Firefox Community Forum

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

Dear Mozilla Support,

My name is Sizhe Xiong. Today when I launched Firefox on my Windows computer, the browser suddenly required me to select or create a new profile before continuing. I had no option to skip this step, so I created a new one.

After that, Firefox asked me to log in or register a Mozilla account. I used the same Gmail address that I’ve always used for Firefox Sync, but it seems that a new account was automatically created, and all my previous data — including bookmarks, history, saved passwords, and extensions — disappeared.

When I checked my local Profiles folder under C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles, I found several new folders created around the same time, but none of them contain my old data (all places.sqlite files are around 5120 KB).

These bookmarks and passwords are very important to me. Could you please help check if it’s possible to recover my old Firefox data, or if my previous Sync data can still be linked to my Mozilla account (using the same Gmail address)?

Thank you very much for your help.

Best regards, Sizhe Xiong

Today I opened Mozilla at my laptop. It malfunctioned (videos froze, pages did not fully download), so I closed the window and after a couple of seconds I reopened it. My previous session was gone. I read your articles regarding this issue, did what was described there, but nothing has changes. I lost everything! Job videos, hobby pages - everything! A couple of pages can be restored via history, but that's it! I didn't do anything special before closing the window!

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?

My passwords are apparently lost today after updating Firefox.

What went wrong? How could that happen? Why, Why Why?

Anyway to get them back? Are they hidden somewhere?

Anyone else suffering from this update too?

Any help or insights as to why would be greatly appreciated.

w

I opened FF this afternoon and it op0end like a new first time install- asking about setting up some damn profiles and showing news, AI, weather and crap I do not want or use..

I can not seem to restore it. All bookmarks, PW, menu bars and links are now gone.

Can Firefox do anything to recover all of the downloads I'd saved until I accidentally had CCleaner erase everything? I don't know what else was deleted, but getting them back would be a big help.

Synced my new computer, received bookmark toolbar and 10 year old bookmarks from when i switched from interent explorer, but all my more recent bookmarks and bookmark folders are still missing on the new computer. Also didn't seem to transfer passwords and autofill info.

Siguiendo sus instrucciones facilitadas, he conseguido recuperar la carpeta de mi perfil anterior pero no se qué hacer con ella para que aparezcan los marcadores de siempre en la aplicación, cómo lograrlo Gracias

My Bookmarks are missing. I see backups under the profile/bookmarkbackups folder but when I manage bookmarks, they are not in the restore dropdown. I have followed the steps to delete the places.sqlite but when I reopen firefox, I do not see the bookmarks have been restored. I thought it might have been related to Norton Utilities so I renewed a subscription but no luck. I also have a json file with my bookmarks but I cannot choose it from Manage Bookmarks, either

I accidentally refreshed Firefox when I was having problems and didn't realize Refresh meant wiping everything clean. I found another thread about this, but it's 8 years old and things have changed. How do I use the "Old Firefox" folder on my desktop to restore all my bookmarks, history, etc.?

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.

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?

The initial problem I was dealing with was FF kept directing me to Youtube every time I clicked on a NORMAL link in my google search. 🤷‍♀️ I tried several different links but same result....Youtube again!

This is where I went down the rabbit hole. 🙄 My first step was to get some help with my Firefox browser for this 'redirecting' issue. Under the help heading, "More Troubleshooting Information" I found "Give Firefox a Tune-Up using Refresh". Hmmm, maybe this will fix the issue?? I carefully read the following before proceeding....

"Start fresh to fix performance issues. This will remove your extensions and customizations. You WON'T LOSE ESSENTIAL INFORMATION LIKE BOOKMARKS AND PASSWORDS."

WRONG!!! MISLEADING!!! LIES LIES LIES!!! 😡😤😡

I lost almost ALL of my saved bookmarks except for TEN (the most recently used) that still remained after the refresh was completed! I literally lost over a hundred of them that I had accumulated while using Firefox for so many years!! 😲😣🤦‍♀️ 21 different folders, Home, Travel, Shopping, Banking etc, each containing 10-30 OR MORE bookmarks to sites I need to SAVE to be able to revisit later when needed. ALL GONE!!! 😡😤

I have been loyally using ONLY Firefox as my browser for 2 decades!! Now the only thing I can say about Firefox is a whole lot of curse words!!

WHY WOULD FIREFOX INCLUDE SUCH A #$@&! STATEMENT??? "You won't lose essential information like Bookmarks and Passwords"......YES YOU WILL!!!

This NEEDS TO BE REMOVED!!

Why not be an honest and reliable browser?? Include information that if you perform a refresh, you WILL lose these essentials but you might possibly be able to recover them from hidden files somewhere, but you won't easily know where to find them!! 😉

The next time I have ANY issues using Firefox I won't be 'refreshing' nothing at all!! I won't troubleshoot NOTHING!! I will just copy and save all of my bookmarks and SWITCH TO GOOGLE CHROME!! 👍

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?

There are times that when I open firefox that some of my tabs that does this weird thing where my tabs from the previous session that I left doesn't load up, from what I see is a blank tab that doesn't access the sites I left. It's been twice since I encountered this and I can't replicate the issue. When it happens I try checking out the recently closed tabs or window it doesn't show the ones that didn't show up.