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Can't find old tabs from a crashed session - session manager tool has disappeared!

  • 6 replies
  • 7 have this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by cakediva

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I had 3 or 4 browsing sessions that crashed late last year and in January. I went to try and recover them today using the Session Manager tool, but all of the backup sessions in the session folder were gone... There were always a gazillion backups as my Firefox crashes repeatedly, and I usually have at least 100 tabs open at any one time. I know, I know!

All I thought I had to do was to open up the backup sessions! I'm distraught. Lots of research is gone - including all my wedding planning :(

I don't know if this is relevant, but my Session Manager add on had disappeared when I went to look for the backup sessions. I reinstalled it and then tried to find them, but they're not there.

Please help if you can?

I had 3 or 4 browsing sessions that crashed late last year and in January. I went to try and recover them today using the Session Manager tool, but all of the backup sessions in the session folder were gone... There were always a gazillion backups as my Firefox crashes repeatedly, and I usually have at least 100 tabs open at any one time. I know, I know! All I thought I had to do was to open up the backup sessions! I'm distraught. Lots of research is gone - including all my wedding planning :( I don't know if this is relevant, but my Session Manager add on had disappeared when I went to look for the backup sessions. I reinstalled it and then tried to find them, but they're not there. Please help if you can?

All Replies (6)

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In case the Firefox reset feature kicked in somehow, could you check on your desktop for a folder named Old Firefox Data? If you have that, there's a way to restore copies of your data from there that a volunteer could walk you through.

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Thank you very much for replying jscher. I don't have that folder anywhere. Is there anything else I could try? I've attempted a system restore to get the original add on working again but all my restore points have also disappeared...

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You won't be able to restore a specific session without the right sessionstore.js file.

Did you try to search for sessionstore files on your hard drive?

Make sure to search for hidden files and folders.

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Thanks cor-el! Would you please let me know if the stored sessionstore file will have all of my old tabs? Does it not just store the current ones, as opposed to ones from December (which I'm trying to trace)?

Thank you

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It is not possible to tell if a sessionstore.js file has those tabs.
If the file is from a date that you had those tabs open and if the file is not corrupted then it is possible that they have your tabs.

What is the file size of the sessionstore.js files?

If they are below 1MB then you can try to validate the file via an online JSON validate website.

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Hiya and thanks again. I'm going to hunt for an old backup of my hard drive which I hope will have the bak and js files. I have a feeling I had already opened FF again several times after the crash and of course the session manager had disappeared by then anyway! Will keep trying, thanks again.