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Pinned tabs disappear

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If I open two windows of Firefox, pin tabs in the first, close it and then close the second window, my tabs disappear. In order to use this feature one must work with only one instance of Firefox?

If I open two windows of Firefox, pin tabs in the first, close it and then close the second window, my tabs disappear. In order to use this feature one must work with only one instance of Firefox?

Solution eye eponami

Pinned tabs are connected to a specific window and each window can has its own tabs.

You either need to use File -> Exit/Quit to close Firefox to make sure not to lose pinned tabs or close the window with preferred pinned tabs as the last window as that window will be restored.

Otherwise you can check "History -> Recently Closed Windows" to see if this window is still available (By default, Firefox can remember 3 closed window)


Use one of these to close Firefox if you are currently doing that by clicking the close X on the Firefox Title bar to make sure not to lose tabs because of unnoticed windows you would close later.

  • "3-bar" menu button -> Exit (Power button)
  • Windows: File -> Exit
  • Mac: Firefox -> Quit Firefox
  • Linux: File -> Quit
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All Replies (6)

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Hii soljeni,,


Pinned tabs are stored in your session history. As with all other session history, there are many ways to lose it... Sometimes an older file has what you need. Could you:

Check the History Menu

On the History menu, is Restore Previous Session available? If so, try that. If it's grayed out, does the menu list any closed windows you can re-open? Each window will have its own list of closed tabs you can re-open.

Back up Session History Files

Open your Firefox profile folder using either

   "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
   (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
   type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter 

In the first table on the page, click the "Open Folder" / "Open Directory" / "Show in Finder" button (varies depending on your OS). That will pop open your system's file browser.

In your profile folder, scroll down and double-click into the sessionstore-backups folder. Save all files here to a safe location, for example, your Documents folder. If not too much time has passed, we may be able to use them to recover your lost tabs.

Check File Contents

The kinds of files you may find among your sessionstore files are:

   recovery.js: the windows and tabs in your currently live Firefox session (or, if Firefox crashed at the last shutdown and is still closed, your last session)
   recovery.bak: a backup copy of recovery.js
   previous.js: the windows and tabs in your last Firefox session
   upgrade.js-build_id: the windows and tabs in the Firefox session that was live at the time of your last update 

You can view the contents of a file by dragging and dropping it onto the blank text area of my Scrounger tool: https://www.jeffersonscher.com/res/scrounger.html

Once you see the text in the box, click the Scrounge URLs button.

Can you find what you're looking for?

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Solution eye oponami

Pinned tabs are connected to a specific window and each window can has its own tabs.

You either need to use File -> Exit/Quit to close Firefox to make sure not to lose pinned tabs or close the window with preferred pinned tabs as the last window as that window will be restored.

Otherwise you can check "History -> Recently Closed Windows" to see if this window is still available (By default, Firefox can remember 3 closed window)


Use one of these to close Firefox if you are currently doing that by clicking the close X on the Firefox Title bar to make sure not to lose tabs because of unnoticed windows you would close later.

  • "3-bar" menu button -> Exit (Power button)
  • Windows: File -> Exit
  • Mac: Firefox -> Quit Firefox
  • Linux: File -> Quit
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million dollar organization working with google and cant keep pinned tabs after closing it. unfortunately mozilla of following the same footsteps of chrome. eating all ram and use maximum processes. I mean honestly this is rubbish and sadly there are no worthy competitor to come up against these monoplist browsers. I lost my work. I surf hundreds of sites and maybe thosands in a week and collect my most useful resources in pinned tabs. this is the reason i left chrome cuz when i close chrome i lost them all. now same happened here im firefox. i lost them all. now there is a great option in my mind. go to control panel and uninstall this garbage who doesnt care about your work.

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Hi Firefox Clean B, did you want help with this problem?

I. Did this just happen recently? If so, have you tried to recover the closed windows?

By default, Firefox can re-open up to 3 closed windows from a restored session.

First check whether either of these are available (not hidden or grayed out):

  • "3-bar" menu button > Restore Previous Session
  • (menu bar) History > Restore Previous Session

If they are missing or grayed, check either:

  • "3-bar" menu button > Library > History > Recently Closed Windows
  • "Library" toolbar button > History > Recently Closed Windows
  • (menu bar) History > Recently Closed Windows

If that doesn't help, perhaps there is an old session history file that contains the missing tabs. You need to check ASAP because Firefox constantly replaces these files:

Do not exit Firefox, or if you closed it, don't re-open it.

(1) To open your profile folder...

If Firefox is still running:

You can open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either

  • "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help > Troubleshooting Information
  • (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
  • type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

In the first table on the page, click the "Open Folder" (or "Show in Finder") button.

If Firefox is closed:

Type or paste the following into the Windows Run dialog or the system search box and press Enter to launch Windows Explorer:

%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

In that folder, do you see a semi-randomly-named folder? If so, click into it. If you find multiple such folders, find the one that was most recently updated.

(2) Copy out session history files

In your profile folder, double-click into the sessionstore-backups folder. Save all files here to a safe location such as your Documents folder.

(3) What files did you find?

The kinds of files you may find among your sessionstore files are:

  • recovery.jsonlz4: the windows and tabs in your currently live Firefox session (or, if Firefox crashed at the last shutdown and is still closed, your last session)
  • recovery.baklz4: a backup copy of recovery.jsonlz4
  • previous.jsonlz4: the windows and tabs in your last Firefox session
  • upgrade.jsonlz4-build_id: the windows and tabs in the Firefox session that was live at the time of your last update

To preview the contents of a file, you can drag and drop it onto the following page on my website, then click the Scrounge URLs button:

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

A script in the page will list all the windows and tabs it finds. If it doesn't finish in 15 seconds, the tab may have crashed. Close it and try again.

If you find useful data, use the Save List button to download that list of clickable links as a web page to your computer for future reference.

II. Have you considered using an add-on as a second level of session history storage?

Thinking toward the future, these are the session management extensions I'm aware of that you might investigate/try out:

Use database storage:

Use bookmark storage:

Bookmark storage is more robust in that Firefox backs it up regularly. However, having the extra data show up when you are searching your bookmarks may be annoying.

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I have the latest version of Firefox. It does not restore pinned tabs however I close the browser: regular Windows top right X; or Firefox 3-line menu Exit (Ctrl-Shift-Q). It used to work.

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kai.ng8 said

I have the latest version of Firefox. It does not restore pinned tabs however I close the browser: regular Windows top right X; or Firefox 3-line menu Exit (Ctrl-Shift-Q). It used to work.

Pinned tabs are stored in session history which is treated as part of browsing history. Could you check to make sure that you are not clearing browsing history at shutdown? As a first step, check the Options/Preferences page. Either:

  • Windows: "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Options
  • Mac: "3-bar" menu button (or Firefox menu) > Preferences
  • Linux: "3-bar" menu button (or Edit menu) > Preferences
  • Any system: type or paste about:preferences into the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it

In the left column, click Privacy & Security, then on the right side, scroll down to the History section. What do you have here?

  • Firefox will: Remember history => should be fine
  • Firefox will: Never remember history => Firefox can't restore pinned tabs
  • Firefox will: Use custom settings for history => two more things to check:

(A) "Always use private browsing mode" => if this is checked, Firefox can't restore pinned tabs

(B) "Clear history when Firefox closes" => if this is checked, click the "Settings" button to see what Firefox is set to clear -- if you clear "Browsing & Download History" then Firefox can't restore pinned tabs

Were there any problems there?