Just to add that instead of the Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser , maybe if you just copy the profile folder inside , e.g. Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/Default,
or
Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/[profile name],
although with just the actual profile folder you may loose your BAT tokens if you haven’t moved them to an online wallet or something
Hi Agent_Suave,
I have tried that suggestion with no luck.
There seems to be a problem with the version of Brave suitable for Apple iMacs with Silicon M3 chips as no matter I try NOTHING works and Brave will not accept or recognise imported data/files from the version of Brave installed on an iMac with a Intel chip.
Mattches is still looking into this issue and hopefully he will find a solution soon.
That is very weird. It could have something to do with the fact that different browsers in Apple devices aren’t allowed, unless they make a special version with Safari as the core. In other words, browsers in iphones, ipads, and I believe also on Macs, have to be no more than a glorified skin for safari, it doesn’t matter if the browser is brave of firefox. That’s apple’s “walled garden” for you.
And that could be the reason for that sudden incompatibility. But I’ll leave that to people more knowledgeable than me.
It is not correct that different browsers aren’t allowed on iMacs, you simply need to adjust your Security settings to “Allow Application Downloads from the Apple App Store & Identified Developers.” Once you have changed that setting you can use any browser you choose.
It is simply not true that the browsers you install on iMacs are a glorified skin for Safari, if that were the case the browsers would be much the same and not have performance differences.
The browsers you install still use their own preferred browser engine and with Firefox you can adjust settings in the “about:config”, with Brave you can adjust settings in “brave://flags”.
If the browsers you can install on iMacs were a glorified skin for Safari you would not be able to do that because Apple will not permit tampering with the browser configuration at deeper level because the coding for Safari is closed source.
I have tried out many different browsers on my iMac and Brave has the features I want with the best built in ad blocker.
I personally believe that there is some technical changes made to the Brave browser in order for it to function properly with Apple Silicon M3 chips which are now in all new iMacs.
The Apple Silicon chips architecture are designed to optimise them for Apple’s own apps and the hardware built by Apple. The folks at Apple have made big improvements to the performance and energy efficiency of their devices because of the Apple Silicon chips. The decision to invest in designing and manufacturing their own custom designed chips was a very smart move by Apple.
Apple no longer has to compromise and make allowances or compromises because of Intel chips design.
I was sceptical at first when Apple claimed that their own testing revealed big performance and efficiency gains.
Apple specifically claimed that an 2024 iMac with an M3 chip could out perform an 2019 iMac with an Intel chip by as much as 4X in many areas with much better energy efficiency as well.
I have had my new iMac for over a week now and I am very happy, everything is so much faster and I believe the performance gains claimed are 100% true and accurate.
However I am still patiently awaiting further support on this issue from Mattches, I do hope to hear from him soon or perhaps someone else from brave technical support can help with this issue.
Hi Mattches,
It has been over 9 days ago since this problem began, do you have any further advice on how to restore Brave back to the way it was when it was installed on an Intel chip based iMac.
Everything suggested so far has failed and I simply can not get Brave fully functioning on my new Apple Silicon based iMac with the M3 chip.
You misunderstood me: other browsers are allowed, they can have their own sync services, bookmarks and whatnot, but have to rely on the OS embedded rendering browser engine, namely Safari. At the very least for iOS (see here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25850091 ); now that I look into it, can’t say for sure about MacOS.
if that were the case the browsers would be much the same and not have performance differences.
The performance issues may come from other factors, like services running in the background, extensions, skins, sync with an account, or simply a bad safari skinning. Assuming the same skinning happens in Macs also, which I’m not certain now.
But it absolutely happens on iOS, that’s why the day when safari stopped supporting many websites in my ipad, EVERY OTHER browser I installed also stop supporting it the same day, not matter if it was firefox, or other browsers known for supporting old hardware.
Apple is a control freak, yes the software is very fine tuned with the hardware since they control both, the experience is fluid, but there is such a thing as too much control.
If the browsers you can install on iMacs were a glorified skin for Safari you would not be able to do that because Apple will not permit tampering with the browser configuration at deeper level because the coding for Safari is closed source.
Changing flags is tampering with certain options only, not with the source code, the latter being closed source in safari case.
And careful with the M chips, which only apple knows their insides (not independent audits afaik): https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/03/hackers-can-extract-secret-encryption-keys-from-apples-mac-chips/ (not that intel is much better)
As for your problem with apple and Brave, can you use a system backup with a virtual machine?
I simply can not believe that after 16 Days nobody has been able to fix this problem with Brave.
If the Brave developers can not help or are unwilling to explore this problem further, then I am simply going to be forced to uninstall Brave and migrate to a different browser
The Brave developers have all the technical knowledge of how Brave is built and modified from its Chrome base and yet NOBODY is capable of fixing my problem.
I am just a common ordinary internet user and like most other Brave users here, I simply do not have in depth expertise to fix this without Technical Support.
I have tried to be very patient and when potential solutions are offered I always take great care to ensure the advice given is applied precisely and I always double check everything in detail before reporting back in a posting.
Yet after 16 very long tiring and exasperating days and nights of trying to fix this, there is still no end in sight and no resolution to my on going problem.
@Saoiray asked @Mattches & @Steeven to offer advice.
@Mattches made a few ineffective suggestions and last posted 15 days ago and he has posted NOTHING SINCE THEN.
Nobody else at Brave has offered any advice.
I am dismayed at the Technical Support offered here, this should not be an ongoing issue after 16 days.
The people at Brave seem to have given up on trying to fix this problem.
@jputting,
Apologies for the late reply.
I have a team member who will be testing this again soon. The thing is that the method you’re using should work. If it’s not, then we need to try and reproduce it on our end in order to diagnose exactly what the issue is.
Thanks, it’s good to know that you haven’t given up on this issue.
I understand the delay in setting up a testing platform with an iMac or similar device which uses the Apple Silicon M3 chips and also obtaining a device which uses the Intel chips and then installing Brave on both and trying to transfer Profiles from the Intel based iMac to the Apple Silicon M3 based iMacs.
As mentioned before, I can indeed fully restore Brave back to the way it was 16 days ago using Time Machine back ups on an Apple Silicon M3 iMac.
But Brave stubbornly refuses to accept and use Profiles or any form of data from an Intel based iMac.
I strongly believe that something inside Brave has been changed in the version of Brave suitable for Apple Silicon M3 chips, the changes that make Brave fully compatible with the Apple Silicon M3 chips seem to be responsible blocking the importation of data or transferring data from a Brave Profile.
It is now 27 days since I first raised this issue and still no answers that effectively resolve this issue.
Could you possibly reach out to more Brave developers or Technical Support people.
This extremely long delay in fixing this means Brave browser will have to be abandoned due to the sheer lack of technical support.
I believe that I have extremely patient as I have been waiting for 27 very, very,very long days to try and get this issue fixed.
There are still no answers to this issue and after all this time no end is in sight.
I already did. We have tested this several times on our and were able to move data from macOS with Intel to a macOS silicon machine without any issue whatsoever. I do apologize for not getting back to you sooner — managing 100s - 1000s of threads, tickets and issues per week is. hard and sometimes some will slip through the cracks.
I will reach out again today and see if there are any further suggestions as to why this might have happened and how to fix it.
Thank You, after 27 days I still have my Time Machine back ups from several months ago, I have tried retrieving the data and Profiles form back ups of various dates to try and rule out the possibility of file corruption in any of the back ups.
I have completely and thoroughly uninstalled Brave, obtained a fresh download of Brave from your website, installed and left it 100% completely untouched and tried all the advice given here with NO SUCCESS.
Brave very stubbornly refuses to accept imported data from a Brave Profile installed on a Intel based imac.
I can restore Brave back to the way it was 1 week ago using Time Machine back ups.
I have always been able to revert Brave back to how it used to be when I have made changes I didn’t like and wish to reverse those changes.
It is 27 days now and Brave still stubbornly refuses to co-operate, it will not accept data from an Intel based iMac Brave installation.
1 Like
Sorry to highjack this thread, but is Brave not forward compatible?
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I need to restore it to 2 weeks ago but have not yet figured out how when using Time Machine (first time).
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I also want to retire my Mac and transport everything to another Mac (also Intel) with a newer OS.
It sounds like 1 will be easier to achieve than 2.
I hope support will have a solution for both of us.
@Janko-2,
@jputting’s issue is likely isolated — as I stated earlier in this thread, we have tested this on our end several times and have been able to move profile data from one machine to another without any issue.
@jputting I have just re-pinged some people internally (again) as nobody responded yesterday. Hoping to get some fresh eyes on this as I’m not sure why the process is not working for you. Appreciate your patience.
Whenever I have wanted to restore Brave to a previous state I have simply gone into my Time Machine backups via clicking on the macOS menu bar icon for the Time Machine and select Browse Time Machine backups>
User>Library>Application Support>Brave Software and select a time and date that you know Brave was working well on and click restore at the bottom of the screen.
Before the restore process takes place you will be asked if you want keep the original, replace it or keep both file. Select replace and within a few minutes Brave should back to the state it was in for the date and time you chose.
I have always done it this way without issues, until I purchased a new iMac with the Apple Silicon M3 chip
I used the macOS Migration Assistant to move everything over to my new iMac. However the Brave installed on my Intel based iMac was not compatible with the Apple Silicon M3 chip and so I downloaded and installed the version of Brave suited to Apple Silicon chip based iMacs and now for 27 days Brave refuses to accept data and Extensions from the old Brave profile which was used on an Intel based iMac.
It has been a very, very, very long 27 days waiting and waiting for brave technical support to find an answer and nothing I have tried has worked.
I am fast running out of patience, if an answer to my problem can not be found very soon, I will be forced to abandon Brave and move to a new browser
Thanks.
Parallel, I am also studying whether I can use BookMacster to file my bookmarks, which could then presumably be exported to a new installation of Brave or to a new browser.
BookMacster is a great tool which I have used for years to sync various browsers, but never synced with Brave or made a standalone bookmark library. Of course it will not restore the history and passwords which would be missing. I would like to save all data without opening Brave, which has been hacked, so despite remaining offline on my Mac and only communicating on a different device, I wish to remain safe.
I do hope that Brave Support can address this.
Sorry to trouble you again, but I have been unable to drill down to the application level using time machine. It only shows me the date and time. Perhaps I am in the wtong place or perhaps this is OS based. I am not sure which OS version you used.
Were you able to at least save your bookmarks using BookMacster?
I hope the M series Apple chips are not going to create problems? I returned my M2 as a few critical apps would not run. My Intel OS is very old because Apple removed all the external ports on the laptop which I dearly needed. So I stopped buying a new model every 2 or 3 years. Their loss, but now I am suffering.
Open your user Library, open the Application Support Folder and Scroll Down, you should see a folder named “Brave Software”.
It should be there and it’s easy to find. You need this file to restore Brave to a previous state.
It is the same process when using your Time Machine back ups, on the right side of the screen, select a date that you know Brave was working properly on.
Find the “Brave Software” folder and select it, got the bottom of the screen and select “restore”.
If it is not the there, try selecting a previous date.
If you have set up the Time Machine backup system correctly and you can see that folder in your user Library, there should not be a problem.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to retrieve anything from my previous Brave Profiles, it has been a very long task slowly restoring Brave via memory alone. I am 3/4 done.
I have tried other browsers and NONE match Brave’s ad blocker and so will stick with Brave.
I had no problems migrating all my other Apps across to my new M3 iMac and compared to my 2019 Intel iMac it is indeed performing much better and faster.
Sincere thanks.
I would like to just restore the Brave folder and not everything else, which would cause chaos and result in losing 2 weeks of work. I hope TM can do this?
Meanwhile, I am still conducting overnight scans to remove any dangerous files which have landed on my machine.
I hope you manage to resolve your migration issue and I understand your frustration.
Regards
If you simply follow the instructions I have given, the Time Machine will only restore the file “Brave Software” and NOTHING else.
Time Machine will only carry out a full restore of your entire operating system via you going into the macOS Recovery partition during start up and choosing the option “Restore From a Time Machine Back Up” and instructing it to do so.
Those overnight scans should only be done on the macOS HD and the Time Machine back ups should be left alone as tampering with them can lead to them being corrupted and becoming unusable.
Be sensible and ensure your antivirus is scanning anything you download and then performing a routine nightly scan while you are sleeping.
Mac’s are secure by design and don’t get virus problems, it is the Malware in its various forms that we can still get infected with, but very careful selection of what you download and install is your best defence against this problem.
Many people don’t like Apple’s “Walled Garden” it is not 100% perfect or bullet-proof , but it is one of your best defences against malicious software.
Remember everything in the App Store must be Sandboxed which means they never, ever have access to certain parts of the macOS operating system for security.
All Apps available in the App Store are reviewed and analysed thoroughly before being made available, if you have your doubts about an App being malicious, you can report your concerns to Apple and they will review and test it thoroughly.
I only download Apps from other sources when there is nothing in the App Store which meets my needs.
I am slowly, slowly getting brave restored and almost there. Another day of work should see it 90% restored and I can function with that level of restoration.