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firefox suddendly closed and when I opened it my tabs were gone

  • 4 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 8 views
  • Last reply by FredMcD

illcastellano
illcastellano
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All of the sudden, Firefox shut down. It has happened before a couple of time, but when I opened it again, my previous session was restored. Not this time. All my tabs are gone, and "history" just shows the pages I recently opened, not the tabs that were abruptly closed. I would really appreciate any help you can provide.

All of the sudden, Firefox shut down. It has happened before a couple of time, but when I opened it again, my previous session was restored. Not this time. All my tabs are gone, and "history" just shows the pages I recently opened, not the tabs that were abruptly closed. I would really appreciate any help you can provide.

Chosen solution

You may have corrupt sessionstore [v56] sessionstore.jsonlz4 file(s). Delete all sessionstore* files and the sessionstore-backups folder.

Type about:support<enter> in the address bar.

Under the page logo on the left side, you will see Application Basics. Under this find Profile Folder. To its right press the button Show Folder. This will open your file browser to the current Firefox profile. Now Close Firefox.

Windows: Show Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder

Linux: Under the page logo on the left side, you will see Application Basics. Under this find Profile Directory. To its right press the button Open Directory.

Locate the above file. Then rename or delete it. Restart Firefox.


Don't delete the files if you need to rescue any data from them, just move them out of the profile folder to some location where Firefox doesn't look for them. You can try to read out their contents using this tool: https://www.jeffersonscher.com/res/scrounger.html

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All Replies (4)

FredMcD
FredMcD
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Chosen Solution

You may have corrupt sessionstore [v56] sessionstore.jsonlz4 file(s). Delete all sessionstore* files and the sessionstore-backups folder.

Type about:support<enter> in the address bar.

Under the page logo on the left side, you will see Application Basics. Under this find Profile Folder. To its right press the button Show Folder. This will open your file browser to the current Firefox profile. Now Close Firefox.

Windows: Show Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder

Linux: Under the page logo on the left side, you will see Application Basics. Under this find Profile Directory. To its right press the button Open Directory.

Locate the above file. Then rename or delete it. Restart Firefox.


Don't delete the files if you need to rescue any data from them, just move them out of the profile folder to some location where Firefox doesn't look for them. You can try to read out their contents using this tool: https://www.jeffersonscher.com/res/scrounger.html

FredMcD
FredMcD
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illcastellano said

All of the sudden, Firefox shut down

Please explain the problem in detail. What happens? What are the exact error message(s) ? Have you checked for crash reports?

For more help on crash reports, see; https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-crashes-asking-support

illcastellano
illcastellano Question owner
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thank you. I restarted my computer and followed your directions, and everything went back in order. Thank you so much!

btw, I didn't receive any error message. I was using excel, and firefox shut down. when I opened it again, I just had the regular home page.

FredMcD
FredMcD
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Keep an eye out for trouble and let us know.