Installed Safari 13.0 and now have a bookmarks problem

Thanks Eric, but I had already tried this yesterday, and just now tried it again. It appears that the 'Debug' menu is now the 'Develop' menu, and which is always in view.

I do not have the 'Sync iCloud History' option.

Something that I found today during the numerous Time Machine Safari bookmark reinstalls on the two desktops. 

Up until this morning, just after Safari 13 was installed on the MacBook Pro, this was never on either desktop. AutomaticBookmarksBackup.html. 

I noticed that it wasn’t in any Time Machine backup for the desktops, until I installed Safari 13 on the notebook. 

Safari 13 was installed on the notebook at 09:07, this morning.

The one desktops’ Time Machine backup shows AutomaticBookmarksBackup.html. at 09:09, this morning.

So my one desktop was infested by this ‘AutomaticBookmarksBackup.html’ just  two minutes after Safari 13 was installed on the notebook. 

The other desktops’ Time Machine backup shows that the computer was infested by ‘AutomaticBookmarksBackup.html’ a few hours later this morning.

As it stands now, both desktops that no longer have the bookmarks synced, still retain the correct bookmarks. During the day, numerous times I tuned sync off, on both desktops, reinstalled the correct bookmarks with Time Machine. Everything was okay until I turned on sync, and the bookmarks were rearranged.  

And the notebook and iPad Pro now have none of my Safari bookmarks. I sure would like to install the correct Safari bookmarks on both of them.

What a nightmare?

As there have been no helpful replies, and I required that the correct Safari bookmarks be installed on every one of my Mac products, I have unchecked Safari in the iCloud account on every one of the products. 

With Safari on one of the desktops having the correct bookmarks, I emailed a copy of the correct bookmark plist. Now at least the other desktop, and the notebook have the correct Safari bookmarks.

Now if only there was a way to deposit the correct Safari bookmarks to the iPad Pro. As it stands now, it is nothing more than a very expensive paperweight, since it has none of my Safari bookmarks. 

At least the old iPad kept the correct Safari bookmarks. Probably wasn’t infected with the AutomaticBookmarksBackup.html virus. 

Okay, I have just selected to do so, but nothing tells me that it is happening.

Safari is still unchecked in the iCloud pane.

Is it okay to leave it unchecked for now, or should I select it?

I'm about to see what happens on the iPad Pro for Safari bookmarks.

Fingers crossed.

Okay, success.

Looks like I quickly had the entire set of bookmarks that I wanted on the iPad, but forgot to scroll down to see the entire list. 

Now, the big question, is it safe to select ‘Safari’ in the iCloud pane, on everything.

I don’t think I’ll be in any rush to install Catalina when it is released.

I’ll be patiently waiting for at least 10.15.2 or higher, before I say goodbye to Mojave. 

Anyway Eric, thank-you very much for your help.

Well, my bookmark honeymoon sure was short lived!

Yesterday afternoon, about two hours after what I thought was a successful bookmark install on the iPad Pro, and the second desktop, I checked to see if they were still the correct ones.

Sadly, the iPads’ Safari bookmarks that were in the correct folders, had disappeared, along with the corresponding folders. What I ended up with, was a mishmash of bookmarks that were not even in the favourites folder. I spent another two to three hours in total, last night and this morning, trying just about everything that I have read to get the correct bookmarks to install. This morning Safari on the iPad won’t even install bookmarks anymore.

As for the desktop, well the correct folders c/w the correct bookmarks, had disappeared from the bookmark bar. And again there was a mishmash of bookmarks, and folders of bookmarks, that should have been in other folders. A couple of the main folders had even disappeared completely.

On further investigation, I happened check the ‘Bookmarks.plist’ in the desktop. It was about 25 to 26 MB in size! The correct ‘Bookmarks.plist’ on the source desktop is only 1.6 MB!!!

Back to the problematic desktop, this morning after deleting every bookmark that wasn’t in a folder, the ‘Bookmarks.plist’ was down to about 14 MB. Yet I still have at least primary folders missing. I don’t know if there are any secondary folders missing.

Again, with the desktop, I spent about the same time and effort on it, as I did the iPad.

Questions

#1 In the Debug menu, ‘Start migrating bookmarks to cloudkit’. Whenever I click on it, no checkmark is displayed, and nothing tells me that there is any migration happening. Should a checkmark be shown, and an indication of migration being in progress?

#2 As stated in my second post, it appears that AutomaticBookmarksBackup.html’is something new, and showed up on the two desktops just after I installed Safari 13.0 on the MacBook Pro. Both desktops are still running the most recent Safari 12. My got feeling is that this AutomaticBookmarksBackup.html’ is the culprit behind the bookmarks problem.

#3 Any chance that installing Safari 13 on the notebook on the morning of 20th, and later that day there being a problem with 'iCloud Bookmarks & Tabs', end up causing the perfect storm of the scrambled 'Synced' Safari bookmarks?

#4 Is there any way to view and edit, 'Synced' Safari bookmarks, in iCloud?

#5 Is there any way to completely nuke every single 'Synced' Safari bookmark?

As stated earlier, as long as I keep 'Safari' unchecked in the iCloud pane, the correct bookmarks/folders are okay on both desktops, and the notebook. As for the iPad Pro, I do have it backed up, and as long as 'Safari' is unchecked, the bookmarks and folders remain intact.

I have found though, before doing a re-install on the iPad, it is very wise to turn off the WIFI, since 'Safari' is checked in the backup.

This will be the last time that I rush to download any software from Apple. Automatic Updates will now be turned off on every Apple product that I own.

Also, as stated earlier, my old 'Perpetual Motion' iPad c/w the out of date OS, has remained immune to this problem. What was once old, is now new again.

I now have the Debug menu!

Found the info on how to have it show up here, https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/344183/safari-12-mac-does-includeinternaldebugmenu-1-still-work

I haven’t tried it yet, but just to confirm, do I use ‘Start Migrating Bookmarks to Cloudkit’?

It has been left unchecked. 

I just tried downloading the bookmarks onto the iPad, and it appears the be working okay, but it hasn’t completed. I’ll give it more time.