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Unable to restore session or window after accidentally closing them

  • 5 replies
  • 45 have this problem
  • 9 views
  • Last reply by John99

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Hi, my name is Marcel, and I have a big problem: I accidentally closed my Firefox main window and afterwards, I closed the Download window as well. When restarting Firefox, I was shocked to see that the Group Tabs were empty, that I was unable to restore session from the last time, and it's very hard for me to seek in the history for the opened pages. The restore window and restore session are grayed out!!! Why? Is there any way to be able to restore the old sessions entirely, including the closed tab groups? My default settings are "show windows from last time", of course. Please, help me out! Thank you! Marcel Neidoni, mneidoni@gmail.com.

Hi, my name is Marcel, and I have a big problem: I accidentally closed my Firefox main window and afterwards, I closed the Download window as well. When restarting Firefox, I was shocked to see that the Group Tabs were empty, that I was unable to restore session from the last time, and it's very hard for me to seek in the history for the opened pages. The restore window and restore session are grayed out!!! Why? Is there any way to be able to restore the old sessions entirely, including the closed tab groups? My default settings are "show windows from last time", of course. Please, help me out! Thank you! Marcel Neidoni, mneidoni@gmail.com.

All Replies (5)

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The downloads window can be opened by:

  1. clicking on the Firefox button (orange top left)
  2. clicking on download

If you have cleared the content of the download manager window, try whatever download folder you are using, if you want to find your downloads. To find where the location you use for downloads, or to set it to some other location use:

  • Firefox Button -> Options ->Options|General - downloads .

If the restore options are greyed out possibly you have cleared them. Any restore is based on what is in the History, why not try that if looking for tabs that were open previously.

Try using

  • Firefox button -> History ->
    • Recently Closed Tabs -> restore all tabs
      (or alternatively choose individual tabs from the list)
    • Recently closed Windows

You may try repeating the actions above and find further tabs. Note also the History itself has a search function, and a sort function that should help you find specific websites that you have previously opened.

If at the moment you are having problems again finding History post back. The various possible settings for History are explained in the article

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Hi, I am already digging through history, but unfortunately I've lost count of the Tab Groups locations I had opened and so on... Is there a possibility to restore the previously opened Tab Groups, in this situation? Also, I believe that there may be a bug: if you have opened: - Firefox main window (browser) opened - Downloads Window opened and: 1. Close the Firefox main window 2. Close the Download Window The next time you start the browser, you only have the main window opened, just one tab appearing. Now, I'm not 100% sure this is accurate, but I'll give it some tests, if you wish so. All the best from Timisoara, Romania Marcel

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I use the old bookmarks and folders myself, not the panorama/tabs groups, so I will leave others to comment on how they should work.

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I'm having a similar problem. I have version 3.6.17. I just updated it yesterday (I think). In my previous version, I had the restore session setting set. The way it worked was, if I clicked Mozilla and multiple windows came up (including the "restore previous session") one and I accidentally closed the "restore previous session" window, the next time I clicked Mozilla, the "restore previous session" window would come up. However, that didn't happen with this newer version. So, I was wondering if there was any possible way I could possibly access my previous session in order to restore it (i.e., type something in the location bar)? I am also using Windows XP. Also, this happened June 23, 2011. Please help! I want to find my tabs again. I had 2 separate windows open. Thanks.

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This was a change a while ago, (I am on Firefox 6 at present). Firefox does now not ask in advance about restoring tabs, it does not need to. Just use the history option, from the menubar or firefox button or the big button in the middle of the default start page that says restore previous session.