My tabs are all empty even though I have FF 29.0.1 set to save windows and tabs when closing
I have the setting: Startup - When firefox starts - show windows and tabs from last time. This almost always works, but not today. The odd thing is that all the tabs are still there, including the pinned ones on the left (square empty boxes), but all the tabs are blank ("New tab"). Except one that appeared on startup, the one that was active when i closed FF last night. If I click on History - Show all history = No items. Restore previous session is greyed out, as are Recently closed tabs and windows. It looks bad, what can I do to restore the previous session? How would this have happened, and how can I prevent it in future? Did the last FF update (today or yesterday) have anything to do with it?
There is a sessionstore.bak-[long string of numbers] dated 8/2/14, and a sessionstore.js dated 9/5/14, and a sessioncheckpoints,json dated 9/4/14 in the Profile default folder.
Below is the beginning of
Important Modified Preferences Name Value accessibility.typeaheadfind.flashBar 0 browser.cache.disk.capacity 358400 browser.cache.disk.smart_size_cached_value 358400 browser.cache.disk.smart_size.enabled false browser.cache.disk.smart_size.first_run false browser.cache.disk.smart_size.use_old_max false browser.places.smartBookmarksVersion 7 browser.sessionstore.upgradeBackup.latestBuildID 20140506152807 browser.startup.homepage https://www.google.ca/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=Csu ... 8gfC7IDQDg browser.startup.homepage_override.buildID 20140506152807 browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone 29.0.1 browser.urlbar.autocomplete.enabled false dom.mozApps.used true dom.w3c_touch_events.expose false extensions.lastAppVersion 29.0.1 font.internaluseonly.changed false javascript.options.showInConsole false network.cookie.lifetimePolicy 2 network.cookie.prefsMigrated true places.database.lastMaintenance 1409808493 places.history.enabled false places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages 80485 plugin.disable_full_page_plugin_for_types application/pdf plugin.importedState true plugin.state.npctrl 1 plugin.state.npgoogleupdate 1 print.printer_Samsung_ML-2010_Series.print_bgcolor
Modified by hiker1
All Replies (8)
It's possible that your session history file is corrupted. As the first step, could you back up all of the sessionstore files in your currently active profile folder? Here's what I mean.
Open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either
- "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
- Help menu > Troubleshooting Information
In the first table on the page, click the "Show Folder" button. This should launch a new window listed various files and folders. For best results, change the view to "Details".
Then scroll down and copy all of the sessionstore files to a safe location (e.g., Documents) so Firefox doesn't overwrite them. Then if we are not able to get those tabs to load again, you might be able to use one of the older files.
In addition to sessionstore.js, which stores the windows and tabs in your currently live session (or if you closed Firefox, your previous session), you may find sessionstore.bak, sessionstore.bak-datetime from your last update, and other sessionstore files. Could you report back on what you found?
Note: If Windows hides the .js file extension from you, you can change a setting so that you can see all file extensions (this helps when renaming files). This support article has the steps: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hide-file-name-extensions
I'm a little puzzled that your post shows Firefox 29.0.1 but you said you updated this week (Firefox 32.0 was released this week). ???
One of your settings is places.history.enabled = false, which could be a problem for saving history. I'm not sure how that could have gotten switched. Could you check here:
"3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Options > Privacy
Under "Firefox will: Use custom settings for history" make sure you have the settings you want.
Note: I think I have read that if Firefox is set to clear history at shutdown, then Firefox might not save any history during your session.
Can you find an Old Firefox Data folder on your desktop? If the Reset feature ran, your old data would be in that folder and we could discuss how to restore them.
I did what you said about copying session files. Unfortunately it's a couple of days late. - sessions folder contains 10 backups and backup.session and deleted sessions. - sessionstore.bak (utorrent logo) - sessonstore.js - sessionCheckpoints.json - sessionstore.bak[long string of numbers]
Oh... you have the Session Manager extension. I haven't tried it myself, but does it let you try a different session? Any luck trying backwards and forwards?
I only installed session manager after the problem occurred a couple days ago. So it's only of help in the future, not to solve the current issue. How do I know if any of the session files can help to restore my windows and tabs?
Hi hiker1, if Firefox can't properly read/process the sessionstore.js file, you could try switching in one of the older files. When Firefox starts up, it will read sessionstore.js, so that would involve this:
- Exit Firefox
- Rename sessionstore.js to sessionstore.old or other identifiable name for possible later recovery
- Copy in the file you want to try and rename it to sessionstore.js
- Start Firefox and see whether it worked
As an alternative, you could extract the URLs from one or more of your sessionstore files. This is less convenient but would allow you to set up the tabs in that window again. Assuming the file is not corrupted, one of these should work:
(1) Using Firefox's "Scratchpad" web developer tool
(A) Original script: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=622036&start=60&p=12098147#p12098147
(B) Variation: http://dev.jeffersonscher.com/sessionstore_reader.html
(2) Online tool (third party website): https://firefox-session-restore.herokuapp.com/
Do any of those work on your file(s)?
Do you mean to use one of the files in the sessions folder, or one of the other ones? The oldest in the sessions folder is 8/31 so that looks promising if Firefox will be able to use it.
You might need to try different files. I really have no idea which one has the right tabs.