Firefox on my WinXP tower, but I saw no results after the import: Blank Bookmarks, blank Bookmarks bar, even the home page wouldn't display when Firefox was opened. When I realized that everything was set OK and everything else was working, but nothing in Firefox (v32.0) was working as it should, I used Revo Uninstaller to completely uninstall v32, then I installed version 23. That Firefox version happily accepted the profile import, the Bookmarks & Bookmarks toolbar displayed the imported Bookmarks, and the home page displayed when Firefox opened. Does anyone have a better fix or workaround?

Chosen solution

Considering that Firefox 12 was the last version of Firefox that was compatible with W2K, you were restoring via MozBackup a very old version's Profile into Firefox 32. Shear luck that it worked with Firefox 23.

There have been a lot of changes in the files that are in the Firefox Profile between ~ Firefox 19 and Firefox 32 - and there's more changes coming over the next three version that are already in the "pipeline" and probably beyond those, too.

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the-edmeister
the-edmeister
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Chosen Solution

Considering that Firefox 12 was the last version of Firefox that was compatible with W2K, you were restoring via MozBackup a very old version's Profile into Firefox 32. Shear luck that it worked with Firefox 23.

There have been a lot of changes in the files that are in the Firefox Profile between ~ Firefox 19 and Firefox 32 - and there's more changes coming over the next three version that are already in the "pipeline" and probably beyond those, too.

ebob2k
ebob2k Question owner
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I NOW understand that there is a difference in some of the files between different Firefox versions, but I would not have believed that they could be so different as to prevent the transfer of Profile settings to a newer version.

That same Profile was imported the same way into another system. That system had Win7 and either Firefox 25.0.1 or 32.0.2, depending on whether or not Firefox had already updated itself.

I tried the Profile transfers to both systems because I could not believe that Mozilla would make it that difficult to migrate from an older Firefox version to a newer version. I assumed it would be almost as easy as transferring the Custom file for Word’s Spell Check/Proof.

On a similar note, could you imagine not being able to transfer your messages and Address Book from an Outlook 2000 install to an Outlook 2013 install on a new system?