Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

Avatar for Username

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

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

fire fox updated and didnt give me the option to restore my session

  • 2 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by cor-el

hunterwalrath
hunterwalrath
more options

hi i updated my restarted my computer and firefox updated and didnt give me an option to restore my tabs. i have really bad ocd with my tabs and im really anxious right now i spent forever getting it all set up and organized and had had it the same way for months and now its all gone is there anyway to get them back. please help

hi i updated my restarted my computer and firefox updated and didnt give me an option to restore my tabs. i have really bad ocd with my tabs and im really anxious right now i spent forever getting it all set up and organized and had had it the same way for months and now its all gone is there anyway to get them back. please help

All Replies (2)

jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 25 Contributor
more options

Okay, do not close out of Firefox.

First, on the History menu, is "Restore Previous Session" available or is it grayed out? If it is available, try that first.

Second, please back up your session history files to a safe location for potential recovery/salvage operations.

You can open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either

  • "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > 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 "Show Folder" button.

In the window that launches, scroll down and double-click into the sessionstore-backups folder. Save all files here to a safe location, such as your Documents folder.

The kinds of files you may find among your sessionstore files are:

  • recovery.js: the windows and tabs in your currently live Firefox session (or, if Firefox crashed and you haven't opened it yet, your last session)
  • recovery.bak: a backup copy of recovery.js
  • previous.js: the windows and tabs in your last Firefox session
  • upgrade.js-build_id: the windows and tabs in the Firefox session that was live at the time of your last update

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?

Note: By default, Windows hides the .js extension. To ensure that you are looking at the files I mentioned, you may want to turn off that feature. This article has the steps: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hide-file-name-extensions

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

You may have the most luck with the most recent upgrade.js-build_id file (backup created automatically when you updated) in the sessionstore-backups folder and copy this file to the main profile folder as sessionstore.js and replace the current sessionstore.js. Just to be sure keep a copy of the current sessionstore.js.

You can use this button to go to the current Firefox profile folder: