I lost all my ~400 tabs > crash. Restore session not available. I try to find help but apparently it resets sessionstore.js and previously.js with restart Help?
How do i get my previous session with tons of very important tabs back? I do actually still have my history available since april but thats not the same as visually having my tabs open.
I read some stuff but its all really complicated to me. Fact is i restarted and now sessionstore.js and previously.js are 'new'. how to get my old stuff back?
All Replies (7)
First: Do not exit Firefox, or if you closed it, don't re-open it.
If Firefox is still up, check the History menu for "Restore Previous Session" and, if it's not grayed out, try that.
If that is grayed out or doesn't help, let's back up a few files. Here's how:
(1) To open your profile folder...
If Firefox is still running:
You can open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either
- "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
- (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
- type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter
In the first table on the page, click the "Show Folder" button.
If Firefox is closed:
Type or paste the following into the Windows Run dialog or the system search box and press Enter to launch Windows Explorer:
%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
In that folder, do you see a semi-randomly-named folder? If so, click into it. If you find multiple such folders, find the one that was most recently updated.
(2) Copy out session history files
In your profile folder, scroll down and double-click into the sessionstore-backups folder. Save all files here to a safe location, such as your Documents folder. If not too much time has passed, we may be able to use them to recover your lost tabs.
(3) What files did you find?
The kinds of files you may find among your sessionstore files are:
- recovery.js: the windows and tabs in your currently live Firefox session (or, if Firefox crashed at the last shutdown and is still closed, your last session)
- recovery.bak: a backup copy of recovery.js
- previous.js: the windows and tabs in your last Firefox session
- upgrade.js-build_id: the windows and tabs in the Firefox session that was live at the time of your last update
Could you take a look at what you have and the date/time of the various files to see whether you think any of them would have the missing tabs?
Note: By default, Windows hides the .js extension. To ensure that you are looking at the files I mentioned, you may want to turn off that feature. This article has the steps: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hide-file-name-extensions
As i said that ship has sailed. I had already closed it and opened it again and have the wrong file.
My last restore point is from last year :( checked that already too.
What can i try with recovery.js? It also seems too late now i think.
hard to believe one simple crash and everything can be gone. I dont like this function at all.
Most my important tabs were bookmarked but not all especially subtabs on sites i dont usually bookmark those...
Not too enthousiastic to wade through months of internet history.
Are you saying that your sessionstore-backups folder is basically empty, that you do not have ANY of those files except the currently live recovery.js? What all did you find?
Session store latest file is a year old?! My previous.js is from after opening / closing again. I need the previous one from BEFORE but thats overwritten sadly.. recovery.js is also from after the crash.
Oh... you don't do updates. So the files that are usually created every few weeks at update installs do not exist on your Firefox.
And you checked the Previous Versions on the Properties tab of the recovery.js, previous.js, and sessionstore.js files? If you didn't see that in another thread, this would list copies of the file captured in restore points at Windows updates, or when Windows backup runs (or so I have heard, I've never seen one of those).
No i havent updated firefox in a while using 46.0.1 because of all the addons that die with the new versions. Will have to switch eventually anyway unless someone finds a way to keep stuff working.
i checked all the things you mention its all from afte the crash it seems.
I last updated windows last week...
Oh, Firefox 46 isn't as extreme as I thought. To the right of your original post, it lists Firefox 40. You may need to clear our that incorrect information. See: How to reset the default user agent on Firefox.
But on the main issue, I don't have any other ideas.