[Novices] Broken Firefox

[Bruce Smith]

>>   mv .mozilla/firefox .mozilla/firefox-save
>>
>> Then start firefox and see if it runs OK.  (your bookmarks will be  
>> gone
>> and your settings we be reset to default).  Try bookmarking something
>> and see if it works.  Test everything that is currently broken.
>>
>> If that works, we can try moving just your bookmarks back and see if
>> they are OK.  Let us know ...
>>
> Yee Haa, Hooray,  Whopee, FIXED!!!!!  Thanks.  And I (you)did it with
> shell commands.  I never could have figured it out on my own but  
> that's
> OK.
>
> I put in a couple of bookmarks and they worked and the toolbar is back
> and operating.
>
> Can we recapture the bookmarks?  If not, thats OK as I can put them  
> back
> one at a time.  I am willing to try though with your guidance.

We can try.

Before we just renamed the directory where firefox stores all of it's
settings, bookmarks, cookies, and everything else.

Then the next time you started firefox, it couldn't find it's  
directory so
it created a new one with all fresh/default settings.

That means your bookmarks still exist in the old/bad directory.  The
bookmarks itself may or may not be bad.  You can just copy them to
the new firefox directory and see what happens.

The bookmarks themselves are in a single file named "bookmarks.html".
The problem is I can't tell you where exactly to copy them from/to  
because
firefox names the directory they reside with a random name.

The old bookmarks are in (starting with your home directory):
.mozilla/firefox-save/<some-directory-name>/bookmarks.html
And they  should be copied to:
.mozilla/firefox/<some-other-directory-name>/bookmarks.html

The "some other directory" usually (but not always) starts with
the word "default".  You can use the command line OR the file
manager to copy the bookmarks over.

Make sure firefox is NOT running when you perform the copy,
then start firefox and see if your bookmarks are recovered.

Let us know your progress!

  - BS