Firefox Community Forum

Using firefox 144 on Kubuntu 24 LTS, on wayland, with Nvidia drivers.

I'm one of those guys with 500+ tabs. I also have a bunch of tabs open in specific containers and I recently spent a lot of time sorting most of my hundreds of tabs into a bunch of neat tab groups.

I'm not using any "sync between devices" functionnality

At some point, I open firefox like usual, and I noticed that it appears to be glitched. The rightmost tab (the last tab I had opened) seems to be working fine, but every other tab has no text, and I cannot switch to them. However, the colored line indicating that a tab is opened in a specific container still appears, it's just the tabs names that are missing. Also, firefox seems to generally not be responding, so I decide to close and reopen it.

Upon reopening, firefox restores my tabs, but I'm left with only the last tab I mentionned earlier. The "restore last session" button doesn't appear in "history". Neither "recently closed windows" nor "recently closed tabs" contain my 500+ tabs

I still have my extensions

I still have my bookmarks

I still have my base "new tab" setup, with my background image and my "pinned" websites (I don't know how it's called)

I still have my container "rules" (i.e, firefox still proposes to open specific domains with specific containers, even if I have lost old tabs that were opened in those containers)

I still have my "auto sign-ins" (i.e, I can still log into some websites without re-typing my password)

I have lost my tab groups

I'm used to losing my tabs. So I close firefox, and I go look in it's files.

The image firefox-mpris in the files still displays a youtube tab I was watching (yet this tab doesn't get restored)

I make a copy of sessionstore.jsonlz4 and sessionstore-backup, and try restoring from each backup by replacing sessionstore.jsonlz4 :

- the default sessionstore.jsonlz4 doesn't have my tabs of course

- previous.jsonlz4 has only the single last tab I mentionned earlier.

- recovery.jsonlz4 contains only 20-ish of some of the most recent tabs I had

- the "upgrade" files contains a bunch of tabs but it's from a few months ago so I'm missing the most recent stuff

Using this "scrounger" tool, I can look at what these files contain

https://www.jeffersonscher.com/ffu/scrounger.html

- sessionstore.jsonlz4 and previous.jsonlz4 both contain the single tab we talked about before (plus closed windows I don't care about)

- recovery.jsonlz4 contains exactly 25 recently opened tabs (plus closed windows I don't care about)

- upgrade.jsonlz4 contains 500+ tabs (with container ids, yay), but not the most recent ones of course (plus closed windows I don't care about)

From I saw online it looks like firefox only stores the last 25 tabs in these files, which are the last tabs I actually opened, even if more actually exist. What I really don't understand is : - Why does my upgrade.jsonlz4 file have more than 25 tabs then ? - Where are the other tabs supposed to be stored then ? the .jsonlz4 stores the last 25 tabs, yet firefox (usually) remembers all my 500+ tabs anyway, so where are they stored ?

Also, y'know, pls help me restore my stuff. Thanks.

Hi, I'll try to explain exhaustively my problem and what I've tried.

While looking at adding a new profile, I made a mistake and deleted the actual profile. Firefox immediately shut, and I made the mistake to open it right after...

It started from zero, as it had no profile to go into. Creating a new profile in the same time. I did this a few time, nothing changed obviously. I went to the AppData/Roaming path to find my old profile, which wasn't there anymore. I then managed to recover my profile files thanks to Recuva and EaseUS.

But now, I'm stuck. When adding the files in the newly created profile, it seems to roll back to the profile creation prompt (like import stuff from other browsers etc.). Copy/pasting only the desired sessionstore or the previous backup doesn't work either. It also tried to put the "good profile" in the Profiles folder. Firefox didn't recognize it, and I couldn't create a new profile from this folder in the Profile Manager as it said "this name is already used" etc. (it's a default-release) I then tried to edit the profiles.ini and install.ini to force Firefox on the wanted profile. Which succeeded and failed at the same time: it opened the right profile-folder, but without any session, bookmark... and back again to the profile creation prompt. And created a new empty sessionstore, prefs, etc.

Then I'm left with my recovered backup files and no idea how to import them...

Any help will be warmly welcomed! Cheers

Something very bad happened to me today (11/3)....

Firefox 144.0.2 was installed on 10/30/25, and everything has been fine until today. I don't know why or how, but ALL of my OPEN tabs (of which I have many--and have it fixed so they always re-open when Firefox starts), ALL went away.

In reading conventional steps to recover such from sessionstore-backups, those instructions sounded straightforward. However, even though ALL FIREFOX PROCESSES were ended, I could not copy the contents of the sessionstore-backups folder nor could I delete anything--EVEN THOUGH I am the owner.

Even after providing Admin perms.

I could get rid of profiles.ini, which initially proved diasterous, because then Firefox thought I was brand new, so ALL of my passwords saved through Firefox these many years, went "poof".

Fortunately, I was able to get that back, but I still cannot get all of my tabs back, and conventional instructions to do so aren't working.

After recovering from my heart attack for initially losing my passwords, I am breathing a little better right now, but it sure would be nice to get all of my open tabs back again. I don't know why I am not able to manipulate the files within sessionstore-backups. I think if I could eliminate the files in that folder EXCEPT for upgrade.jsonlz4-20251027123126, which possesses a 10/29/25 date, these should be the open tabs just before the 144.0.2 installation, and all should be right with the world, once more.

I have performed/examined many steps offered under this category, but most assume I can copy them elsewhere for safe-keeping and/or removing all but the one I want Firefox to "use". Because something is preventing me from doing this, though, I am being stymied in what ought to be the solution. As a test, I was able to copy files from a much older profile--so I can prove the basic steps SHOULD HAVE worked. Unfortunately, I cannot do the same with THE (more recent) folder in question. I can't get rid of parent.lock, either (and I have ensured no Firefox processes are running via Task Manager).

Repeatedly.

Something else is at work, here. Any help or assistance from community experts would be most helpful.

Thanks very much in advance.

-MG

The launch of Firefox Profiles seems to have obliterated everything in my account: bookmarks, history, open tabs, and extensions are all gone completely. I have an option to import files from another browser, but not from my own past firefox. I logged into my Mozilla account, but I didn't have any other devices so I think it was still unable to recover the data? Is there anything I can do about this, or is all of my data truly gone?

OMG someone please help me...I have used Firefox forever as my work browser. I have saved passwords to client accounts for 3rd party sites, etc. It has EVERYTHING. I updated my Mac with the latest software install today and when I opened Firefox it didn't restore my tabs. I got stuck in a loop where it would not update to the current version of Firefox. I uninstalled Firefox and re-installed it and LOST EVERYTHING. I AM FREAKING OUT because all my bookmarks are lost and I don't even know what they are - I have tried to restore bookmarks and it goes back to 2022 and 2023 and when I restore nothing happens. ANYONE SOMEONE please tell me you know how to help me find my stuff otherwise I am cooked.

I restarted Firefox today to find you have removed all my 100+ tabs, which I had arranged in folders, and replaced the vertical settings I had with Tree Style Tabs, which in the past has always run slow. I was greeted with childish graphics inviting me to set up a profile and offering me an introduction to Firefox. I have been using Firefox for years, mostly happily, until you screw up the view I had spent hours setting up. You are turning into a cheap Microsoft but with even less consideration for your users. Will you correct this or do I need to search for a new browser? Francis Shennan, LL.B Writer, journalist and law lecturer.

у меня стояла функция открытия вкладок из предыдущих сессий, но сегодня я открыл firefox сначало все вкладки были подписаны типа autoblock(или как-то так), я решил перезапустить браузер, в итоге открываю и ВСЕ вкладки исчезли, а у меня их там очень много и я точно не все вспомню, попробовал восстановить через журнал("восстановить резервную копию от" я выбрал от 21.10.2025, но она просто выдало сообщения, что текущие вкладки заменятся, на те, что в резервной копии и больше ничего не произошло) есть ли способ восстановить все вкладки не прибегая к тому, чтобы листать историю вручную?

I'm running the current version (144.0, 64-bit) on a Dell Inspiron laptop. Just now, I tried to save a bookmark, but I found that a goodly number (not all) of my bookmark folders had disappeared. When I tried to restore from a Firefox backup, I got an "Unable to process file" message. What's wrong , how do I fix it, and how do I get the missing bookmarks back?

Hi, All of a sudden, I lost absolutely all of my bookmarks. My PC is running Windows 11. My Firefox account was and still is logged in. At first, I thought the data loss was due to a CCleaner cleanup using their latest update. After the data was lost, I tried running another CCleaner cleanup, but this time it didn’t delete the bookmarks. So I honestly have no idea how this could have happened. These were bookmarks I had saved over many years... It’s a disaster.

PLZ Help

Hello, I just purchased a new desktop computer. I have passwords and bookmarks that I would like to move over to the new computer. Can this be done or do I have to manually move each item. It would be so much easier to recapture all. Thanks for you help.

I have been a Firefox user for many, many years. I started getting the Subject message: "The bookmarks and history system will not be functional" error message this evening. I started to "Fix" this error based on the Mozilla Support page. Actually, I first tried restarting my computer and that didn't correct the problem. I then noticed I could "sign off" Firefox which I thought I'd do and sign back in. I didn't notice until after the fact that my Firefox account was tied to a very old email address I once used that is no longer active "commish3@bellsouth.net". When I tried signing back into Firefox using that old email account, it said a security code would be sent to that old email address. Problem is I no longer have access to that email account.

1) Is there a way I can sign back in and have a security code sent to my current email address: tad3.dickinson@gmail.com ?

2) Can you assist with restoring my bookmarks. Again, years of building these bookmarks that I'm very dependent on.

Thanks, Tad Dickinson