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version 79.0 *no longer* restores sessions. Power went out -- no restore. Turned off computer -- no restore.

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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I have Firefox version 79.0. The power went out a few days ago and upon restarting Firefox the restore button was gray, and similarly the tabs and windows button under history were gray. Today because of a problem with a website I turned off the computer. Firefox said it had a problem restoring, a restore button popped up and when I pushed the restore button it coughed up ONE tab, which I believe I had already closed, but none of the others.

I have Firefox version 79.0. The power went out a few days ago and upon restarting Firefox the restore button was gray, and similarly the tabs and windows button under history were gray. Today because of a problem with a website I turned off the computer. Firefox said it had a problem restoring, a restore button popped up and when I pushed the restore button it coughed up ONE tab, which I believe I had already closed, but none of the others.

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You can check for problems with the sessionstore.jsonlz4 file in the Firefox profile folder that stores session data.

  • delete sessionstore.jsonlz4 and sessionstore.js

You may also have to rename sessionstore-backups folder to sessionstore-backupsOLD in case the files in this folder are corrupted as well.

When sessionstore.jsonlz4 is deleted you lose pinned tabs and open tabs and you will have to recreate them, so if necessary make a note or bookmark them. sessionstore.jsonlz4 is only present in the Firefox profile folder when Firefox is closed.

You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.


Backup the session files in the sessionstore-backups folder in the Firefox profile folder to make sure not to lose possible important session data. Do NOT close Firefox when Firefox is already running.

You will normally find these files in the sessionstore-backups folder:

  • previous.jsonlz4 (cleanBackup: copy of sessionstore.jsonlz4 from previous session that was loaded successfully)
  • recovery.jsonlz4 (latest version of sessionstore.jsonlz4 written during runtime)
  • recovery.baklz4 (previous version of sessionstore.jsonlz4 written during runtime)
  • upgrade.jsonlz4-<build_id> (backup created during an upgrade of Firefox)

You can copy a file from the sessionstore-backups folder to the main profile and rename the file to sessionstore.jsonlz4 to replace the current file (make sure to backup the current sessionstore.jsonlz4).

You can look at this tool to inspect a compressed sessionstore file.