http://kb.mozillazine.org/Unable_to_process_the_backup_file_-_Firefox

jscher2000 has a tool on his website to extract out your bookmarks and save them to an HTML-format bookmark export file. If you want to try it, here is the page:

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

To open the bookmarkbackups folder in Finder, use the "Open in Finder" button in the first table on the Troubleshooting Information page, and double-click into bookmarkbackups where you should see several dated files. From there you can drag and drop onto the conversion tool.

To import the HTML file, see the steps in this article: Import Bookmarks from an HTML file.

all steps completed but the created html file data would not be imported. Also tried importing from another browser and although the tool reported success, there are no bookmarks still.

Open the HTML file in a 'Word' type program. Does it look okay to you?

Hi thulebar, you mentioned getting the error described in this article:

Fix "The bookmarks and history system will not be functional" error message

You need to resolve that first.

I suggest first shutting down and restarting your Mac at least once to release any file locks. That would minimize data loss if it works.

If that doesn't help, in order to figure out which database is locked/inaccessible/corrupted, you could first try the "Verify Integrity" function.

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.

Solved by re-start & I feel like such a tool cuz I should know better. I had a recent restart but was convinced that it was the browser auto update that messed up to bookmarks. Thanks both for taking the time to help someone out of their senior moment.

Hi thulebar, I think this error is more likely after an update and I'm glad you were able to avoid zapping all your history to solve it.