I guess a system restore corrupted your profile.

You can create a new profile, and then transfer some files from the old one to the new one (you might want to only transfer bookmarks.js files)

• Profile Manager - Create, remove or switch Firefox profiles
• Restore bookmarks, passwords, and data from an old Firefox profile

I do not understand computer jargon, I am sorry to say. I'm not sure what some of the terms even mean. Therefore, unless I get someone to give me a step-by-step that is easy to understand and explain what and why I am doing it, I am too afraid to venture into copying files, etc. I've already monkeyed around and lost everything trying to download a converter recommended by someone on the Windows help community. I so appreciate all these links, but maybe I need an IT person.

Step to step info is in the Profile Manager - Create, remove or switch Firefox profiles article and the Restore bookmarks, passwords, and data from an old Firefox profile.

You need to create a new profile and recover bookmarks, using the links above.

(1) Bookmarks

If you go to the bookmark restore menu, are any recent dates listed? You can check that using the steps in this article: Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer.

(2) Frequently visited tabs

(A) Do you mean the thumbnails on your "new tab" page? These will be repopulated by your history. But if you had pinned sites here, you might not be able to recover those.

(B) Do you mean tabs that you kept open from day to day by restoring your previous session where you left off? That data is fragile and might not be recoverable.

Step 1 would be to salvage your sessionstore files and make backup copies before exiting Firefox or making any other changes.

Open your active Firefox profile folder (personal settings folder) using

Help > Troubleshooting Information > "Show Folder" button

Copy all files that start with sessionstore to a safe location such as your documents folder.

Does the sessionstore.bak file look as though it has a timestamp of your last good session, or something later or much earlier?

Hi, Jscher! I was able to go into troubleshoot and find the files in the program manager; however, when I clicked into them, they were all empty. When I tried to click on the icon, which was white, it said windows could open it. When I clicked on the yellow folders, it said it couldn't open it as well, so I am guessing that during that whole mess, I must have cleared out something inadvertently. I went into plaes.sqlite, which is supposed to house bookmarks, but can't open it. Sorry. Regarding (B), I believe that you are right when you say that. I had little tabs set up for sites we visited frequently. If I can't get this stuff back, it is okay. I just wish I knew how to download things w/o getting AVG toolbar and other toolbars that take over. It is so hard to get rid of them permanently. And I never did get the converter to convert my MP3 files to WMV.

I looked in Session Store, but it says windows won't allow it to be opened as well. I'm not doing very swimmingly, am I?

Hi muffin1976, most of those files (such as .json backups, .sqlite database files, and .js script files) aren't meant to be opened directly; that's normal.

For .json (bookmarkbackups) and .js (e.g., sessionstore.js) you can open them in a text editor such as Notepad. This won't really tell you much, I'm afraid, but in sessionstore.js or sessionstore.bak you can search for http as a way to locate the URLs and see what pages were open in that session.

Did any of the files in bookmarkbackups have relevant dates?

As much as I distrust system restore, I'm reluctant to suggest "undoing" it and rolling forward to a state where you had problems with unwanted software, but that might be an option to consider to salvage as much data as possible, if it's still possible.

I opened session store with Note Pad but all I could see was a few inches of command jargon that did not make sense. I am afraid to roll it back further, too, but if I rolled it back to last week, I shouldn't have those nasty toolbars. That only happened a couple days ago. Do you think I should do that? How can a person be free of those things? They ride along other software like a leech. Even when you uninstall it, it takes over your home page. Never got the converter and will now try Microsoft Film Maker to make the DVD. Have to start all over, but can't worry about that, I guess. Why does Microsoft sell a product and then not warn you that it won't take certain files. That is rotten. So do you think I should go back to a week ago? Before I had issues?

I opened session store with Note Pad but all I could see was a few inches of command jargon that did not make sense. I am afraid to roll it back further, too, but if I rolled it back to last week, I shouldn't have those nasty toolbars. That only happened a couple days ago. Do you think I should do that? How can a person be free of those things? They ride along other software like a leech. Even when you uninstall it, it takes over your home page. Never got the converter and will now try Microsoft Film Maker to make the DVD. Have to start all over, but can't worry about that, I guess. Why does Microsoft sell a product and then not warn you that it won't take certain files. That is rotten. So do you think I should go back to a week ago? Before I had issues?

Hi muffin1976, personally I never recommend using system restore. I simply do not trust that the files will not become mixed up and dysfunctional. I was actually wondering whether it might be possible to "undo" the restore and roll forward to the state of your system before you did it. I haven't researched that and it might just make everything worse.

Regarding the bigger problem of nuisance software, it's a hard one to solve unless you are very circumspect about what download sites you use and research everything before you install.