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'Bad' Current Session of Firefox (Windows)!

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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I currently have a 'bad/rouge' session of Windows 7 Firefox (don't really know how that happened) open (7 'Windows', each with one empty Tab plus 1 'Window', with only 1 populated tab (Yahoo Mail)! I need to close Firefox in order to restart my laptop (strange things have been happening, including not being able to access the internet)!! On restarting, I want to be able to open Firefox with the previous session I had with my 8 'Windows', each with dozens and dozens of Tabs! Please help, I sorely need those many 'Windows' and Tabs!!!

I currently have a 'bad/rouge' session of Windows 7 Firefox (don't really know how that happened) open (7 'Windows', each with one empty Tab plus 1 'Window', with only 1 populated tab (Yahoo Mail)! I need to close Firefox in order to restart my laptop (strange things have been happening, including not being able to access the internet)!! On restarting, I want to be able to open Firefox with the previous session I had with my 8 'Windows', each with dozens and dozens of Tabs! Please help, I sorely need those many 'Windows' and Tabs!!!

All Replies (2)

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Could you check the History menu, either:

  • "3-bar" menu button > History > Restore Previous Session
  • (menu bar) History > Restore Previous Session

If they are missing or grayed, check either:

  • "3-bar" menu button > History > Recently Closed Windows
  • "Library" toolbar button > History > Recently Closed Windows
  • (menu bar) History > Recently Closed Windows

Try to restore any closed windows that look relevant.

If those do not work, keep Firefox open and make backup copies of some files noted below.

(1) To open your profile folder...

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

  • "3-bar" menu button > Help > More Troubleshooting Information
  • (menu bar) Help > More Troubleshooting Information
  • type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

In the first table on the page, find the Profile Folder row and click the "Open Folder" button. This should launch Windows' File Explorer listing the contents of your current profile folder.

(2) Copy out session history files

In your profile folder, double-click into the sessionstore-backups folder. Save all files here to a safe location such as your Documents folder.

(3) What files did you find?

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

  • recovery.jsonlz4: the windows and tabs in your currently live Firefox session (or, if Firefox crashed at the last shutdown and is still closed, your last session)
  • recovery.baklz4: a backup copy of recovery.jsonlz4
  • previous.jsonlz4: the windows and tabs in your last Firefox session
  • upgrade.jsonlz4-build_id: the windows and tabs in the Firefox session that was live at the time of your last update -- for example, if you updated to Firefox 115.10.0esr, there may be one from recent days.

Sometimes you can tell from the last modification time which one will have your missing tabs, but not always.

Optional File Contents Preview

These compressed files are a pain to view, so I created a tool on my website to list out their contents. If you want to try that, you can drag and drop it onto the large box on the following page, then click the "Scrounge URLs" button:

https://www.jeffersonscher.com/ffu/scrounger.html

If you don't get a list within 15 seconds, that probably means the script is caught in a loop. You may need to close the tab to avoid a tab crash and then try again in a new tab.

If you get a useful list, use the "Save List" button to archive it as a web page of clickable links for future reference, in case no other approach is successful.

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