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Session set back to as it was 9 months ago following an unexpected restart and update.

  • 3 replies
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  • Last reply by cor-el

Robin Dabrowski-Haverty
Robin Dabrowski-Haverty
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My computer has been having some problems lately: Any rough handling might trigger the computer to shut off instantly or restart automatically. This is likely a hardware issue, probably a loose battery or something. The Firefox-related issue is that sometimes, upon turning the computer back on, something odd happens to my browser session: It is set back to three months earlier. The recent browsing button show everything having been browsed three months ago; but when I check my history, all my most recent tabs are there. This is tedious whenever it happens, as I have to spend about an hour manually opening everything I've lost (that I want to keep) from history. If there's a way to bulk re-open a bunch of tabs, I don't know how. All that has become something of a routine annoyance (it happens maybe once every two months) but I'd gotten used to it and it wasn't really an urgent problem. Today, however, I dropped my phone on my laptop, triggering a restart and a blue screen with a message that said something like "we're cleaning things up for you." It's what usually happens when I drop something on or accidentally elbow my thinkbad. (More commonly I move my computer a little bit and it just shuts off completely, goes black.) Before this happened I was due a firefox update, and I found it had done so when I turned my computer back on. I realised immediately that I had lost some tabs, and I assumed that it was just a three month setback. Upon opening my recent browsing though, I found out with horror that I'd been set back nine months. I cannot restore from a nine month period manually. I don't have the time, energy or willpower. I'm asking here if anyone knows how to bulk restore tabs from history or how to restore my session to how it was just a few hours ago. Thanks

My computer has been having some problems lately: Any rough handling might trigger the computer to shut off instantly or restart automatically. This is likely a hardware issue, probably a loose battery or something. The Firefox-related issue is that sometimes, upon turning the computer back on, something odd happens to my browser session: It is set back to three months earlier. The recent browsing button show everything having been browsed three months ago; but when I check my history, all my most recent tabs are there. This is tedious whenever it happens, as I have to spend about an hour manually opening everything I've lost (that I want to keep) from history. If there's a way to bulk re-open a bunch of tabs, I don't know how. All that has become something of a routine annoyance (it happens maybe once every two months) but I'd gotten used to it and it wasn't really an urgent problem. Today, however, I dropped my phone on my laptop, triggering a restart and a blue screen with a message that said something like "we're cleaning things up for you." It's what usually happens when I drop something on or accidentally elbow my thinkbad. (More commonly I move my computer a little bit and it just shuts off completely, goes black.) Before this happened I was due a firefox update, and I found it had done so when I turned my computer back on. I realised immediately that I had lost some tabs, and I assumed that it was just a three month setback. Upon opening my recent browsing though, I found out with horror that I'd been set back nine months. I cannot restore from a nine month period manually. I don't have the time, energy or willpower. I'm asking here if anyone knows how to bulk restore tabs from history or how to restore my session to how it was just a few hours ago. Thanks

All Replies (3)

cor-el
cor-el
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You can check this article.

Robin Dabrowski-Haverty
Robin Dabrowski-Haverty Question owner
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cor-el said
You can check this article.

You misunderstand my problem. I have not lost a session, my browser is just how it was 9 months ago. I'd like to restore it to how it was yesterday, either by finding a more convenient way of opening tabs from history or some other method.

cor-el
cor-el
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When Firefox restart due to applying an update then it creates an upgrade.jsonlz4 in the sessionstore-backups folder.

Are files in this folder regularly updated ?

You can use the button on the "Help -> More Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page (Root directory).

You will normally find these files in the sessionstore-backups folder:

  • previous.jsonlz4 (cleanBackup: copy of sessionstore.jsonlz4 from previous session that was loaded successfully)
  • recovery.jsonlz4 (latest version of sessionstore.jsonlz4 written during runtime)
  • recovery.baklz4 (previous version of sessionstore.jsonlz4 written during runtime)
  • upgrade.jsonlz4-<build_id> (backup created during an upgrade of Firefox)

You can copy a file with Firefox closed from the sessionstore-backups folder to the main profile folder and rename the file to sessionstore.jsonlz4 to replace the current file.

  • make sure to backup the current sessionstore.jsonlz4

You can look at this tool to inspect a compressed jsonlz4 sessionstore file. This tool works locally, no uploading done.