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MrX
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Re: Cascading Usability Issues Over A Period Of Days
Reply #9 - Jul 13th, 2024 at 12:59am
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OK, for some reason I did not previously understand that to be the case. . .
  
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Jerry Krinock
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Re: Cascading Usability Issues Over A Period Of Days
Reply #8 - Jul 8th, 2024 at 11:09pm
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The BookMacster Button extension is not corrupt, but it is being rejected by Firefox 127 and later because Mozilla recently upped their security requirments and are requiring all extensions which have not been updated since April 5, 2019 to be resubmitted.  We didn't know that until recently and are working through the resubmission now.

I'll answer your other questions after the resubmitted BookMacster Button extension is available.
  

Jerry Krinock
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MrX
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Re: Cascading Usability Issues Over A Period Of Days
Reply #7 - Jul 8th, 2024 at 10:00pm
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Edited:
We're happy that you made it. . .

Thank you.  (How does one do quotes that format like yours?  It would be easier to reply without having to copy-paste from your last response but this forum does not work like others I have used.)

Edited:
I just tried it, and even with both of our extensions (BookMacster Sync and BookMacster Button installed into Brave, only one additional Chromessenger process appears in Activity Monitor when I launch Brave, as expected.  There would be two if I had two windows open in Brave, to different Brave profiles, which each had our one of our extensions installed.  That may be your situation?

You can verify which browser is hosting a Chromessenger process by these steps:
Select a Chromessenger process in Activity Monitor.
Click the main menu: View > Inspect Process
In the window which appears, read the name of the Parent process in the upper left corner.


I tried Activity Monitor again and I saw single separate processes for each web browser.  Why 2 processes showed up for Brave last time is lost to history. . .  LOL

Edited:
If I understand correctly, this is the first time you have reported that the BookMacster Status Item in the main menu bar at the top of the screen cannot add a bookmark from Firefox, as it can from Safari and Brave.  I just tried it, using BookMacster 3.1 and Firefox 127.0, and it works for me.  Have I understood you correctly?

The BookMacster Status Item should offer, in its menu, to add a bookmark from whichever browser is the frontmost, aka active application on your Mac, in other words, the app you were using at the time you clicked the BookMacster Status Item.  If the active application is not a supported web browser application like Safari, Brave, or Firefox, then the BookMacster Status Item will not offer to add a bookmark.


It is probably the first time that I have reported the issue with Firefox but I have had similar problems with other browsers in the past.  Since Firefox may not have been the active application, I tried to replicate the situation.

Here are the trouble-shooting steps I tried with Firefox as the active, front-most application:

1.  Tried to add a bookmark via the BookMacster Status Item. 
2.  The drop-down menu displayed “Please check extension in BookMacster> Manage Browser Extensions” (greyed-out)
3.  Button:  Installed  Sync:  Not installed
4.  Installed Sync:  The BookMacster Status Item still would not work.
5.  Uninstalled Button and Sync
6.  Restarted Firefox to fully trash extensions.
7.  Attempted to install the Button extension.
8.  Firefox message:  “This add-on could not be installed because it appears to be corrupt.” 
9.. Tried install again: same effect.      

I stopped there, not knowing why the extension may be corrupt?  Is it time to consider a  new installation of BookMacster?

One additional question:  Does having multiple tabs available in a web browser have any effects on BookMacster?  I move between tabs within a single browser window; very handy.

  
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Jerry Krinock
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Re: Cascading Usability Issues Over A Period Of Days
Reply #6 - Jul 8th, 2024 at 12:30am
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MrX wrote on Jun 28th, 2024 at 1:46am:
OK, I am back. . .  My apologies for the time it has taken to reply but I have been sick and I just wasn't up to computer trouble-shooting. (7+ decades on the planet adds up to a fair amount of wear-and-tear on the old bod.)  I've finally recovered so I'm ready to give it another go.
We're happy that you made it. . .

MrX wrote on Jun 28th, 2024 at 1:46am:
Regrading the YouTube video:  Those are not the steps that I have been using.   If I do what is shown in the video, a bookmark is placed in my Drop Basket, so it does work for me in Firefox and Brave.  (I thought that we had previously established how I am accessing BookMacster but I think that was in a support email some time before this support request.)

With Brave and Safari I use the BookMacster icon in the Mac Menu Bar that is anchored to the top of the Mac screen.  I like to use it because I have the option to select exactly where I want the bookmark to go.  When I click on the BookMacster icon I can select from a drop-down list of recently-used bookmark destinations or navigate through the myriad subfolders in my bookmark collection.  Having to move multiple bookmarks from the Drop Basket to different subfolders is not desirable. . .

I made a screenshot of the Mac Menu Bar and the BookMacster Button Icon in the Firefox toolbar to visually differentiate between them but unfortunately I cannot use the Insert Image function to post it.
I don't think we need the screenshot because I understand what you mean.  You are using the BookMacster icon in the main menu bar along the top of edge your screen.  (Technically, Apple calls this a Status Item.) You are not attempting to use the BookMacster icon which is in the toolbar of any Firefox window  if you have installed our BookMacster Button extension into Firefox, as I did in my video.

MrX wrote on Jun 28th, 2024 at 1:46am:
I have used Activity Monitor to check whether the ChromeMessenger process associated with Firefox is running and it is.  I also see two ChromeMessenger processes for Brave, which seems odd; why two for a single app?
I just tried it, and even with both of our extensions (BookMacster Sync and BookMacster Button installed into Brave, only one additional Chromessenger process appears in Activity Monitor when I launch Brave, as expected.  There would be two if I had two windows open in Brave, to different Brave profiles, which each had our one of our extensions installed.  That may be your situation?

You can verify which browser is hosting a Chromessenger process by these steps:
  1. Select a Chromessenger process in Activity Monitor.
  2. Click the main menu: View > Inspect Process
  3. In the window which appears, read the name of the Parent process in the upper left corner.
MrX wrote on Jun 28th, 2024 at 1:46am:
I guess that now the question is why does using the Menu Bar icon work with Safari and Brave but not Firefox?
If I understand correctly, this is the first time you have reported that the BookMacster Status Item in the main manu bar at the top of the screen cannot add a bookmark from Firefox, as it can from Safari and Brave.  I just tried it, using BookMacster 3.1 and Firefox 127.0, and it works for me.  Have I understood you correctly?

The BookMacster Status Item should offer, in its menu, to add a bookmark from whichever browser is the frontmost, aka active application on your Mac, in other words, the app you were using at the time you clicked the BookMacster Status Item.  If the active application is not a supported web browser application like Safari, Brave, or Firefox, then the BookMacster Status Item will not offer to add a bookmark.
  

Jerry Krinock
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MrX
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Re: Cascading Usability Issues Over A Period Of Days
Reply #5 - Jun 28th, 2024 at 1:46am
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OK, I am back. . .  My apologies for the time it has taken to reply but I have been sick and I just wasn't up to computer trouble-shooting. (7+ decades on the planet adds up to a fair amount of wear-and-tear on the old bod.)  I've finally recovered so I'm ready to give it another go. . .

First things first: I am now using Firefox 127.0.2.  There have been 3 updates since I initially posted on 6/5/24 and I was using 126.0.1.

Regrading the YouTube video:  Those are not the steps that I have been using.   If I do what is shown in the video, a bookmark is placed in my Drop Basket, so it does work for me in Firefox and Brave.  (I thought that we had previously established how I am accessing BookMacster but I think that was in a support email some time before this support request.)

With Brave and Safari I use the BookMacster icon in the Mac Menu Bar that is anchored to the top of the Mac screen.  I like to use it because I have the option to select exactly where I want the bookmark to go.  When I click on the BookMacster icon I can select from a drop-down list of recently-used bookmark destinations or navigate through the myriad subfolders in my bookmark collection.  Having to move multiple bookmarks from the Drop Basket to different subfolders is not desirable. . .

I made a screenshot of the Mac Menu Bar and the BookMacster Button Icon in the Firefox toolbar to visually differentiate between them but unfortunately I cannot use the Insert Image function to post it.

I have used Activity Monitor to check whether the ChromeMessenger process associated with Firefox is running and it is.  I also see two ChromeMessenger processes for Brave, which seems odd; why two for a single app?

I guess that now the question is why does using the Menu Bar icon work with Safari and Brave but not Firefox?











  
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Jerry Krinock
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Re: Cascading Usability Issues Over A Period Of Days
Reply #4 - Jun 11th, 2024 at 9:40pm
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MrX wrote on Jun 11th, 2024 at 3:53am:
By accident I discovered that if I have Brave or Safari open and use one to save a bookmark and then switch to Firefox and try to save a different website, the previously bookmarked tab will appear in Firefox when I try to save a new website.  The same thing does not appear to happen when I do the same thing Brave then Safari or Safari then Brave.  The problem persists even if I quit the other browsers.
Please watch this little video of me doing what I think you said you did.

Did I understand your steps correctly?

MrX wrote on Jun 11th, 2024 at 3:53am:
After a day or so, I have the same Firefox issue that I was experiencing back in 2019, the last time I tried to use BookMacster with the web browser.  It worked OK after I installed the "Button" extension but it hasn't worked at all today.
I installed the button you see in Firefox in the video months ago, and it still works for me.  We need to have our BookMacster Button extension re-signed because Mozilla has increased the signature requirements for people installing extensions with the next version of Firefox (127), which will be out next month.  But as I understand it, that issue only affects installing the extension.  Our "new" BookMacster Button will be the same as the old one except for the signature.

MrX wrote on Jun 11th, 2024 at 3:53am:
When I access BookMacster's Menu Extra (in the Finder Menu Bar) I see no options such as "Add here” or “Add here. . .  into a new subfolder.”   The only option is “Visit all (number) bookmarks” or to select a single bookmark to visit.  Note:  When I click the Menu Extra icon, a greyed-out message appears between Mini Search and Bookmarks:  "Please check extension in BookMacster.Manage Browser Extensions."
Yes, all of this indicates that BookMacster is not getting the URL and title of the current browser tab from our extension.

MrX wrote on Jun 11th, 2024 at 3:53am:
Since there are no options for adding a bookmark using Start Test in BookMacster's Manage Browser Extensions window doesn't work.
Yes, the test only applies to the BookMacster Sync extensions.

MrX wrote on Jun 11th, 2024 at 3:53am:
So I tried the following:

Enabling/disabling the Button extension.  No effect.
Uninstalled/Reinstalled Button extension.  Options for adding a bookmark unavailable.
Quit/Restarted BookMacster.  No effect.

Clicked Button extension in Firefox.  It says “Can’t read and change data on this site.”
That's really weird.  Many browser extensions read and change data on websites, to restyle them or whatever, but of course BookMacster Button is not in that class and has no such permissions.

MrX wrote on Jun 11th, 2024 at 3:53am:
So under Firefox “Manage Extensions”  I then successfully added a bookmark to the Drop Basket by clicking “Run extension” via the pop-up window accessed via the Firefox Extensions icon.  So some level of communication is occurring.
Here is the contextual menu I get when I perform a secondary click (control-click or right-click) on my BookMacster Button in Firefox:



As you can see, there is no such Run Extension menu item.

It seems that your Firefox thinks that BookMacster Button is one of those modify web pages types of extensions, which it is not.  What version of Firefox are you using?

Finally, although this is not likely the problem, if this is still a mystery you might want to check this out:  Communication between BookMacster and these browser extensions is via a process named Chromessenger.  I just ran Activity Monitor and found 5 Chromessenger processes running.  If you select a process and click the "i" button, in the upper left corner of the window which opens it tells you the Parent Process.  One of my Chromessenger processes have parent Google Chrome, two have parent Brave Browser and two have Firefox.  This is because I have those 3 browsers running, Chrome has only the BookMacster Sync extension but Brave and Firefox have both the BookMacster Sync and BookMacster Button. I disabled the BookMacster Sync extensions in Brave and Firefox.  As expected, this caused two of the Chromessenger processes to disappear so now I only have three.  To verify that things would work with only the BookMacster Button extension, I then re-ran the adding bookmarks test as in my video and everything still works as expected.

MrX wrote on Jun 11th, 2024 at 3:53am:
Should I run Trouble Zipper as the next step?
No.  The problem seems to be in the way that Firefox is handling BookMacster Button, and Trouble Zipper does not really dig into Firefox.
  

Jerry Krinock
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MrX
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Re: Cascading Usability Issues Over A Period Of Days
Reply #3 - Jun 11th, 2024 at 3:53am
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OK, I've been using BookMacster for around 5 days now. . .  Most of the problems that I listed earlier are resolved.  BookMacster is opening my .bmco file without asking what to open (I only have one) so it is no longer ignoring my setting telling it to always open the same file.

By accident I discovered that if I have Brave or Safari open and use one to save a bookmark and then switch to Firefox and try to save a different website, the previously bookmarked tab will appear in Firefox when I try to save a new website.  The same thing does not appear to happen when I do the same thing Brave then Safari or Safari then Brave.  The problem persists even if I quit the other browsers.

After a day or so, I have the same Firefox issue that I was experiencing back in 2019, the last time I tried to use BookMacster with the web browser.  It worked OK after I installed the "Button" extension but it hasn't worked at all today.

When I access BookMacster's Menu Extra (in the Finder Menu Bar) I see no options such as "Add here” or “Add here. . .  into a new subfolder.”   The only option is “Visit all (number) bookmarks” or to select a single bookmark to visit.  Note:  When I click the Menu Extra icon, a greyed-out message appears between Mini Search and Bookmarks:  "Please check extension in BookMacster.Manage Browser Extensions."

Since there are no options for adding a bookmark using Start Test in BookMacster's Manage Browser Extensions window doesn't work.  So I tried the following:

Enabling/disabling the Button extension.  No effect.
Uninstalled/Reinstalled Button extension.  Options for adding a bookmark unavailable.
Quit/Restarted BookMacster.  No effect.

Clicked Button extension in Firefox.  It says “Can’t read and change data on this site.”
So under Firefox “Manage Extensions”  I then successfully added a bookmark to the Drop Basket by clicking “Run extension” via the pop-up window accessed via the Firefox Extensions icon.  So some level of communication is occurring.

When I did a search of the forum re Firefox issues, I see that I am one of the few with a Firefox-related issue.   I can't figure out why I cannot bookmark a website like I do in Brave and Safari.

Should I run Trouble Zipper as the next step?





  
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MrX
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Re: Cascading Usability Issues Over A Period Of Days
Reply #2 - Jun 5th, 2024 at 8:56pm
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OK, I will try the update first.  I recall that a couple of possibly-related issues were awaiting the next update & that was in mid-February, so I didn't know if they had been addressed, I somehow missed the update, etc.   Until the past week I just lived with it but I finally decided I needed to do something.   Wink

The last item on my list above re Firefox was my fault; I did not have the Firefox extension installed.  Mea culpa.  I deleted the issue from my post.
  
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Re: Cascading Usability Issues Over A Period Of Days
Reply #1 - Jun 5th, 2024 at 4:50am
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I don't know, MrX.  Some of the issues seem to be related to filesystem and file aliases, and it is surprising that you are not having issues with any other apps.

Sure, try to reinstall, but update to BookMacster 3.1 which we published on the Beta channel about a week ago.  It has some fixes which may be tangentially related to one or two of the issues you are seeing.

Here is a link to download BookMacster 3.1.

Updating in the usual way (set Settings > Updates to "Beta", then Check for Update) only downloads differences nowadays, so trashing and reinstalling BookMacster 3.1 from that link would be better.
  

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MrX
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Cascading Usability Issues Over A Period Of Days
Jun 5th, 2024 at 1:39am
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Over the past 2-3 weeks I have experienced a variety of problems.  I have screenshots of the following:

1.  Whenever BookMacster starts-up a “Open a recent collection” window appears.  In the Open/Save setting I have “Automatically open this document when BookMacster opens.”  I only use one collection of 16,291 bookmarks.

2.  I regularly see “Error 2” windows “The operation couldn’t be completed.  Error type -25133.”

3.  A couple of days ago I got an “Error 523499:  Failed to resolve path for document 3DCE.  MacOS could not provide name nor path from alias record. . .”  Underlying Cause:  No stdout from helper and SSYShellTasker: Task timed out (and was killed).

4.  “Error 2:  -1719  Can’t get window. Invalid index.”

5.  Today I had to reselect the bookmarks collection every time I accessed BM via the Finder Menu Bar.


I regularly need to restart the Mac to be able to use BM again when I cannot quit the app.

I have not moved or changed anything related to BookMactser except a preference setting or two while trouble-shooting.  I am not having similar issues with other apps.

Since there are a number of apparent issues, I am wondering whether I should simply reinstall the BookMacster.  This installation is from a data migration from a 2012 Mac Mini circa 2020. 

BookMacster 3.0.12
2018 Intel Mac Mini/MacOS Big Sur 11.7.0 
Browsers:  Firefox 126.0.1  Brave 1.66.118  Safari 16.6.1

« Last Edit: Jun 5th, 2024 at 8:54pm by MrX »  
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