Bookmarks disappear

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thos
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Bookmarks disappear

Post by thos »

I use xplorer2 Professional v1.7.2.3 on Windows XP. Over the last several months, my bookmarks periodically disappear without any action on my part - as far as I know. Last week, I had several bookmarks, today I have only the 2 default ones - sample and sample FTP. Any ideas on this problem? Thanks.
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fgagnon
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Post by fgagnon »

I don't know why they get lost.  
FWIW, I recall that others have reported the mystery as well.  

Your bookmarks should all be safely stored in registry key:
HKCU\Software\Zab...Plc\xplorer2_UC.global\Favorites
After you recreate them manually, it may be a good idea to export that key so you can re-create them at a click (with x2 closed, of course).
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nikos
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Post by nikos »

is it just the bookmarks that disappear or all your settings altogether?
thos
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Post by thos »

Just the bookmarks and the toolbar icons that point to the bookmarks.
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Post by nikos »

are the bookmarks gone from the Bookmarks menu too or is it just the toolbar that goes missing? See if you are using Layouts (window menu) these come with their own set of toolbars
thos
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Post by thos »

Yes, they are gone from the menu also. I have 2 layouts but almost always use the default one, which is the one that looses the bookmarks. At this point, the bookmarks have remained intact for about a week and continues to be so.
thos
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Post by thos »

Thanks fgagnon for the advice on how to re-create the bookmarks. They disappeared again this week and I easily re-created them by following your instructions.
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fgagnon
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Post by fgagnon »

Thanks for the feedback, and glad you now have a quick fix,
but...
given that this is now a repeat occurrence, do you have any suspicions as to what might have triggered the disappearing bookmarks?  
  • a maintenance procedure?
    running a registry cleaner?
    interrupted power event (vs normal shutdown)?
    other user shutting down computer w/o logging you off?
It would be nice to ID the cause (or at least narrow down the suspects) to help determine how to prevent bookmark loss under the circumstances.
thos
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Post by thos »

I understand the need to ID the problem. That is a normal thing for me to do since I have been a computer user/programmer for over 40 years. However, I have not been able to connect the problem to anything. But I will be paying closer attention in the future. Thanks.
gemad9
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Post by gemad9 »

I'm having the same problem and reported it today, to Customer Service. The re-registering of the registry key didn't solve the problem, long term. But I may have solved it by noticing that the disappearing bookmarks refer to folders whose names have more than one word separated by spaces. When I replace the spaces with underscores and redo the bookmarks, they seem to remain in place (so far).

Ask me tomorrow! :-)
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nikos
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Post by nikos »

since bookmarks are stored in the registry then anything that may affect the registry could mess up with bookmarks. Do you run a registry cleaner from time to time? Or do you use xplorer2 /I command line option to load a previously saved xplorer2 settings file? and so on

the ultimate safety is to backup all your favorite settings so if they mysteriously disappear in the future you can quickly get them back, see:
www.zabkat.com/blog/13Apr08.htm
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Post by gemad9 »

Thanks for the reply. As I mentioned in my email to you, I cannot associate anything I'm doing with the missing bookmarks. Just a computer reboot can cause some of them to disappear. In addition, restoring saved registry settings does not bring them back. Also, there is no registry cleaning or other action on my part that can duplicate the problem.

However, as I posted above, filling spaces in directory names with underscores, seems to have stabilized the bookmarks and solved the problem. I will have to observe this for a longer time to be sure.

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Post by nikos »

In addition, restoring saved registry settings does not bring them back
this cannot be. Either you didn't save your settings when you re-entered the bookmarks (check the contents of the REG file) or you tried to "restore" the saved settings while xplorer2 was running. To use the saved REG file first quit xplorer2, then insert its contents in the registry; when you restart xplorer2 the old bookmarks should be there
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Post by gemad9 »

nikos wrote:
In addition, restoring saved registry settings does not bring them back
this cannot be. Either you didn't save your settings when you re-entered the bookmarks (check the contents of the REG file) or you tried to "restore" the saved settings while xplorer2 was running. To use the saved REG file first quit xplorer2, then insert its contents in the registry; when you restart xplorer2 the old bookmarks should be there
You may be right about my not saving or restoring them correctly, but that doesn't explain why, after configuring them to begin with, and hitting "Action/Save settings now", and re-booting, one or two of them disappear.

In any case next time they behave in this strange manner, I will be very careful how I save and restore them. At the moment, after re-naming the directories to which they refer, filling spaces with underscores seems to have solved the problem.
danielrod
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I may have some clues as to the disappearing bookmarks.

Post by danielrod »

I'm also suffering from the same problem. I have been using my bookmarks for months without a problem.

a few days ago, I created a new layout and deleted one of the default ones (not THE default one, but the other one that is placed automatically there by the program).

after shutting down my computer and turning it on the next day, about six of my bookmarks from the bookmark menu were gone. The toolbar keeps the  buttons intact (although the icons get changed to a generic folder icon), but they get renamed to something like bookmark 10, bookmark 11, bookmark 12, etc.  Clicking them takes you nowhere since the original bookmark no longer exists.

any ideas?

-- Daniel
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