
Help Recover Lost Tabs!
To sum up the situation, I had three Firefox browsers open, each with some important tabs.
Today I was playing with CCleaner and decided to clean everything in the Firefox applications menu. Stupid mistake on my part, when I opened up the Firefox browser again, I could no longer restore my previous session. With all my internet history files deleted, I was able to recover a bunch of data by using Recuva.
I did some research and read other similar topics on this support page, but none of them seemed to work. I will list some of the things I have done so hopefully you guys get a better idea.
1. From my research, I have restored "recovery.bak" "recovery.js" "previous.js" and "upgrade.js-2016... (from a few weeks ago)." There are a bunch of other files I can restore, maybe you guys can point them out?
2. I have the above mentioned files saved elsewhere so I can copy and paste it to another folder if need be.
3. I have tried pasting all of the files above to the AppData>Roaming>Mozilla>Firefox>Profiles>0h4uk1k9.default file folder and changing it to sessionstore.js
From reading similar topics, once I renamed one of those files to sessionstore.js and open up Firefox, I believe I should be able to restore my previous session? However it does not seem to work. Maybe I am missing something?
If someone can help me restore my tabs, it will be truly appreciated!
Chosen solution
The Windows system restore feature doesn't capture restore points very often. To see what might be available, you could try this program:
http://nicbedford.co.uk/software/systemrestoreexplorer/
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Just to recap the procedure:
The sessionstore.js file is created when you exit out of Firefox normally (not crashing out).
You need to wait until that file is created, then rename it to sessionstore-old.js (or you can delete it if it's truly of no value), then copy in the older file and name it sessionstore.js, then start Firefox up again, then check the History menu for Restore Previous Session.
(You probably saw this tip elsewhere, but make sure Windows is set to show file extensions: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/wi.../show-hide-file-name-extensions)
When you do that, does Firefox ignore the swapped in file or is it just not the right file?
Forgot to mention, check the History menu for closed windows that you could re-open, since you had 3 windows before.
To survey the contents of the various session history files, you could try this with any promising candidates (one at a time):
(1) Create a copy of the file (e.g., previous.js) and rename the copy to losttabs.txt (or another .txt file).
(2) Open losttabs.txt in a Firefox tab. It's a wall of text.
(3) Open the Web Console in the lower part of the tab using either:
- Developer menu > Web Console
- (menu bar) Tools > Web Developer > Web Console
(4) Paste the code from the following post into the space at the bottom of the Web Console and press Enter to run it: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1085742#answer-786810
The script should extract a list of URLs that were in the file and you can assess whether this is the right set of tabs.
Note: Up to 3 closed windows and up to 10 closed tabs per window are normally stored in the file so it may have a lot of older stuff you don't care about. Try to spot the last things you were using that you do care about.
Thanks for the reply! I have my file extensions shown, the problem I believe is that Firefox just ignores the swapped in file.
I have tried closing the Firefox browser, checked the Profiles folder and DELETED the "sessionstore.js" file.
I have then tried pasting the files mentioned above, each individually, and renamed them to "sessionstore.js" and launched the Firefox browser again, however the Restore Previous Session button is still grayed out.
Just to be clear, does this usually works if I rename the "recovery.js" and "previous.js" to "sessionstore.js"?
Both recovery.js and previous.js have the appropriate file structure to swap in for sessionstore.js. Of course, you can only try one at a time because Windows doesn't allow multiple files with the identical name in the same folder.
Do you have Firefox set to restore your previous session automatically? If so, that could explain why the menu item is grayed. In that case, check for any closed windows on the History menu that you might be able to reopen.
I will try that method now! Also to point out, after I messed around with CCleaner, my entire internet browsing history is gone. If I press Ctrl+H, the only pages that pop up are the ones from today.
Quick side question, if I do a system restore, will my internet history/tabs be restored as well? I conveniently have a restore point today before I deleted everything.
By the way, if Firefox doesn't find sessionstore.js in your profile folder, it should check the sessionstore-backups folder to see whether it can find recovery.js, or recovery.bak, or previous.js. So another way to feed an old file to Firefox is to remove sessionstore.js from the profile folder and put the old recovery.js back into the sessionstore-backups folder.
I have tried the method you just mentioned. I put the recovery.js and recovery.bak file into the sessionstore-backups folder and launched Firefox but it didn't work.
I have also tried just putting the previous.js into the sessionstore-backups folder and launched Firefox, but that didn't work either.
When I changed one of the files into losttabs.txt and opened it, there was an enormous amount of blank space with the lines of code at the bottom of the Notepad document.
After pressing Ctrl + Shift + K to open up the console command and pasting in the line of text, the message SyntaxError: missing ; before statement popped up.
You need to rename a file that you copied from the sessionstore-backups folder to the main Firefox profile folder to sessionstore.js to make Firefox use this file.
You can use this button to go to the current Firefox profile folder:
- Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> Profile Directory:
Windows: Show Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder - http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox
Thanks for replying! I have tried this method as well and relaunched Firefox, but the Restore Previous Session is still grayed out.
Do you know if I perform a system restore, will that be able to recover my internet history along with the tabs?
Chosen Solution
The Windows system restore feature doesn't capture restore points very often. To see what might be available, you could try this program:
Did you look for "History -> Recently Closed Tabs/Windows"?
You can check in Windows Explorer if there is a previous version of the sessionstore.js file available.
- Right-click: Properties -> Previous Versions
- http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/how-use-file-history
Oh my gosh! Thank you jscher2000 and cor-el for the help! Somehow something worked and I have my tabs back! So here is what I did:
- I followed the link jscher2000 sent: http://nicbedford.co.uk/software/systemrestoreexplorer/
- I downloaded the software and was able to mount a system restore point. If you recall I said earlier that I coincidentally had a restore point moments before I deleted everything.
- From there I tried to copy and paste the saved files, recovery.js, recovery.bak, previous,js, etc from the system restore point into my current Profile and sessionstore-backups folders, which didn't work.
- I then tried to copy and paste the entire Profile folder from my system restore point to my current Profile folder, essentially replacing it. I opened up the Firefox browser and unsurprisingly it crashed. I kept trying to open the browser until finally I was able to open it in safe mode, but none of my tabs were there.
- I decided to copy and paste the entire Mozilla folder from the mounted system restore point and replaced my current Mozilla folder under AppData>Roaming>Mozilla. I tried to open the Firefox browser, but once again it kept crashing. After multiple attempts it allowed me to open the browser in safe mode.
I don't know why I kept trying, but I did this a couple more times, with each time the browser opening in safe mode, none of my tabs were there. Then somehow, I did it again and they appeared! I did a session restore and now they're back!
I have no idea how this happened, but I consider myself extremely lucky. Thanks again for the help, it was much appreciated!
Somehow something got in likely through a program I downloaded that changed my search engine to yayhoo. I shut off my pc one eve and the next day it has this new start page and my important open tabs are all gone. I don’t think I have any virus, I have scanned and have no other symptoms. I have got my google search back but there is no restore previous session option. There was the firefox update on 10/20 and I can find that upgrade restore file. I try following this all and with every additional word I get more lost. Can you please explain to me in simple terms what file I need from that restore file and where to put it so I can get the tabs from that day back? Or if nothing else if I can get the list of tab url’s? Thank you.
Hi helpful55, this thread is already marked as solved, so let me reply in your new question over here: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1144076