Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

FF 64-bit v.62.0.2 update dumped all my tabs - 5 windows, many tabs. How can I recover them from AppData?

more options

Upgrade v.62.0.2 dumped a few hundred tabs open in 5 different windows and for some reason did not to offer to "Restore previous session" despite its having been selected in Options > General. It has worked fine for months until this edition.

Fortunately I've got OneTab's option available but I haven't need it and the last save is several months old. It seems to me that "Restore previous session" being a basic function in OPTIONS should have necessitated its operational validation before release of this FF version.

Is there any file such as Roaming>Mozilla>Firefox>Profiles>[default profile].default/places.sqlite that contains a record of all tabs?

Upgrade v.62.0.2 dumped a few hundred tabs open in 5 different windows and for some reason did not to offer to "Restore previous session" despite its having been selected in Options > General. It has worked fine for months until this edition. Fortunately I've got OneTab's option available but I haven't need it and the last save is several months old. It seems to me that "Restore previous session" being a basic function in OPTIONS should have necessitated its operational validation before release of this FF version. Is there any file such as Roaming>Mozilla>Firefox>Profiles>[default profile].default/places.sqlite that contains a record of all tabs?

All Replies (2)

more options
more options

Usually Firefox will attempt an automatic session recovery after an update.

Could you 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:

  • "Library" toolbar button > History > Recently Closed Windows (and within each restored window, Recently Closed Tabs)
  • (menu bar) History > Recently Closed Windows (and within each restored window, Recently Closed Tabs)

If that doesn't help...

Firefox creates numerous session history files, but because session history is only for the immediately previous session, it is unfortunately too easy to lose it. Could you start by making a backup of your existing session history files? Here's how:

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
  • various .js files from Firefox 55 or earlier

Could you take a look at what you have and the date/time of the various files to see whether you think any of them would have the missing tabs?

To preview the contents of a file, you can drag and drop it onto this page, then click Scrounge URLs: https://www.jeffersonscher.com/ffu/scrounger.html

That tool is on my site, so please let me know if it doesn't work for you.

Anything you want to try to restore?