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Session restore showing no previous tabs

  • 7 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 60 views
  • Last reply by Hasssun

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Today I tried to restore a Firefox session after a crash and the Session Restore page came up with the restore session button greyed out and the list of tabs to restore is empty.

There is also no option to restore the previous session in the settings drop-down menu.

The next thing I did was check the Mozilla Support forums and found some helpful advice: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1204253 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1216918 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1224948


Based on this advice I went to "sessionstore-backups" in \Users\your-user-name\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ and backed up the files I found there. I even used ShadowExplorer to find some earlier copies of said files and copied those as well.

So -with Firefox closed- I copied an older recovery.jsonlz4 and replaced the new one with it.

Sadly, when I then open Firefox, the same thing happens. Recovery page with no option to recover, 0 tabs present.


Am I doing something wrong?


P.S. I should add that I simply DO NOT HAVE a restore session option in my drop-down menu. See attached images.

P.P.S. No longer having the option to get the "ask to save and quit" notification when exiting the browser is a travesty. That option should be brought back ASAP. Both for the extra warning before quitting, and to give you the ability to choose whether or not to discard certain tabs.

Today I tried to restore a Firefox session after a crash and the Session Restore page came up with the restore session button greyed out and the list of tabs to restore is empty. There is also no option to restore the previous session in the settings drop-down menu. The next thing I did was check the Mozilla Support forums and found some helpful advice: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1204253 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1216918 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1224948 Based on this advice I went to "sessionstore-backups" in \Users\your-user-name\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ and backed up the files I found there. I even used ShadowExplorer to find some earlier copies of said files and copied those as well. So -with Firefox closed- I copied an older recovery.jsonlz4 and replaced the new one with it. Sadly, when I then open Firefox, the same thing happens. Recovery page with no option to recover, 0 tabs present. Am I doing something wrong? P.S. I should add that I simply DO NOT HAVE a restore session option in my drop-down menu. See attached images. P.P.S. No longer having the option to get the "ask to save and quit" notification when exiting the browser is a travesty. That option should be brought back ASAP. Both for the extra warning before quitting, and to give you the ability to choose whether or not to discard certain tabs.
Attached screenshots

Modified by Hasssun

Chosen solution

You need to replace the sessionstore.jsonlz4 in profile folder with the recovery.jsonlz4 file (i.e. rename the file) to make Firefox use this sessionstore file.

  • History -> Restore Previous Session
  • History -> Recently Closed Tabs/Windows

Use one of these to close Firefox if you are currently doing that by clicking the close X on the Firefox title bar.

  • "3-bar" menu button -> Exit (Power button)
  • Windows: File -> Exit
  • Mac: Firefox -> Quit Firefox
  • Linux: File -> Quit
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All Replies (7)

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That would mean it didn't cache the sessions. I know because when I force restart my computer I can restart firefox and it ask to restore sessions. So your going to have to check your settings to find out what is checked to save the history or cache.

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WestEnd said

That would mean it didn't cache the sessions. I know because when I force restart my computer I can restart firefox and it ask to restore sessions. So your going to have to check your settings to find out what is checked to save the history or cache.

Which settings do I have to check?

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Hello Hasssun,

Would you please make sure that you're not in permanent Private Browsing mode :

3-bar menu (or 'Tools') => Options => Privacy & Security => under 'History' => Firefox will : choose : 'Use custom settings for history' Uncheck : 'Always use private browsing mode'

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Chosen Solution

You need to replace the sessionstore.jsonlz4 in profile folder with the recovery.jsonlz4 file (i.e. rename the file) to make Firefox use this sessionstore file.

  • History -> Restore Previous Session
  • History -> Recently Closed Tabs/Windows

Use one of these to close Firefox if you are currently doing that by clicking the close X on the Firefox title bar.

  • "3-bar" menu button -> Exit (Power button)
  • Windows: File -> Exit
  • Mac: Firefox -> Quit Firefox
  • Linux: File -> Quit
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McCoy said

Hello Hasssun, Would you please make sure that you're not in permanent Private Browsing mode : 3-bar menu (or 'Tools') => Options => Privacy & Security => under 'History' => Firefox will : choose : 'Use custom settings for history' Uncheck : 'Always use private browsing mode'

The setting says "Firefox will Remember history"


cor-el said

You need to replace the sessionstore.jsonlz4 in profile folder with the recovery.jsonlz4 file (i.e. rename the file) to make Firefox use this sessionstore file.

Ah so that's what I was doing wrong!

Thank you very much.

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Hasssun said

The setting says "Firefox will Remember history"

When you click on the little black arrow next to "Remember history" you will get a dropdown where you can choose "Use custom settings for history" .......

(most people don't know that)

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Good to know.