Recently closed tabs and recent history not storing
Hi All,
So this morning when I started up my laptop, it randomly hadn't synced the time. I can't recall if I had already opened up Firefox or not, but once I noticed that the time was incorrect, I fixed it. I have Firefox set to automatically open my last session, and for backup, I have the Session Manager add-on/extension, so my last session opened up fine. I didn't really pay attention to my recent history or recently closed tabs at that point. I closed my laptop after a little while, putting it to sleep, and left to go to work. After I got to work, I noticed that my recently closed tabs weren't listed; the only ones listed were the ones I had closed before I shut down my computer last night. I then looked at the recent history and nothing was stored. I decided to completely shut down my laptop (to try to let everything just sync at boot-up) and came home.
I got home and nothing changed. It still opened up my last session (the one I closed at work), but the pages I opened today still weren't in the recent history or recently closed tabs. I even opened up a new window and went to several pages to see if they would be stored, but they aren't in the recent history. However, the window is in the recently closed windows (which isn't affected, it seems), and my bookmarks appear to be fine. I decided to bookmark my troubleshooting page just to see, closed Firefox completely, and reopened it and that bookmark was there. I even opened a new window, bookmarked a page, closed that window, closed Firefox completely, and reopened it and the bookmark was there. However, none of it is being stored in the recently closed tabs or the recent history.
To complicate the issue, everything is being stored in my history (when I open up the history window), but when I try to order the history by most recent visit, it isn't putting it in chronological order. I don't know if the time wasn't synced last night because some stuff that I visited last night appear (I say appear because I can't tell what date it is, but it's in the "Today" folder) to say that I visited them tonight (obviously not possible; not a time traveler). All the times since I resynced the time are correct, so I am at a loss.
I don't want to go fiddling with my profile folder when I don't know what is specifically wrong, so does anyone have any ideas? I'm terribly afraid this might be to do with my CMOS battery as that appears to be a common problem with my particular computer's line, but I want to make sure it's not simply Firefox and the time thing was a coincidence.
Thanks for any help you can give.
Modified by taitycakes
All Replies (4)
You can check for problems with the sessionstore.js file in the profile folder that stores session data. When sessionstore.js is deleted you lose App Tabs and Tab Groups and open tabs and you will have to recreate them, so if necessary make a note or bookmark them.
You can use this button to go to the current Firefox profile folder:
- Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory:
Windows: Show Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder - http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox
Firefox uses the sessionstore.js file in the profile folder to store session data, but this file is only present when Firefox is closed. The sessionstore.js file is created from recovery.js when you close Firefox and is removed and copied to previous.js when you start Firefox to make is possible to restore the session at any time.
Backup the session files in the sessionstore-backups folder in the Firefox Profile Folder to make sure not to lose possible important session data. Do NOT close Firefox when Firefox is already running.
You will normally find these files in the sessionstore-backups folder:
previous.js (cleanBackup: copy of sessionstore.js from previous session that was loaded successfully) recovery.js (latest version of the sessionstore written during runtime) recovery.bak (previous version of the sessionstore written during runtime) upgrade.js-<build_id> (backup created during an upgrade of Firefox)
You can copy a file from the sessionstore-backups folder to the main profile and rename the file to sessionstore.js to replace the current file (make a backup copy of the current sessionstore.js).
See also:
Thank you for your reply cor-el, but that doesn't necessarily fix my issue. It creates a sessionstore file when I close Firefox, and it's able to restore my previous session. However, it doesn't remember my recently closed tabs and none of it is in my recent history. It's in my actual history, but it's not showing up in the recent history. Any clues?
Are you using "Clear history when Firefox closes" to clear the browsing history?
- Tools > Options > Privacy > Firefox will: "Use custom settings for history": [X] "Clear history when Firefox closes" > Settings
You can also check the browser.sessionstore prefs on the about:config page to see if they all have the default value.
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.
Hi cor-el,
I do not have it set to clear my history upon closing. I've even gone through and checked and unchecked all the appropriate boxes on custom settings, just in case it doesn't want to believe me that I want it to remember my history. And it's not even saving a tabs during a session; once I close a tab, it's immediately gone. While I can go into my history and try to retrieve it, it's not in the recent history. Even undoing the closed tab (ctrl shift t) opens the last tab it has saved, which was closed last night before all of this started.
And almost all the browser.sessionstore preferences are set to default, save for browser.sessionstore.upgradeBackup.latestBuildID, which says it is user-set to 20160210153822.
edit okay... it might have been to do with the sync issue because now things are starting to save when they are opened and closed. The system app hiked the CPU usage to 100% and the computer seemed to have a weird moment and it wouldn't stay asleep, so I restarted my computer and it appears that it saved two tabs that I opened before I closed everything down. I wouldn't call this solved, but right now it seems it was related to the time sync problem, which might be part of a larger problem with the computer. However, I'll update this if it starts happening again.
Regardless, thanks for your help, Cor-el!
edit 2 well, that was brief. It's back to not remembering the history. I have no idea what's going on. This might be bigger than a Firefox issue.
edit 3 Okay, I synced my time to a different server last night and today it seems to be doing fine again. So, this might have had nothing to do with Firefox. Again, thank you Cor-el for trying to work with me!
Modified by taitycakes