Talk:Foxmarks: Error: Failed to parse sync file

From Foxmarks Wiki

I get this problem all the time with the 0.56 version when trying to sync between home and work. I think it has to do with corrupt or orphan links in Firefox that Foxmarks is not handling. I think this because I can usually export my bookmarks and re-import them and then, at least for a while, I can sync both computers again. This unfortunately make Foxmarks much less useful since the alternative of export/import following by an upload means the bookmark file gets overwritten and bookmarks are lost.

Can you please send us your log file so we can diagnose the problem further? --Todd 12:36, 20 March 2006 (EST)

Thankyou! this fix was what I was looking for :) Andrew, Australia

You mean the upload? I have another problem - the sync problem arrived when I switched the system ... no old bookmarks - does it mean that I lost everything? Piotr, London

Expanding Error Message

An anonymous user wrote:

(someone please expand the error message to tell the user WHICH since they're not the same type of error (connection vs bad xml).

The underlying error is always an XML parse error. In some network environments, Foxmarks' request to retrieve its sync file is intercepted by a proxy, which returns a page full of HTML and HTTP 200. From the parser's perspective, this just bad XML.

So most of the time this is indeed a corrupted sync file. But in rare occasions it's a misbehaving proxy server. It's not easy programmatically to distinguish one from the other. --Todd 10:58, 26 July 2007 (EDT)