(Solved) Firefox has disappeared

[Lady]

Hello,

On my desktop I cannot open Firefox. When I clicked on the icon it said the shortcut had disappeared or been relocated. I checked the program file folder and only the browser and defaults folders are visible but empty. What in the world has happened here?? I can do a system restore but I'd rather wait for you guys. Maybe you know how to solve this otherwise.

Lady

[Boggin]

You could try using this batch file to rebuild the icon cache - https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/49819-icon-cache-rebuild.html or reinstall FF but I don't know what else could have happened.

As files seemed to have disappeared, I think I would try the restore points, but when you choose one, check the box for Scan for affected programs to see if something has been installed that you may not have been aware of.

Does Event Viewer or reliability history have anything recorded ?

[Lady]

I think I know what happened. I remember getting a Firefox update yesterday. Then seeing a pop-up with Mozilla files. I didn't know what to do, thought they were old or remnant files and clicked on delete. Today FF was gone. I retrieved a lot of files from the recycle bin but FF still didn't work. Firefox.exe is gone. In Programs and Features it looks as if FF is still there, 121 Mb, latest version, installed yesterday.

Just now I tried to do a system restore point but it failed several times. I uninstalled my AV program BullGuard, deactivated MBAM, still nothing. The error code is 0x80070005. I read posts by people with the same error code and they tried so much to get the system restore to work but without any luck. Can anyone help?

The only problem I have with just installing FF anew is that I'd have lost my History. Does anyone know a way to retrieve my History? Which folder/file that might contain?

[Boggin]

That error code is basically an Access Denied.

Can you try that or another restore point in Safe Mode ?

I have to manually update my FF so don't get any pop ups.

I normally use IE 11 and only have FF installed as a spare browser, so don't know what those files could relate to.

[Lady]

I posted on the FF support forum. Am thinking about re-installing FF using the profile but I have some issues with that.

[Boggin]

Okay - others may have had a similar problem to you when it updated.

[Lady]

I didn't want to install FF anew as the date of the Profile folder was of February 2016, so I thought it was old data and I would lose a lot of my data using the Profile. That's why I tried to use system restore.

Now I learned that the date of the FF Profile folder is not the same as the date of its files. The files show dates up to the deletion day, so that meant that the profile was okay. So I installed FF (didn't have to uninstall what was left of FF) and everything was FINE. FF returned as if nothing had happened. Still don't know what that pop-up was about which made FF disappear, well, which made me make that mistake, probably.

So that is how the Profile works. That is a superduper invention!    Once you know how it works though..... 

[Boggin]

I think I'll be like a mushroom on this one and remain in the dark

[Lady]

I'm still humble, but I do think I deserved a karma point here. 

[Boggin]

Okay then

[Lady]

Yayyyyy!!!