Is the "forget the last" feature supposed to restart your browser with 0 tabs?

Have you tried locating your sessionrestore.js file? Also , you could try a program like recuva to see if there's any traces of it

Do you use any addons like session manager or save my tabs?

"Forget the last" says that it closes all tabs and windows, deletes recent cookies and recent history, and opens a clean new window. That seems to indeed be what it did. As I said, though, it should only have dumped information from the (then-)last five minutes.

I cannot find a file named "sessionrestore.js". I searched through my hard drive but unless I'm doing something wrong I don't see it anywhere. From other related problems others have said that "recovery.js" has replaced that in newer versions of Firefox. I don't know how true that is. What I do know is that there is a "recovery.js" file but opening it up in Notepad doesn't give me any information about my tabs. Perhaps the information there before, but wiped by the Forget feature? That would be bad.

I am not familiar with recuva. Is there anything I need to know before trying it?

No, I don't use either of those. Only Tabs Mix Plus.

This is what the poster is referring to - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/forget-button-quickly-delete-your-browsing-history

Small update (kinda)

I downloaded and tried Recuva, Pandora Recovery, and Shadow Explorer. Apparently only Shadow Explorer yielded results. I seem to have been able to recover an older version of the .js files. I looked and them in Notepad and they certainly contained more data than my first attempt.

The problem is that I don't know what to do with it. There's a program somewhere that will interpret Shadow Explorer's findings and convert them back into my precious tabs, right? I'm sure there is but I couldn't find it.

You would have to restore such a file sessionstore.js in the profile folder to access that session.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox

JustPassingThrough said

Small update (kinda) I downloaded and tried Recuva, Pandora Recovery, and Shadow Explorer. Apparently only Shadow Explorer yielded results. I seem to have been able to recover an older version of the .js files. I looked and them in Notepad and they certainly contained more data than my first attempt. The problem is that I don't know what to do with it. There's a program somewhere that will interpret Shadow Explorer's findings and convert them back into my precious tabs, right? I'm sure there is but I couldn't find it.

That is great to hear. I am not familiar with shadow explorer in particular. If you could give more information on the issue , i might be able to help. But those programs do yield results sometimes, which is fortunate.

shadyz said

JustPassingThrough said

Small update (kinda) I downloaded and tried Recuva, Pandora Recovery, and Shadow Explorer. Apparently only Shadow Explorer yielded results. I seem to have been able to recover an older version of the .js files. I looked and them in Notepad and they certainly contained more data than my first attempt. The problem is that I don't know what to do with it. There's a program somewhere that will interpret Shadow Explorer's findings and convert them back into my precious tabs, right? I'm sure there is but I couldn't find it.

That is great to hear. I am not familiar with shadow explorer in particular. If you could give more information on the issue , i might be able to help. But those programs do yield results sometimes, which is fortunate.

What information do you need?

Well i'm not really aware of where you've gotten to. Like cor-el said, if you already have a file, you can proceed to restore it. Or you can state where you are at, at the moment , and what you need help with currently

Also, did you try to do a deep scan with recuva? Did you click all the options? I think recuva should be the better of these three programs you mentioned ,although pandora is pretty popular as well

I definitely made sure to back up the files Shadow Explorer dug up.

I tried copying what I think is the best of those files (recovery.js) and pasting it in the profile page, but that didn't work. Definitely possible I didn't do that right, however. Is there a proper way of doing it or is it self-explanatory?

Shadow Explorer did dig up some files called sessionstore.bak, which isn't sessionstore.js as a poster previously mentioned, but is close enough perhaps? On the other hand, that file is several months older than the recovery.js so if I could get the most recent file to transfer older, that'd be preferable.

So, right now, I need help copying/pasting my findings into the folder, but I'm not sure which to choose and how exactly to do it.

I've included some screenshots of the files. Note: the first image is from the first use of Explorer, while the second and third images are from my second attempt so they should (in theory) be the same files but still might contain differences.

Oh, and to answer your question: no, I didn't try the deep scan with Recuva. I can try that soon.

The sessionstore.js file only exists while Firefox is closed. During shutdown, Firefox writes out that file based (I think) on recovery.js as of that point. When Firefox starts back up again, it reads sessionstore.js and deletes it. So if Firefox is running, it's normal not to see sessionstore.js. Anyway, sessionstore.js is going to be empty now.

Shadow Explorer might already have done this for you, but just in case...

You could try the previous versions feature. This is harder to get to on Windows 8 and 8.1, but I have read about a roundabout way. I can't test this myself, but here's what you do:

Let's say you have a Windows Explorer window open to your current Firefox profile folder. This is something like (with your username and semi-random profile folder name):

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\blahblah

Click in the address bar and change the C: to

\\localhost\c$

to yield (with your username and semi-random profile folder name)

\\localhost\c$\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\blahblah

Press Enter to reload the folder contents that way.

Now when you right-click recovery.js, recovery.bak, backup.js or sessionstore.js and choose Properties, there should be a Previous Versions tab. Usually the most recent previous version dates back to the last time Windows created a restore point (e.g., system update or possibly scheduled on a more frequent basis).

Now... to test out these files as a potential source of tabs, you can try substituting one of the more promising ones for sessionstore.js.

Bookmark any tabs you might want to save in your current session of Firefox.

Exit Firefox.

Rename sessionstore.js to sessionstore.old. Copy the file you want to test into the profile folder and rename it to sessionstore.js.

Start Firefox up and it should read the renamed file. You might need to use History > Restore Previous Session if you don't have Firefox set to restore automatically.

Any luck?

jscher2000 said

Now... to test out these files as a potential source of tabs, you can try substituting one of the more promising ones for sessionstore.js. Bookmark any tabs you might want to save in your current session of Firefox. Exit Firefox. Rename sessionstore.js to sessionstore.old. Copy the file you want to test into the profile folder and rename it to sessionstore.js. Start Firefox up and it should read the renamed file. You might need to use History > Restore Previous Session if you don't have Firefox set to restore automatically. Any luck?

I did what you said and was able to find and open the Previous Versions tab of the sessionstore.js file (which as you said appeared after exiting Firefox). Unfortunately, it says that no previous versions of the file are available.

What do I do now?

Hi JustPassingThrough, try the steps in this post with a recovery.js or other file you previously recovered using Shadow Explorer.