Method to solve `Downloading bookmarks …’ problem

March 15, 2008 by sandajian in Fedora, Firefox, Google, Ubuntu

I am migrating to `Google bookmarks’, but the button on Google Toolbar always says `Downloading bookmarks …’. But in Windows, Google Toolbar in Firefox can import, download, add bookmarks normally. What’s different in Linux?

After googling for some time, I realize that it is due to lack of the library `libstdc++.so.5′. This is one of the old versions of C++ libraries, most of current Linux distributions do not install this library by default. The method to solve ‘Downloading bookmarks’ problem is:

1. Install the package that contains libstdc++.so.5. For Fedora 8:

# yum install compat-libstdc++-33

For Ubuntu:

# sudo apt-get install libstdc++5

For other distributions, you should install the corresponding packages.

2. Exit Firefox, restart Firefox, re-install Google Toolbar. This is very important, or else the problem will not be solved!

3. Restart Firefox. Now you can see all your bookmarks in your Google toolbar!