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Firefox updated on Mac and lost previous settings and history - no session restore option provided. Session desperately required. HELP

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  • 2 have this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

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I had Firefox running in a session with hours and hours of research and about 120 tabs open. For security reasons, I have Firefox set to wipe history when it restarts. In order to 'protect' and get back to my session when someone else wanted/needed to use the computer, I forced quit the program. What this does is bring up the 'Session Restore' dialogue when I next launch the program and I am back in business. Unbeknown to me, the other person launched Firefox, but a recent update to Firefox 14.01 had been downloaded and installed. It was waiting to run when the program was next launched, and the new install instead brought up the blasted "Welcome to Firefox" screen and NO session restore screen! From this screen, the other user went to google and proceeded to do whatever she was doing. I don't know if she closed a session restore screen or not, but I doubt it, because my previous experience has been that new updates and the blasted Welcome to Firefox screen means NO session restore screen comes up. Please, please, please, is there ANY way to recover the previous session? The online help said that a 'restore previous session' button would appear on the first screen when the program opens, but she says she didn't see one. The Welcome to Firefox screen does not show up in history, which makes no sense because it was there when the program was launched. If it would show up, and there was a restore session button on it like the help says there is supposed to be, then I should be able to restore the previous session by going back through the new history to it. Obviously there is a file where the previous session was stored - does anybody know what it is called? If anybody knows, then I can run file recovery software and try to get a copy of it. It is probably an html file somewhere. Help!

I had Firefox running in a session with hours and hours of research and about 120 tabs open. For security reasons, I have Firefox set to wipe history when it restarts. In order to 'protect' and get back to my session when someone else wanted/needed to use the computer, I forced quit the program. What this does is bring up the 'Session Restore' dialogue when I next launch the program and I am back in business. Unbeknown to me, the other person launched Firefox, but a recent update to Firefox 14.01 had been downloaded and installed. It was waiting to run when the program was next launched, and the new install instead brought up the blasted "Welcome to Firefox" screen and NO session restore screen! From this screen, the other user went to google and proceeded to do whatever she was doing. I don't know if she closed a session restore screen or not, but I doubt it, because my previous experience has been that new updates and the blasted Welcome to Firefox screen means NO session restore screen comes up. Please, please, please, is there ANY way to recover the previous session? The online help said that a 'restore previous session' button would appear on the first screen when the program opens, but she says she didn't see one. The Welcome to Firefox screen does not show up in history, which makes no sense because it was there when the program was launched. If it would show up, and there was a restore session button on it like the help says there is supposed to be, then I should be able to restore the previous session by going back through the new history to it. Obviously there is a file where the previous session was stored - does anybody know what it is called? If anybody knows, then I can run file recovery software and try to get a copy of it. It is probably an html file somewhere. Help!

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Check the Time Machine to see if you can restore a sessionstore.js file.

You can use this button to go to the Firefox profile folder:

  • Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Open Containing Folder