Daniel Lange's blog

Thanks a lot for mirroring SyncPlaces - I've changed my computer and really needed this to sync back all my bookmarks.

On the other hand - it's sad to hear Andy's story, details I think are not that important. As I see, addons/apps that are solving real problems (sync to MY OWN cloud), are shuting down for one reason or another (eg: foxmarks byos, now syncplaces).

Anyway, thanks again, Gab.

Thank you very much for this - I have no interest whatsoever in using the builtin firefox sync feature, much prefer to store bookmarks and passwords on my own server. Would love to switch to Chrome because mozilla seems to be on a mission to alienate users (and developers) but haven't yet found a good Chrome alternative to this plugin

I can only consent to what Mehmet and all the others said above. BIG THANKS, Daniel, for your effort. You totally made our day!

Thank you for posting these Daniel. It's a shame Mozilla didn't appreciate Andy's work as much as the user community still does.

Daniel,

As a follow up, did you ever hear back from Andy on the details of what happened with Mozilla?

If you didn't reinstall FF and make a new user profile, Syncplaces install file is lurking still in your user profile/extensions folder under the name syncplaces@andyhalford.com.xpi. So you can save it for later use. However, it seems that it does not work 100% under FF 14. It sends the files to the server, but on receiving it ends with a Path not found error message.

Strike, risen from the dead! Thanks!

Thanks Daniel for the article and for mirroring the addons. And thanks for the links to other mirrors. I downloaded the SortPlaces addon from the Belnet mirror. I am using Firefox 15.0.1. For those who don't this, as I didn't, one installs it by clicking "addons" from the Firefox tools menu. Then click the gear wheel to get its dropdown menu. Then click "install add-on from file". Browse to the .xpi addon file on your PC. Install.

Well. I was just doing some leisurely review & upkeep on my add-ons collection ... clicked Andy Halford's link in his Checkplaces dialog, just for grins ... and ended up here (after further searching).

The intense upgrade cycle at Firefox, and the "forcing" of updates, is not a good sign. Like the old song says "Nobody does it better, but sometimes I wish someone would".

Everybody says (in regard to 'upgrade-frenzy' & other points), 'What the heck are they doing'?! But of course, no one can answer the question.

Thanks to Mr. Halford for his products that fit my needs so well; and thanks to Daniel Lange for finding & posting fresh copies of the now unavailable add-ons.

Thanks to you for hunting down copies of these excellent Firefox add-ons. Even more thanks to Andy Halford for having developed and maintained them. I have anew laptop so want to do a synch, like many, not iterested in synch-ing over "the cloud".

Thanx for the archive. I followed a link from a Mozilla tutorial on sorting bookmarks to Andy Halfords website, to be greeted by the "Thanks For all the Fish..." notice. So I googled my way to your site here and found the 'sortplaces' xpi. Installed it like normal on Firefox 20 and it works like a charm. Really sad to see such a great coder withdraw his unique products like this. No decent replacement for 'sortplaces'. I've saved the other 3 add-ons on general principle and to use later. Inspired, I went to the wayback machine and opened every page of Andy's documentation in tabs and saved it all as an .mht file with all the associated downloads.

hopefully, it gets updated. Any chance?

Guys,

one additional comment to my findings above: It was enough to set AND reset the .html export option in one step, no need to leave the options menu and go back to it to make it work!

Same here! We installed Firefox v22 on a brand-new HP Win7Pro machine, new profile, new everything. Now doing a receive in SyncPlaces just gets the errorL

"COULD NOT SAVE BOOKMARKS"

Five hours spent trying different things in FF with no luck. Just great...the only browser extension that allows syncing of bookmark .json files using a private server, and it's now officially broken. >:(

Can't anyone talk to Andy about giving up the source so this can be fixed??? The community doesn't need any new features, nor even hosted on Mozilla. Just updated to keep it working. Uggghh

since FF22 the addons didn't work anymore

Thanks a lot the updated SortPlaces!

In the meantime, a big thanks to Marc from Montreal for the reprieve (sort-places/FF22)

Here is my fix for SyncPlaces "COULD NOT SAVE BOOKMARKS" (TypeError: PlacesUtils.livemarks.isLivemark is not a function) issue.

WARNING!!! Do at your own risk! Also this may screw things up if you are using Live Marks (RSS).

1) Find this file and make a backup copy: "C:\Documents and Settings\xxx\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxx\extensions\syncplaces@andyhalford.com\chrome\content\bookmarks.js"

2) In bookmarks.js using text editor replace all occurences of "PlacesUtils.nodeIsLivemarkContainer(child)" and "PlacesUtils.nodeIsLivemarkContainer(node)" with "false". Case sensitive! For example old line:

if (PlacesUtils.nodeIsQuery(node) || PlacesUtils.nodeIsLivemarkContainer(node)) {

should now be:

if (PlacesUtils.nodeIsQuery(node) || false) {

3) Restart Firefox. Should work now!

Enjoy

Thanks for the Sort Places mirror that seems to have fixed the PlacesUtils.livemarks.isLivemark is not a function issue for me which started after upgrading to FF22. You guys are great

I have tried deleting the lines in progress.js of CheckPlaces 2.6.2 but must be having problems repacking it as I get an error "this addon could not be installed because it appears to be corrupt".

How do you personally repack the extension? I used Winrar to change it to a .rar file and then rename it to an .xpi file. This does not work.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

After I upgraded to FF 22.0, sortplaces-1.9.2 gave "TypeError: PlacesUtils.nodeIsLivemarkContainer is not a function"

The improved sortplaces-1.9.2B-sm+fx.xpi fixed the problem.

im not good in programming, but i know that writing a async code is much more than replacing some commands, its like writing the code completely new. some ff-addons got removed cause of this.

plus it seems like there are new changes in ff 23.

so i think we have to realize that we have to say goodbye to syncplaces and maybe the other addons too.

and who knows, when u read the news, its maybe the best to stop sending your bookmarks through the internet

atm im searching for something to sync the bookmarks offline. if someone knows a tool for windows... would be nice to post it here.

thanks to daniel for this place and all the others for the help.

Hi,

I patched all the js files of syncplaces to no longer reference the removed API. Dowload the files from http://www.upload.ee/files/3455453/content_after_removing_dead_API.zip.html and put the files into your c:\Users\you\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\profile.default\extensions\syncplaces@andyhalford.com\chrome\content. Hope it works for you as well.

Best, Klaus

Hi everybody,

i also did the dirty changes into the searchplaces plugin and i test an repack the changes of claus as Daniel said and send it to him to change the plugin on the page above.

but everybody remeber - this is only a dirty fix. next version of firefox (release Date 8.8.2013) will become api-updates again.

we need to fix this in the code. i also got programming experiences but i never develop firefox extensions. so its not quite easy to fix this (remember to andy) casualy.

if someone can help me to leave a message. but remember: i need no links to MDN, i also know it! some tips to got a quick debug an development system, a good ide for that an so on might help!

please feel free to test it and give us some feedback!

thank you! Frank

ps: sorry for my rusty english...

Installing the above version of Sort Places into FF22 ended up corrupting my bookmarks, but I was able to restore since I use xmarks.

Tried it in FF21, same problem. Weird thing is, everything I visit this blog in firefox, firefox crashes (at least doesn't respond)! I'm not writing in Chrome of all things.

Now I'm in FF23, and am going to try again.

Wow, spent all day on this. Ok, here is final resolution, I hope. I rolled back to version 21 and that seemed to work with the 1.92B from Marc, but then the darn thing updated to 22 even though I had set it to NOT update and custom installed it so that it would NOT install the background Firefox maintain software.

Anyway, one problem I ran into was the bookmark add dates all being made the same. Again, saved by xmarks, but it had problems too. It wouldn't sync propersly.

• Version 22 of Firefox
• Version 4.2.1 that show sup in the addon window of Firefox NOT the lastest 4.2.3 from Xmarks site.
• 1.92B from Marc: http://daniel-lange.com/software/sortplaces-1.9.2B-sm+fx.xpi

This seems to be a stable solution. I'm lobbying Xmarks to step in and solve this problem, they were bought by LastPass. They have the resources to stay on top of this. They should work with Marc to ensure that a stable combination of Firefox, Sort Places, and Xmarks is available so folks canpublish RSS feeds and public shares of bookmarks.

m.a.dover@csuohio.edu

hi raf,

actually the only solution is to roll back to FF22 because there is no working version of syncplaces for FF23.

User the following page, choose your language an copy the download-link, change the version-number to 22 and download last version to install.

For US-version: https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-22.0&os=win&lang=en-US

This version will work with the current version of syncplaces.

To work with FF 23 you have to change all phrases: PlacesUtils.toJSONString to: JSON.stringify

And syncplaces will work again

Has changed the phrases per PSPad > search & replace but doesn't work for me. Can anyone post a working version of Syncplaces please!

P.S.: Testing now FF Sync minimal Server on my Synology NAS. FeBe Backup was not a practicable option.

Thanks Graham, that version works for firefox 23 with ftp

@Graham: Thanks for your fix. Please give your version a differential name (for example with suffix C instead of B). Otherwise it can be cofused with B version of Frank Kirchner. @Daniel Lange: Could you update your main article "Updates" please. @all: What is about license/right? Is it legal to post xpi files in www and is it permitted from mozilla's point of view?

Re-posted with new link and appended version number. Working with Firefox 23.0 - 23.01

http://www.hellsteeth.talktalk.net/syncplaces-5.1.0C-sm+fx.xpi

Thanks for the reply and the changes.

The addons-page shows the 'C' correctly, but the interface of SyncPlaces still shows 5.1.0B I found that in options.xul -> line 43 and actions.xul also line 43 But that is just cosmetics...

What is more annoying is that the 3 RSS feeds led to a 'Invalid or corrupted bookmarks received' error. The debugging log shows the following lines:

Donnerstag, 12. September 2013 00:31:54 ERROR 9: TypeError: PlacesUtils.livemarks.createLivemarkFolderOnly is not a function

Donnerstag, 12. September 2013 00:31:54 ERROR 9 key: invalid_bookmarks

Donnerstag, 12. September 2013 00:31:54 ERROR 9 extraText: null

As I do not really depend too much on the RSS feeds, I simply deleted them and now receiving the bookmarks back from the server is also working... I'm fully aware that simply removing some entries from the bookmarks is not a general solution that can be taken seriously, but at least in my case it solved this problem...

Thanks again & best regards,

Peter

Syncplaces has another problem with a missing function:

PlacesUtils.livemarks.createLivemarkFolderOnly is not a function

Reference to this function is made in chrome/content/utils.js, line 509.

I have now inserted a variable definition like this

var livemarkService = Components.classes["@mozilla.org/browser/livemark-service;2\"].getService(Components.interfaces.nsILivemarkService);

into the affected function and changed the offending line from

id = PlacesUtils.livemarks.createLivemarkFolderOnly(container, node.title, siteURI, feedURI, index);

to

id = livemarkService.createLivemark(container, node.title, siteURI, feedURI, index);

Please check if this is valid and comment. Thank you very much.

Version ID shows correctly in window head now.

http://www.hellsteeth.talktalk.net/syncplaces-5.1.0C-sm+fx.xpi

Thanks PeterS for: options.xul - line 43

I use Firefox 23.0.1 with the following extensions.

http://www.hellsteeth.talktalk.net/FEBE%20Results.htm

I use SyncPlaces configured for FTP, encrypted AES 256. Earlier I deleted all my bookmarks, re-installed SyncPlaces and restored all without problem.

My SyncPlaces log is as follows.

12 September 2013 23:23:27 Synchronize
12 September 2013 23:23:27 ERROR 11: Transfer in progress ...
12 September 2013 23:23:27 Receiving Hash,
12 September 2013 23:23:28 ERROR 11: Transfer in progress ...,
12 September 2013 23:23:28 case this.JSON,
12 September 2013 23:23:29 showAlert=false,
12 September 2013 23:23:29 returning backupFilePath=[xpconnect wrapped nsIFile],
12 September 2013 23:23:29 ERROR 11: Already up to date

It does sync/send/overwrite for me no problem.

http - https config gave me a headache.(functioned intermittently)

I agree, it needs an overhaul, and even better a fresh start. For those that still use it, we have had another year. which is good.

I was gutted when it stopped working. It has been very helpful over the years.

Cheers everyone for the input/output. G

Update: After fiddling around with the JavaScript peculiarities (new methods have to be inserted into an existing object at the very last position, otherwise, the whole object will not be found any more) I have now restored the Livemarks functionality. Both PlacesUtils.livemarks.createLivemarkFolderOnly and PlacesUtils.nodeIsLivemarkContainer are replaced by alternative coding and at least I do not get livemarks-related errors any more. Download at http://home.arcor.de/dac324/firefox/syncplaces/syncplaces-5.1.2.xpi

I'm on ff 27.0.1 and sp 5.1.0c and it's working fine, on most machines. I'm going to upgrade to the latest build anyway.

Thanks to you guys for keeping this going. I've been using it for years and it's the only thing that works the way I want to keep my bookmarks; privately! I can't thank you enough!

just wanted to let everyone know sortplaces-1.9.2B working perfect with FF24 (not using Andy's other add-ons)

will be staying with the last version of FF that works with sortplaces-1.9.2B for life

thanks to Marc and Daniel for keeping it going so far ....

Thank you so much for preserving and updating Andy's works Daniel. i really need those awesome add ons.

Thank you

THANK YOU Daniel!!! I have been looking for a solution like SyncPlaces forever.

I run Firefox sandboxed in a VMWare virtual machine which restores to the original disk image each time I shut down. Which means all the bad stuff I picked up while surfing is gone..... along with all my new bookmarks. I had been using a different solution but it was saving the whole firefox profile which kind of negated some of the advantage.

Now I can save my bookmarks to my own private "cloud"

Thanks a ton for saving this extension!!!

BTW, Syncplaces working fine in FF 24

The actualy release won't work correct in the actual Firefox-Browser. We need to fix the bugs, i like to summarize them:

• in my case there are old password und user-data on an ftp-server. a empty install will find and import it.

• a update after changing or adding data in local browser seems not to work, i don't know if the transfer or other thinks fail, but the ftp-access data are correct. i need to debug this

• also every period (normale the plugin should sync data) there appears a empty message-box. i think this could be a failure-message but i need to finde the exact place.

i will active debug-mode an hope to get more information about the problems.

somebody here also hat any or all of these things?

thanks frank

Thank you very mutch for keeping it alive !!!
I still think this piece of software is the best one of its kind.
I dont like to put stuff in clouds and hope its save or still private.

Nothing more needs to be said.
Thank you Daniel, and please keep it up

Due to some problems with Flash I upgraded from Version 17 to the latest esr version which is 24.3.0 and was hoping both CheckPlaces and SortBookmarks worked in the newer versions.

When I imported the Bookmarks.json file from the previous version and sorted the bookmarks, SortBookmarks ran, and didn't complain.

When I ran CheckPlaces it ran and didn't complain but didn't update the Favicons as it usually did. But I found an easy workaround. Provided you had a backed up your previous bookmarks by saving them as HTML as well as JSON.

Here's what I discovered. There are no Favicons in the JSON file. I went back several backups and looked. Not a one. So where do they hide. The answer is in places.sqlite but when you import a new Bookmarks.json it replaces everything in places.sqlite, and when you run CheckPlaces, along with checking the web sites, it used to get the favicons and write them to places.sqlite. Something in the newer versions of FireFox are preventing CheckPlaces from doing this.

But I found an easy workaround. I backup my bookmarks weekly, and saved them as a .JSON file as well as "Export to HTML" so I can import the FireFox bookmarks into any other browser. Although I had never used the HTML file to import into FireFox, I figured I'd try it. Much to my surprise, all the Favicons were there after I imported the HTML file.

The only downside to this is that when you import the HTML file, it adds to the existing bookmarks, whereas the JSON file replaces them. NBD, I just deleted all the old ones without the Favicons, and I'm happy again.

To keep the icons, just Export the bookmarks as HTML and they will all be saved, or save off the Places.sqlite that has the Favicons stored. Either way works.

Well I was wrong about Favicons not being stored in the file Places.sqlite. They are all there, both the web addresses and I'm pretty sure the favicons themselves, although I can't be 100% sure.

I searched high and low for a program to view the Sqlite files that FireFox uses but came up empty. The program that I had used before, an addon for FireFox, Sqlite Manager doesn't work with the newer versions of FireFox.

I did find one that will read the Sqlite files that FireFox uses. It's called sqlitestudio-2.1.5.exe and the link for it is here: http://sqlitestudio.pl

With it I was able to export the tables in Places.Sqlite, and there is one called moz_favicons that has all of the favicons in it, as well as the web addresses. I'm pretty sure that the information stored in the table is the actual favicon code itself, but I'm not 100% sure.

I'm sure there are others that will read the files, but so far SqliteStudio is the best I've found. To save you some effort, here's a list of the programs that didn't work: LINQPad4Setup Sqlite_manager-0.8.1-fx+tb+sm.xpi SQLite2009Pro-v3.8.3.1 Sqliteadmin_0.8.3.2.zip Sqlitebrowser_200_b1_win.zip Sqlitemanager-0.7.7-all.xpi

If I find out more information I'll report back.

Wonderful to have found these as I'm doing update routines this week (prompted by support for WinXP ending)... I've been frozen at Firefox 19 for awhile now ... but, I noticed I have been running version 5.2.0 of Syncplaces from Andy via the Waybackmachine, I see no references to that version here.

According to the changelog:

5.2.0 (26th May 2012)

o Added interface to logging system to the Advanced tab

As an exercise in learning Java, I may try running diffs and seeing if I can fold that into 5.1.0C from here, once I see what the effective change actually is when I (back/forward version to 5.1.0C)

I'm using SyncPlaces against Subversion server backend over HTTPS. SyncPlaces v5.1.0C stopped working for me with release of Firefox 22, so I was pinned down to FF21. Now that I've upgraded to FF30, I find that v5.1.0C works! Happy to be back on latest browser version.

Thank you very much for preserving these great add-ons. I prefer to keep my bookmark backups on my own server, and sync places lets me easily do that unlike Mozilla's built-in sync which is almost impossible to configure to store backups locally.

I would love to see a single download link somewhere on this page that would take visitors to the latest versions of the plugins if possible. There are several releases of sync places on this page, and all seem to be located in a different spot, and that makes it difficult to know which version is the latest and where to get it.

Thank you.

Hello,

just FYI: As I was able to find a replacement for PlacesUtils.nodeIsLiveMarkContainer() in SyncPlaces, I have now incorporated this replacement in SortPlaces, too. Thus, SortPlaces is now able to sort LiveMarks (RSS Feeds) again You can download version 1.9.3 of SortPlaces at http://home.arcor.de/dac324/firefox/sortplaces/sortplaces-1.9.3.xpi

Kind regards, Gerd

Hi All,

just wanted to put some weight to this, since FF34.0 indeed broke SyncPlaces for me as well and given that FF34 is meant to fix the recent SSL issues, it seems like a must-have update.

I realize from the discussions above that there is a limited scope for further adjustments in SyncPlaces to counteract internal FF changes. Can anyone say if we have reached that point?

Regards, Ingmar

Updated to FF34.0.5 and SyncPlaces 5.1.0.D, today. Send works. Receive does not. I get "Invalid or corrupted bookmarks received". Workaround: XBEL import.

Sorry I meant to add that i use it over FTP and not HTTPS

GW

I've had the very same problem, until I switched to the SyncPlaces version patched by Gerd.

I don't know what he has modified differently, but the "received corrupted bookmarks" problem is now gone and by bookmarks are being synchronised again, no matter on which machine I add them.

The only remaining problem is an empty dialog coming up now and then, which I can click away.

Hi, I am a bit of a diehard with this very usefull addon.

You can disable the add-ons must be signed/verified by Mozilla function.

I do not recommend following the below instructions unless you are very sure you know what your doing.

Type about:config in the browser's address bar and hit enter. This loads Firefox's main configuration page. Confirm the warning prompt when it appears. Search for the preference xpinstall.signatures.required Double-click on it to toggle its value.

When you set it to false, you disable the add-on signing requirement.

G Webdale

Thanks Marki! I am still a user of SortPlaces and have found no suitable replacement.

Now that Firefox 48 is nearly upon us I needed to do something to continue to use this addon.

Inspired by your post, I looked into getting the xpi signed myself. I'm not an IT pro, but after reading and working on things for 30mins or so I managed to get the addon signed!

First install npm and jpm as explained here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/SDK/Tools/jpm

Then get it signed as shown here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US /Add-ons/SDK/Tools/jpm#jpm_sign

Previously you will have needed to log into Mozilla addon developer hub: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/developers/addon/api/key/ and generate API key (same as JWT issuer) and secret key.

Like Marki, I had to change the addon ID in the rdf file inside the xpi, as it initially came up as duplicate.

I am using Firefox 49 and I found out how to disable the silly requirement to have signed extensions. You can find out how to do this if you search for the web pages entitled: "Disable add-on signature enforcement in Firefox 49 and above" from winaero, and, "How to override the Firefox Add-on Signing requirement" from ghacks. I now have CheckPlaces 2.6.5 running in Firefox 49! It works!

Thank you! Still very useful.

Thanks Daniel Lange, for saving this addons and preserving this work and legacy from Andy Halford beyond himself as author, it is very appreciated

A Developer remembers

For those who are disappointed with Firefox Quantum by Mozilla Corporation about legacy-addons and XUL support, you can use pre Firefox57-forks like PaleMoon/Basilisk or WaterFox (extended Firefox ESR support)

Thanks Daniel, for preserving Andy's addons for so many years.

With the launch of Firefox Quantum however, even on their esr-channel, the final end of syncplaces seems to have arrived. I have been desperately searching for acceptable alternate plugins since 2013, to no avail.

Either freeze on latest working version (Firefox 52.9.0 esr) or move on to products as mentioned by TarekJor.

YOU ARE CORRECT SIR... While trying to get their crappy browser to simply import my data from older one (impossible)..the A_HOLES started updating their crap to a version which will destroy win7 - before I remembered to uncheck their damn update crap. I'm STUCK having to add my toolbar bookmarks manually - their ad blockers refuse to truly block youtube ads now - which is another company that went down the scum toilet. Yandex is the only choice but not much of anything special offered at this point 1000 times faster.