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Custom smart bookmarks are disappearing
I have a lot of bookmarks (2,000+ I believe), so I use Firefox's system of tags and smart bookmarks (also known as smart folders) to manage them. Here's the Mozilla article with more details. I have two or three folders with all my custom smart bookmarks in them, and recently Foxmarks hasn't been syncing all those smart bookmarks. When my smart bookmarks are uploaded to the server, it seems to pick and choose at random which ones to include, and which ones to ignore. Thankfully, the ones on my computer have not been affected. I didn't notice this problem until recently because I hadn't yet used Foxmarks to sync bookmarks between computers. I had basically just been using it to perform periodical backups of my bookmarks.
I think (though I'm not sure since I have so many of them) that all of my normal bookmarks have synced with no problem. I also realize that not many people are creating custom smart bookmarks, or have such a huge number of bookmarks in the first place, so my problem may be a unique one. Is there a size limit on the number of bookmarks that the Foxmarks server can handle? If there is, maybe I've hit that. But my primary concern is to get this smart bookmark problem resolved. It really helps me manage my normal bookmarks.
I appreciate any help that you can give me.
I think (though I'm not sure since I have so many of them) that all of my normal bookmarks have synced with no problem. I also realize that not many people are creating custom smart bookmarks, or have such a huge number of bookmarks in the first place, so my problem may be a unique one. Is there a size limit on the number of bookmarks that the Foxmarks server can handle? If there is, maybe I've hit that. But my primary concern is to get this smart bookmark problem resolved. It really helps me manage my normal bookmarks.
I appreciate any help that you can give me.
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?Unfortunately, Smart Bookmark synchronization isn't perfect yet. The interface that Firefox provides for Smart Bookmarks that use tags is based on the tag's numeric identifier, which cannot be guaranteed to migrate from computer to computer.
Thus, when you create a tag on one computer and create a smart bookmark for it, the smart bookmark uses the tag's number, but when that tag is synchronized to another Firefox profile, the tag number is likely to change, causing the smart bookmark to no longer work.
We hope to provide better support for this in the future, but we're very dependent on Firefox's tag API, so for now the best option seems to be to create a separate Smart Bookmark for each instance of Firefox where you need it. (Yeah, it's not a very good option, just the best we have available for now.)
If you find that Smart Bookmarks aren't even synchronizing to other computers (rather than just not showing any results elsewhere), please let us know, as we've not seen that except in cases where the bookmark was copy-and-pasted from another bookmark (also a known issue caused by the Firefox implementation).1 Comment
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This solves the problem
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Thank you. I have posted a reply to your answer below. -
Inappropriate?Sorry, but I'm a little confused by your reply. My problem is not that the smart bookmarks aren't functioning because of missing tags, but rather that the smart bookmarks aren't even synchronizing in the first place.
Actually, the smart bookmarks which do synchronize from one computer to another seem to be working just fine, and the tags attached to the regular bookmarks all copied successfully as well (as far as I can tell). The problem is, rather, that some of the smart bookmarks themselves are being ignored in the synchronization. For instance, I might have three smart bookmarks on my original computer:
- Homepages
- Search Engines
- Blogs
But when I sync them through Foxmarks and download them on a second computer, I see only:
- Homepages
All the bookmarks labeled with the "homepages" tag will still show up when I open the smart bookmark named "Homepages". The problem here is that the other two smart bookmarks never synchronized in the first place.
Sorry if I'm repeating myself. Just trying to clarify the issue. -
Inappropriate?Did you create your Smart Bookmarks by copy-and-paste? As I hinted at previously, there's a known issue in Firefox 3 where it doesn't properly create a fresh bookmark when you copy-and-paste it, and Foxmarks won't synchronize the corrupted bookmarks that get created that way.
Try creating a fresh Smart Bookmark with the same "URL", and I bet it'll sync just fine. You can confirm this is the case by checking your foxmarks.log and seeing if there are references to the dropped bookmarks that look something like:
[2008-12-22 12:54:28] Warning: Filtering FRED(fjkh6mat-4k) as a corrupted duplicate in parent FRED (fjkh6mat-4k)
Let us know if that's not the case. -
Inappropriate?I copy-and-pasted the entire folder of affected smart bookmarks into a new empty folder, and it actually made Foxmarks see them with the next synchronization. I think it shows that copy-and-pasting isn't causing the problem.
But in any case, I may have stumbled across a different solution. I have found that my unorthodox smart-bookmark-making-process might be contributing to the problem. See, I have a "template" bookmark with an "about:blank" url and a long string of commands in the comment section that I duplicate and use to make my smart bookmarks. I cut & paste the string of commands into the url section and it turns itself into a smart bookmark. But here's where the order of things seems to come in. If I turn the template bookmark into a smart bookmark and then drag it into the folder full of smart bookmarks, then Foxmarks doesn't synchronize it. But if I drag the template bookmark (which is still a regular bookmark) into the folder full of smart bookmarks and then turn it into a smart bookmark, Foxmarks does synchronize it.
I don't really understand why this happens. Does dragging between folders equate to copying & pasting? Or maybe this has to do with Firefox's method of recognizing new smart bookmarks. Whenever I create one, Firefox doesn't recognize it right away unless I exit the bookmarks panel and then come back to it, or if I move the new smart bookmark to a different folder. Also, if there are any smart bookmarks or live bookmarks above the new smart bookmark, Firefox does something odd, seeming to rapidly open and close them, as if refreshing them or checking for changes.
Oh, well. At least I've solved the problem. I appreciate your help, and hope that I've at least given you some useful information.
I’m happy
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Inappropriate?Great to hear you got it working; marking as Solved.
It looks like the most recent update to Firefox 3 fixed the copy-and-paste behavior, so maybe that's part of why things are working for you again. I'm not sure why dragging would cause the behavior, though, since that should equate to a move rather than a copy-and-paste. Odd. -
Inappropriate?This is caused by a Firefox bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug...
It affects not only Foxmarks, but also the built-in bookmarks import/export feature as well as Weave. Please vote for the bug so it will get fixed.
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