Is it just me or is Firefox Sync rubbish?

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timmmay

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#171783 1-May-2015 07:51

I've had problems with FF sync. Last night I was switching from Ubuntu to Mint Linux and wanted to preserve bookmarks, so I set up firefox sync, left it for 30 minutes, then reinstalled and signed into sync. Nothing happened, the bookmarks didn't come back. I've had the same thing happen once in the past, with my own bookmarks, but in that case I just restored from backups.

Am I doing it wrong or is FF Sync rubbish?

Jase2985

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#1294716 1-May-2015 08:05

not sure if you are doing it wrong but i use it between desktop and laptop and its pretty quick

just booked marked this page and remote desktoped to my PC from uni, and clicked sync and its shown on my home PC

timmmay

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#1294747 1-May-2015 08:37

Between my work and home computer it works ok, but it just seems flaky and unreliable. Plus there's no web interface that I know of so you can't check what's sync'd.

Jase2985

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#1294760 1-May-2015 08:51

one thing you could try is hitting the sync button when you make a change, then on the other end hit the sync button to sync from the first computer.

have you been into the options>sync tab to see whats syncing?

timmmay

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#1294769 1-May-2015 08:58

Yeah I checked. I never saw a sync button though, you set it up and it's automatic AFAIK.

Jase2985

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#1294772 1-May-2015 09:01

tools>sync now

worth a try

timmmay

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#1294773 1-May-2015 09:06

Ah, good trick. More useful if I hadn't blown away the old OS! Nothing I can't recover.

Not sure I'll bother with it in future, given how flakey I find it.

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JWR

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#1294774 1-May-2015 09:06

timmmay: Yeah I checked. I never saw a sync button though, you set it up and it's automatic AFAIK.

I can't recall if it is default or not... But, I have a sync button on the 'open menu' - The icon with 3 horizontal stripes at far, top, right of the Firefox window.

If you don't have it on your menu, then you will need to hit the customize button (bottom of the menu) and add it.

Jase2985

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#1294780 1-May-2015 09:13

looking into it, mine is set to sync ever 600,000ms, which is every 10 minutes

about:config then search for "services.sync.syncInterval"

disclamer i take no responsibility for anything that happens while you are in about:config

jonb

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#1294781 1-May-2015 09:13

It seems to Sync bookmarks and most add-ons but I've never seen it manage to sync my open tabs between devices.

noroad

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#1294782 1-May-2015 09:13

Works fine for me across several machines.

Hammerer

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#1294814 1-May-2015 09:27

I've used it on a multiple computers even using multiple variants (32-bit and 64-bit versions, e.g. Waterfox) of Firefox on the same computer. It works fine but it is possible to get problems that prevent syncing, e.g. corrupted data which will cause syncing to fail just like it can cause the browser to fail to start or load tabs correctly.