diff --git a/browser/components/places/content/toolbar.xml b/browser/components/places/content/toolbar.xml
index 60797170c29f..4867a39e75b4 100755
--- a/browser/components/places/content/toolbar.xml
+++ b/browser/components/places/content/toolbar.xml
@@ -449,7 +449,7 @@
           if (this._self._result != val) {
             this._self._containerNodesMap = [];
             this._self._result = val;
-            if (val) // this calls _rebuild through invalidateContainer
+            if (val) // this calls _rebuild through invalidateContainer
               val.root.containerOpen = true;
           }
           return val;
diff --git a/toolkit/components/places/src/utils.js b/toolkit/components/places/src/utils.js
index 19c723e01afd..976c46842aa0 100644
--- a/toolkit/components/places/src/utils.js
+++ b/toolkit/components/places/src/utils.js
@@ -1306,14 +1306,17 @@ var PlacesUtils = {
       // write child nodes
       if (!aNode.livemark) {
         asContainer(aSourceNode);
-        aSourceNode.containerOpen = true;
+        var wasOpen = aSourceNode.containerOpen;
+        if (!wasOpen)
+          aSourceNode.containerOpen = true;
         var cc = aSourceNode.childCount;
         for (var i = 0; i < cc; ++i) {
           if (i != 0)
             aStream.write(",", 1);
           serializeNodeToJSONStream(aSourceNode.getChild(i), i);
         }
-        aSourceNode.containerOpen = false;
+        if (!wasOpen)
+          aSourceNode.containerOpen = false;
       }
 
       // write suffix