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All my tabs are missing! Renaming and copy/pasting files didn't help

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

Xabidar
Xabidar
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I accidentally opened two windows of Firefox and closed the one with all my pinned tabs first, then the one with no tabs second. After reloading Firefox all my tabs are missing and I've tried renaming files, copy/pasting files, etc like these forums suggested, but nothing has worked. Have I screwed myself over?

I accidentally opened two windows of Firefox and closed the one with all my pinned tabs first, then the one with no tabs second. After reloading Firefox all my tabs are missing and I've tried renaming files, copy/pasting files, etc like these forums suggested, but nothing has worked. Have I screwed myself over?

Chosen solution

First check the History Menu for any tab restore options. Second. If you have already restarted Firefox and have a copy of the files: Close Firefox

  1. Open the profile folder Profiles - Where Firefox stores your bookmarks, passwords and other user data
  2. Save the previous.js recovery.bak and recovery.js as another name
  3. Put the recovery files into the Profile folder.

So that this does not happen again change your Tab preferences and settings or try Session Manager add on and regularly back up your profile.

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All Replies (2)

guigs
guigs
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Chosen Solution

First check the History Menu for any tab restore options. Second. If you have already restarted Firefox and have a copy of the files: Close Firefox

  1. Open the profile folder Profiles - Where Firefox stores your bookmarks, passwords and other user data
  2. Save the previous.js recovery.bak and recovery.js as another name
  3. Put the recovery files into the Profile folder.

So that this does not happen again change your Tab preferences and settings or try Session Manager add on and regularly back up your profile.

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
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Did you check History > Recently Closed Tabs/Windows ?

Note that you shouldn't close Firefox to prevent Firefox from overwriting sessionstore files.

Some information:

Firefox uses the sessionstore.js file in the profile folder to store session data, but this file is only present when Firefox is closed. The sessionstore.js file is created from recovery.js when you close Firefox and is removed and copied to previous.js when you start Firefox to make is possible to restore the session at any time.

You can backup the session files in the sessionstore-backups folder in the Firefox Profile Folder to make sure not to lose possible important session data. You can find these files in the sessionstore-backups folder: 

previous.js (cleanBackup: copy of sessionstore.js from previous session that was loaded successfully)
recovery.js (latest version of the sessionstore written during runtime)
recovery.bak (previous version of the sessionstore written during runtime)
upgrade.js-<build_id> (backup created during an upgrade of Firefox)

You can copy a file from the sessionstore-backups folder to the main profile and rename the file to sessionstore.js to replace the current file (make a backup copy of the current sessionstore.js).

See also: http://www.ghacks.net/2014/06/27/mozilla-launches-improved-session-restore-firefox-33/