The little test tool which I promised a couple of posts ago in this thread is now available, except we decided to build it into the next version of BookMacster instead of making it stand alone.  Anyone who is having the issue of changes in Firefox now has a third tool to troubleshoot the problem, in BookMacster 1.20 or later.  BookMacster 1.20 is now available on our alpha channel.

To review, the tools are…

• Make sure that you're waiting 1-5 minutes, depending on your setting in Preferences > Syncing > Minutes to wait…
• Click in the menu: BookMacster > Manage Browser Add-Ons and test the relevant browser extension.
• If that works OK, update to BookMacster 1.20 or later and click the More Tests… button at the bottom of the window and follow the instructions which appear.

If you find something inexplicable you need to send to us from that final test, click the Copy to clipboard button, to copy the test results log to your clipboard, and then paste it into your email or whatever.

Oh, BookMacster 1.20 or later will also show you if you're using a defunct Firefox or Chrome profile, by indicating its name in red in Settings > Clients.

Ellen,

If this does not turn out to be a mixup in Firefox profiles, as I suggested in my previous message, let's do two things.

• Please run the Trouble Zipper and send us the report.  The logs may contain some clues.  Changing a bookmark in Firefox just prior to running Trouble Zipper, so that we'll have a record of what happens, or not, may be helpful.  Tell us in your email if you did that, and at what time so we can correlate with the time stamps in the logs.

• We'll make a little Firefox Extension Tester tool which goes beyond beyond what the Test button in the Manage Browser Add-Ons window does.

Let us know at your convenience.

Thank you, Ellen.  I've been thinking about what to do next.  I'll be back when I have the best answer.

It looks like you know what you are doing, and have done all the correct things.  BookMacster has a built-in tool that will send us your logs, settings and other data as you prescribe.  Maybe there will be some clues in there, or possibly with enough of your data I can reproduce the problem.  Please activate BookMacster and click in the menu: Help > Trouble Zipper.  It will tell you how it works.

Thanks for your persistence!

Hello again, Ellen.

I understand the problem, which is that either the Firefox extension is not notifying the Mac OS X Agent, or the Agent is ignoring the signal and not starting a BookMaster Worker.

Well, it still works fine for me, so I'm going to have to work on it some more.

Here is one thing that might "fix" it, inexplicably

• Open ellen-01.bkmslf in BookMacster
• Click the "Syncing" button in the toolbar to "Pause" syncing.  (Red exclamation point appears)
• Click it again to restart syncing (green dot appears)

This will destroy, reinstall and reload the Agents.  Does that "fix" the problem of no action when you add in internal bookmark in Firefox?

EllenH wrote on Dec 12^th, 2013 at 6:23am:
No, the new version will not fix issue 1.  Sorry I missed that part of the reply.

EllenH wrote on Dec 12^th, 2013 at 6:23am:
Test the Firefox extension?  In my first post, I advised you to check if Firefox thought it was installed but I should have said to test it.  Activate BookMacster and click in the menu: BookMacster > Manage Browser Add-Ons, then click the appropriate "Test" button.   If it fails, (re)-"Install".

EllenH wrote on Dec 12^th, 2013 at 6:23am:
That's kind of weird but, as you say, it should work.

EllenH wrote on Dec 12^th, 2013 at 6:23am:
No, don't do that.  This is a Mac, not a Windows PC.  Data is not contained in applications.  Unless there is some indication that there is something missing in the app, reinstalling an app just introduces more variables.

Let us know how it goes with the Firefox extension.

EllenH wrote on Dec 11^th, 2013 at 11:20am:
Well, BookMacster is probably faster than you in this regard.  We're getting it fixed.

EllenH wrote on Dec 11^th, 2013 at 11:20am:
I think what you mean is that you're dragging the globe icon, or the URL text, from the address bar in, say, Firefox to either the BookMacster document window, or the Show all Bookmarks Library in Firefox.  The answer is that all these methods will work, but a little differently.

• Click the Add Quickly or Add & Inspect menu item in Firefox, or the BookMacster Extension button in Google Chrome.   Using this method will add the bookmark to BookMacster directly, and because you have switched on Export to clients whenever a new bookmark is landed in your Settings > Agents, this new bookmark will then be exported to all of your browser Clients (a little too quickly in the current version of BookMacster).
• Drag the URL or globe icon from the address bar in the browser to the Content in BookMacster.  .   This will add the bookmark to BookMacster directly, but will not initiate an export.  I do not recommend this.
• Click in the browser's menu: Add Bookmark or Bookmark this Page    Using this method will add the bookmark to the browser's internal bookmarks, and because you have switched on Watch Local Clients and Import any Changes in your Settings > Agents, after a few minutes, this new bookmark will then be imported to BookMacster, and because you have further switched on Export to clients whenever changes are imported from a Local Client, it will then be exported to the internal bookmarks of all browsers listed for Export in your Clients.

For the sake of completeness, we also have

• Clicking Add Here in BookMacster's Status Menulet, Dock Menu, or Floating Menu.  This works the same as Add Quickly or Add & Inspect et al.  They are all methods of what we call landing a new bookmark to Bookmacster directly.
• More methods are listed in the table on this page.

Each web browser has its own internal bookmarks, and then there are the bookmarks in your BookMacster .bkmslf document.  So if you're using BookMacster with three web browsers, you've got four sets of bookmarks.  BookMacster accesses the browsers' internal bookmarks by Import and Export, which when done in succession constitute syncing.  I wish life wasn't so complicated, but this is the world we have.

A couple years ago, I was pushing the idea that people should forget about syncing the internal bookmarks in their web browsers, and even further, don't even use them.  Instead, send bookmarks to BookMacster directly, using it as a Central Store.  Fewer moving parts, one place to find all your bookmarks, easily available within any web browser using BookMacster's Status menulet, Dock Menu, or a global Keyboard Shortcut to show BookMacster's Floating Menu.  But then, Mobile Walled Gardens took over the world.  Apple released iCloud and Google released Sign In, and these are the only way to get bookmarks into Mobile Safari and Chrome on iOS, so people with mobile devices need to keep the internal bookmarks of Safari and/or Google Chrome in sync on their Macs, which are the gateways to the walled gardens in the cloud and on the mobile devices.  Firefox is more complicated, but this message is already TLDR.

EllenH wrote on Dec 11^th, 2013 at 11:20am:
No.  The next update of BookMacster you get will look like that video.

EllenH wrote on Dec 11^th, 2013 at 11:20am:
Thank you.

EllenH wrote on Dec 11^th, 2013 at 11:20am:
Xmarks users have been saints 

We hope to have BookMacster 1.19.9 out by the end of the week.