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.

MrX wrote on Jun 28^th, 2024 at 1:46am:
We're happy that you made it. . .

MrX wrote on Jun 28^th, 2024 at 1:46am:
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 28^th, 2024 at 1:46am:
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 28^th, 2024 at 1:46am:
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.

MrX wrote on Jun 11^th, 2024 at 3:53am:
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 11^th, 2024 at 3:53am:
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 11^th, 2024 at 3:53am:
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 11^th, 2024 at 3:53am:
Yes, the test only applies to the BookMacster Sync extensions.

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

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.   

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.

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