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Restore closed windows

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Please help me recover lost Windows. I had 3 Windows with 20+ tabs each open. The computer hung when I opened Firefox. It has done this a few times in the last 2 weeks. There is a single beep each time. In "History" the "Restore previous Session" is greyed out. When I try accessing "Recently Closed Windows" the missing Windows are not listed. The Windows BSOD reported that Windows closed because of Firefox and to update it, which I have done. I believe that I was running Version 8 before.

Please help me recover lost Windows. I had 3 Windows with 20+ tabs each open. The computer hung when I opened Firefox. It has done this a few times in the last 2 weeks. There is a single beep each time. In "History" the "Restore previous Session" is greyed out. When I try accessing "Recently Closed Windows" the missing Windows are not listed. The Windows BSOD reported that Windows closed because of Firefox and to update it, which I have done. I believe that I was running Version 8 before.

All Replies (4)

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If you do not see any tabs or windows from that session in Recently Closed Tab/Windows and Restore Previous Session isn't available as well then that data is most likely gone.

You can check the profile folder to see if there are any files sessionstore-##.js with a number in the name from around that update time and in that case you can make a copy of the file(s) and rename them to sessionstore.js to see if that brings back that session.

Modified by cor-el

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Hi, I am a 67 year old "newbie". Could someone please hold me by the hand and show me a "For Dummies" version of what cor-el was kind enough to explain. I have tried to wander around Firefox Help and just get more confused.

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Chances to recover such a lost session are not very good and only if you are lucky that such a sessionstore-##.js file with a number in the name is present then you might recover that session.

You can access the Firefox Profile folder via this button on the Help > Troubleshooting Information page.

  • Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Open Containing Folder

See also:


Windows may hide the .js file extension, so you may only see a sessionstore file. You can verify via the right-click context menu > Properties that it is a JS file.

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Thanks to the above advice I went further down the rabbit hole and saw I had a "Crash ID" starting with bp from the date I lost the Windows. Can I use this data for recovery?