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I need to restore important tabs that I lost after a crash using Firefox v.35. Help me

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I've attempted to recover my lost tabs after a firefox crashed using the restore session option and it didn't work. Additionally my entire history was gone as well.

I've tried going into the Local app data roaming and local folders in which I followed Profile folder--> Sessionstore folder within firefox to change the file extensions of recovery files (recovery.js and recovery.bak) but it probably doesn't work with V.35. as those files disappear as soon as I close firefox. So while firefox was on I tried renaming them and that failed too as nothing different happened in firefox and it simply took me to the homepage.

Please help me out as I was reading journals while writing my thesis. These tabs had very useful information I needed.

This incident occured happened on 19th January 2015.

Awaiting your reply.

Warm Regards, Aditi

I've attempted to recover my lost tabs after a firefox crashed using the restore session option and it didn't work. Additionally my entire history was gone as well. I've tried going into the Local app data roaming and local folders in which I followed Profile folder--> Sessionstore folder within firefox to change the file extensions of recovery files (recovery.js and recovery.bak) but it probably doesn't work with V.35. as those files disappear as soon as I close firefox. So while firefox was on I tried renaming them and that failed too as nothing different happened in firefox and it simply took me to the homepage. Please help me out as I was reading journals while writing my thesis. These tabs had very useful information I needed. This incident occured happened on 19th January 2015. Awaiting your reply. Warm Regards, Aditi

All Replies (6)

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I understand that you would like to recover tabs that you were using when Firefox crashes in version 35. I also understand that in the Firefox profile folder the files you have to recover the session disappear when you start Firefox.

If you open up about:sessionstore in the urlbar after you see them disappear, are there any listed tabs in the session recovery page?

Do you have previous.js from the time you opened up Firefox after the initial crash?

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When I type "about:sessionstore" in the URL bar it just says "the link is invalid".

I didn't find any previous .js or .bak files in the session store folder of firefox.

I don't get it...how there are no old records! I am assuming, i had my restore point off for windows so could be possible because of that.

What ideas would you suggest on recovering my tabs?

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It is about:sessionrestore (about:sessionstore is used by an extension).

Did you copy such a backup from the sessionstore-backups folder to sessionstore.js in the main profile folder?

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I have tried about:sessionrestore and it shows empty.

I happened to find some old (before crash) recovery.js and recovery.bak files in the sessionstore-backups ..profile folder. Then opened about:sessionrestore and it was still empty.

How can I recover my tabs from the old recovery.js and recovery.bak files? I am attaching my sessionstore backups folder. Kindly help me out if you can find the URL's of the tabs that were open.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qxvfz2cdvy5rtif/AACaNG14NOOq8Gr5sRQ7QJXda?dl=0

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You can open the Browser Console (Firefox/Tools > Web Developer). Paste the JavaScript code in the command line and press the Enter key to run the code.

  • Toggle the devtools.chrome.enabled pref on the about:config page to true to enable the command line

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I'll be careful" to continue.


You can find the code in this mozillaZine thread:

That will give you a file picker where you can select the recovery.js. I see a few links to leeds.ac.uk websites.

Did you check if there are history or cache entries from that session?

You can also check if Windows has created shadow copies.

Try to restore a previous version of the sessionstore.js file.

  • Right-click: Properties > Previous Versions
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Thank you for your response. I ran the code you suggested but found that the URL's that come up are the ones after the crash. Even though the last modified dates for the recovery.js and recovery.bak are the ones before the crash.

So I tried looking for previous versions but couldn't find any as I had turned off system restore to get some extra space.

Any ideas on how can I go from here?

I am trying recuva in case I can find old session restore files.