I notice that you posted this same question under another name (ckwatson).

Did you have a problem with finishing the the registration with that name?

Did you also create a backup of the compressed .jsonlz4 backups in the bookmarkbackups folder?

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/restore-bookmarks-from-backup-or-move-them

Did you make sure to remove any other places.sqlite files, especially places.sqlite-shm and places.sqlite-wal, after restoring the places.sqlite file?

Did you previously had any (bookmark) problems with that profile?

I mis-typed my email the first try.

Strange thing, when I delete the places.sqlite file, (and the places.sqlite-shm and places.sqlite-wal are also deleted) and then copy the "old" places.sqlite file in to the profile folder, the size of the "old" file changes from 189KB to 10,240KB. Then, when I open Firefox the bookmarks are empty.

And no, I didn't copy the compressed .jsonlz4 backups - I didn't know I needed to because in years past just copying the places.sqlite file back into the profile worked.

The places.sqlite file is always created in a multiple of 10 MB chunks, so if the file you copied is only 189 KB then there is likely a problem and the file is corrupted.

You can try to check the file in a hex viewer or maybe a text editor to see if it is actually a valid places.sqlite file if you compare it with a valid places.sqlite file.

File was apparently corrupt.

But I found an older .json file and restored from that. Only missing about a year of bookmarks instead of 15 years.

Lesson learned - don't think you are smarter than the software's backup program - just do what you're supposed to do.

Thanks for your help.

V/R, Chris

You're welcome.

I see that the-edmeister marked your above reply as the solution.