Sorry to hear about this problem. Could you let us know what you get when you run the "Verify Integrity" function. That's here:

Open Firefox's Troubleshooting Information page using any of these methods:

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help > Troubleshooting Information
• (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
• type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

Near the bottom, there is a section titled Places Database -- that's the file which stores history and bookmarks. Click the button labeled Verify Integrity. There may be a 10-15 second delay before results appear.

If all is well, the report that appears below the button should start with:

> Task: checkIntegrity
+ The places.sqlite database is sane
+ The favicons.sqlite database is sane

Does yours say that, or something else? You can select and copy the report, and then paste it into a reply for review and comment.

I am responding to jscher2000, who posted to my question a short while ago about the loss of my bookmarks and being unable to restore. Thanks very much for the fast response. I checked the Places Database section of Troubleshooting, and as you suggested it does say "The places.sqlite database is sane", and "The favicons.sqlite database is sane". So I assume that's good? Now what do I do? Again, many thanks for the assistance.

Sorry for double posting this response, but it took me a minute or two to figure out how to respond to you directly. I think you are about to be my new best friend.

Thank you for testing that.

Just to confirm, you are opening Firefox's Library window and using the Restore submenu, then Choose File to point Firefox to the one you want it to restore (Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer).

Is there an error message when you try to Restore the old .jsonlz4 file? Does Firefox seem to freeze up the computer (struggling with the file)? Or just nothing?

I have a tool to decompress a backup file with a .jsonlz4 extension and convert it to an importable HTML file. The page should tell you if there is a problem with the file, and if needed, you can import the file you save from it using the steps in the following article: Import Bookmarks from an HTML file:

https://www.jeffersonscher.com/ffu/bookbackreader.html

And thank you for continuing to help me. What I actually did was to click on the Bookmarks button, then "Show All Bookmarks", then I clicked on "Import/Backup". I then clicked "Restore" and "Choose File". I clicked on the JSONLZ4 file I'd copied onto my desktop. Then, nothing at all.

Frankly, if you have some way of helping me just print or read the contents of the JSONLZ4 file I don't have SO many bookmarks that it would be too onerous for me to simply manually recreate them. I'd prefer to restore them directly but I'll take whatever solution I can get.

What do you suggest now? Many thanks.

By the way, I just tried using https://www.jeffersonscher.com/ffu/bookbackreader.html. I clicked on "Export HTML" and got "Unable to parse JSON, TypeError:oBrnks children is undefined". Hope that helps.

By the way, I just tried using https://www.jeffersonscher.com/ffu/bookbackreader.html. I clicked on "Export HTML" and got back this: "Unable to parse JSON, TypeError: oBrnks children is undefined". Hope that helps.

Hi idrabego, including a URL in a reply diverts your post to the link moderation queue. It will appear eventually.

Sorry to hear about "Unable to parse JSON, TypeError: oBrnks children is undefined".

If you look at the textbox near the top of the page:

(1) Does the file name line below it end with "(appears to be/contain valid JSON)"

(2) Does the box contain regular keyboard characters, for example --

{"guid":"root________","title":"","index":0,"dateAdded":1219946831611000,"lastModified":1597161813970000,"id":1,"typeCode":2,"type":"text/x-moz-place-container","root":"placesRoot","children":

-- or does it have odd symbols in it that could indicate a corrupted file?