SQL error 1: Unsupported File Format (Mac OS 10.4)
Two Mac OS 10.4 users who had used previous alpha or beta versions of Firefox 3.0, and then updated to the release version, reported that Bookdog and /or Firefox were unable to read their bookmarks. With Bookdog, the error shows up in a dialog reporting "sql error 1: Unsupported File Format". Although I don't quite understand all of the details, and I'm not sure if the bug was in Bookdog or in the earlier versions of Firefox, I have assembled a tool which seems to fix it. If you have this problem,
1. Download the tool, Firefox3_Updater.zip.
2. Unzip it to your Desktop.
3. Put the Put_Me_On_Your_Desktop folder onto your Desktop.
4. Open that folder.
5. Doubleclick the Doubleclick_me AppleScript.
6. Click through the dialogs.
If you have success, or any trouble, please let me know using the Support Request Form at the right or send a regular email.
Bookmarks Disappeared after saving from Bookdog on Another Mac
If you open Firefox 3 bookmarks on another Mac (clicking in the menu File ► Other Mac Account), you must completely quit Bookdog before launching Firefox 3 on the other Mac. Otherwise, Firefox 3 will refuse to open its database and show no bookmarks, no folders, "no nothing". (Unfortunately it does not give any indication that it has a problem.) Firefox 3 is very sensitive to other apps being in its database, and is extra sensitive if that other app happens to be on another Mac.
Smart Bookmarks
Bookdog handles Firefox 3's smart bookmarks in a predictable way, but the results are not always as expected. I've written an article which explains the problem, the current implementation, and changes under consideration..
Slow Saving
If you have thousands of bookmarks with many tags, saving can take a long time. This is partly the nature of the beast, and partly because this is a beta test for Bookdog and I'm more concerned with safety than speed, so I tried to do the database operations safely, with minimal caching. If you find some part of it particularly annoying, first please update to the latest version because I made some big speed improvements in Bookdog 5.1.6. If it's still too slow for you, please let me know what is happening, how many bookmarks you have, your Mac OS X version and Mac model. Use the Support Request Form at the right or send a regular email.
Recovering Bookmarks in case of Database Corruption.
Beta test software may have bugs in it. If you notice that Firefox 3 gives error messages or other weird behavior when you click menu > Bookmarks > Show All Bookmarks, your bookmarks database may be corrupt. To allow you to "back out" in case of database corruption, or missing bookmarks, versions of Bookdog released during the Firefox 3 beta test write a backup of your existing database file before Bookdog modifies your database (which happens when you make changes in Bookdog and click 'Save'). You can use the procedure below to restore your bookmarks database from one of these backups.
1. Quit Firefox 3. This is very important, because, unfortunately, Firefox 3
caches data from the file and therefore the database is not as
bulletproof as sqlite databases normally are. Mozilla lists playing with
the database file while Firefox 3 is running as the #1 way to
corrupt, or further corrupt, your bookmarks.
2. Activate the Finder.
3. Open a new window to your Home Folder.
4. Navigate to:
~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default
(The letters xxxxxxxx will be different on each Macintosh account)
5. Locate the file named places.sqlite and rename it to some other name.
6. Open a second Finder window to your Home Folder.
7. In the second window, navigate to:
~/Library/Application Support/Bookdog/Firefox 3 Backups/
8. These files in this folder are named according to the following formula:
YYYY_MM_DD_TimeHHMMSS.sqlite
YYYY=Year (2008)
MM=Month
DD=Date
HH=Hour, using a 24-hour aclock
MM=Minute,
SS=Seconds
The titled date/time is the time that Bookdog copied and created the file.
(For further granularity, you may also read the "Date Modified" of the file.
This was the last time that the file was modified, and therefore will precede
the time in the name, which is the time that Bookdog copied it. There were
no modifications made to your bookmarks between these two times.)
9. Select the file which is you believe, from it date, is not corrupt.10. Duplicate this file (select it and click menu File > Duplicate).
11. Rename the duplicate with the new name places.sqlite. (Case-sensitive.)
12. Drag the new places.sqlite from the second window into the first window.
(Note that, if you are using Leopard and Time Machine, you should have
additional backup archives of places.sqlite from which to choose on your
backup hard drive.)
13. Launch Firefox 3, or Bookdog, and verify that your non-corrupt bookmarks
have been restored.
14. If Firefox 3 is still behaving weird, quit Firefox. In the first window, open the
file prefs.js using a text editor such as TextEdit. Locate the line:
user_pref("browser.places.leftPaneFolderId", XX);
The number XX at gives Firefox the index of the "root" item in your
database, and it may be now incorrect. Delete this line in your editor, save
the file, repeat steps 10-13 and finally relaunch Firefox. Firefox will
search for the root and re-write this line, which may fix the problem.
Note 1: If you don't want to edit prefs.js, you can also delete prefs.js, but then
you will lose your other Firefox preferences and have to re-answer whether or
not you want Firefox to be your default browser and other annoying questions
upon relaunching Firefox.
Note 2: Possibly this dependency on prefs.js has been removed in Firefox
3.0b3. But if you are using 3.0b2 it might work.
16. If you feel that Bookdog may have caused the corruption, please use the
Support Request Form at the right or send a regular email
to tell us what happened, so we can investigate. State your Mac OS X
version. And, hang onto the suspect corrupt file (which you renamed in step 5)
until the issue is resolved, in case we'd like to look at it.