If you have any files places.* or sessionstore.* make copies of them and put them somewhere safe such as the Windows Desktop. Not in any Firefox profile or program path.

The files are not designed to be opened with Windows or directly with Firefox.

You probably have lost the tabs. But if you make copies of those files we may be able to explain how you can check them to see if any information or tabs may be recovered.

In future it is probably wise to rely more on bookmarks rather than the rather fragile restore session system. With Firefox 29 Firefox sync is improved with Firefox Accounts and that should be helpful with keeping backups of Firefox state.

If you have accidentally cleared your History Firefox does not keep backups. The History is stored within the places.sqlite file as you probably realise. It is possible your Windows Operating Sytem will be able to recover previous versions of this file. That would allow you to get your History and bookmarks back from whatever the date of the previous file you are able to recover. TAKE CARE always manually back up any existing places.sqlite file (Or any other file for that matter) you have by copying it before attempting any restore of a previous version.
The Previous versions option is available when you right click files.

If you do not back up you will regret it is the previous version is corrupt or not having the expected content.

Back up the files. Try restoring the places.sqlite and post back with how you get on. I will explain what to try with the session restore files after you try that.

Hi,

I'm sorry but I'm pretty confused. Please bear with me, as I am a newbie with all of this! I backed up the files, but I'm having trouble restoring the places.sqlite files. In order to restore the places.sqlite files, I'm supposed to right click the file and select "restore previous versions", right? When I do so, it says, "There are no previous versions available". Or am I supposed to double-click the file? When I do that, it takes me to the Internet Explorer Downloads box. I hit "Open" and but then I can't find it. What should I do?

Thanks for your patience! I really appreciate your help!

Yes I can understand you being confused there is an awful lot of information you need to take in and learn as you encounter such a situation. I will try to expand my explanation to cover the points you ask.

right click the file and select "restore previous versions", right?

That is correct when using Windows to try to recover for instance files where the working fie is corrupted, but a previous version worked

If you have no previous versions available from Windows you need to work on whatever you do have. With any file restore operation it is always a good idea to make copies of not only the originals but also the restored files.

If you restored the places.sqlite with Windows that could possibly have resulted in a copy overwriting your working file that is even worse than the original file.

When you restore a file using the Windows OS it restores the files in their ordinary working location and they should function as expected without needing to do anything else. Generally it is probably best to try such restores when the files are not in use and in this instance that means when Firefox is closed.

For the benefit of any other readers of this thread note :
The places.sqlite is in the Firefox profile and easiest to find before closing down Firefox as the troubleshooting information page (about:support) may be used to find it.

• Profiles - Where Firefox stores your bookmarks, passwords and other user data_how-do-i-find-my-profile

The places.sqlite database is the only file Firefox itself has with the full History information in it. The database also contains bookmarks but Firefox should have some other backups of those. If the database is deleted Firefox will restore the database but all it can do is add back bookmarks information from its backups the History is lost.

There is almost no chance of getting the History back unless there is another copy of that database. Either one Windows is able to recreate, or one that was somehow created by another method, that normally being the user deliberately making a manual backup of your profile or places file in advance. Or maybe having in place other backup procedures.

 am I supposed to double-click the file?

That is not going to help in these circumstances. There are advanced methods of studying the files but right clicking does not help in this instance.

Open tabs information is stored in the series of files sessionstore.* It may take rather a lot of messing about to to get any useful information out of whatever files you have. It would normally probably be a lot quicker just going back to the sites concerned, but that is made more difficult if you have overwritten the History database so you may need to try if the tabs were important to you. I can give more details in another post if you need to try that

We could have a lot more luck with your bookmarks. Did you bookmark most of the sites concerned ? If so then at least you have a good chance of finding the sites again.

Have you already got a fairly complete listing of your bookmarks in the Firefox bookmarks library/menu ? If you need to try to get back lost bookmarks that existed in the last few days but not are not present right now make a backup copy

• Of the profile folder called bookmarkbackups ( With its contents ! )
• places.sqlite Remember whenever attempting restoring bookmarks always backup the database file places.sqlite first.

I'm having the exact same problem, but I have a backup of Sessionstore which I renamed Sessionstore.old on my desktop and it is 6,01Mb while the other one in the Mozilla profile is 2,38Kb. I don't get the option to restore either of them. Is this a lost cause or can I somehow retrieve my lost taps that should be in my sessionstore.old.

Note: Yesterday I took a backup of Sessionstore and put .old in front on my desktop after I used system restore. After that I deleted the old one in the profile because it didn't have the tabs. and copied the one I backed up in there and deleted the .old text in front and that is when I noticed no restore available. Should I maybe have had backed up Sessionstore.bak too which I didn't? Don't know if this picture will help, but I hope so in some way or another.

I forgot to mention that I made a Firefox account on the 2.7.14 the day after I was able to restore my session and synced tabs and everything. Is it possible to retrieve the tabs from there?

The name of the file in the Firefox profile folder should be sessionstore.js

It was never .js to begin with. So I just have to change it or are my tabs fucked? Most of the tabs were valuable, but don't remember all of them which is bad for me.

Windows tends to hide the file suffix for "known" file types. You need to access "Folder Options" > View and un-check the box for "Hide extensions for known file types"

Alright, I've done that. Thanks! What is the next step I have to take? As I mentioned before I have a backup of this Sessionstore.js, but only that file. Can I restore my tabs with it? I don't get the option to restore to previous with it, but I can with the one in the profile folder. Should I maybe move and replace with the one I backed up with the one in the profile folder?

I tried to copy & replace the one in the profile folder with the one I backed up, but to me it seems that when I replaced the one in the profile folder it changed back to the one I wanted to replace it with. I'll just attach a picture so hopefully that is better for you guys.

When I copied & replaced the one in the profile folder it changed and is now 2,59KB, but not 5,80MB like it should be.

You can open the file in the Scratchpad (Firefox/Tools > Web Developer) and click the "Pretty Print" button to format the file for inspection. The content should be plain ASCII text with no other binary data.

Make sure to use this startup setting or check for "History > Recently Closed Tabs/Windows".

• Tools > Options > General > Startup: "When Firefox Starts":
  "Show my windows and tabs from last time"

Copy the file to the Firefox profile folder while Firefox is closed.

Open Scratchpad > Open File > Select Sessionstore.js that I backed up > Pretty Print and the Scratchpad should look like this right? Should I now save the file like this and copy it to the Firefox profile folder?

No, there is no need to save the file in pretty print format. If the file looks this way until the end then the file is OK and should work when placed in the profile folder.

If it doesn't work then maybe check for a trailing comma (,) like },} at the end of a section that shouldn't be there.

I want to thank all of you for making this work. I really appreciate it. Kudos to you moderators! :)