Unless you changed the configuration, each copy of Portable Firefox has its own settings folder. You need to exit out of any other Firefox and open the one you used before.

The portable Firefox version comes with its own Firefox profile folder that is located in its installation folder.

• X:\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable\Data\profile

So if you switch to a different portable installation then you get the profile folder from that version. This is different then the normal release that uses the profiles.ini file.

You would have to locate the Firefox profile folder of that other version if you didn't uninstall it and copy the relevant files to the portable version that you currently use.

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Recovering+important+data+from+an+old+profile
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox

You can use this button to go to the currently used Firefox profile folder (I assume that this work in the portable version as well):

• Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Show Folder (Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder)
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox

jscher2000 said

Unless you changed the configuration, each copy of Portable Firefox has its own settings folder. You need to exit out of any other Firefox and open the one you used before.

The tricky part is I had kept an older version of firefox on my desktop from which I launched firefox. Whenever FF asked me to upgrade, I would hit yes and it would somehow end up in the same folder on the desktop. Not sure how it knew but it did. However, it's nested deeper in the folder structure and when I launched this time, I hit the older version without going deeper to find the newest version. So it brought up the old tabs and not the important 12+ tabs! When I close and open the new version (from the same folder), then hit "restore" session, it didn't bring back my new tabs. I figured I would manually search in the history and do it but my history tab shows only today's (which contains just google search page!) and tabs "older than 6 months"!

• X:\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable\Data\profile

So if you switch to a different portable installation then you get the profile folder from that version. This is different then the normal release that uses the profiles.ini file."

I located the profiles folder (xmkjha1y.default) and in it, there is session-store backups folder with "previous.js" file. This file has the time stamp of exactly when I manually crashed FF. Where can I copy this file to restore that session before I crashed please? Thanks for your help!

You need to copy this previous.js to sessionstore.js in the current profile folder to have access to that session.

cor-el said

You need to copy this previous.js to sessionstore.js in the current profile folder to have access to that session.

I understand exactly what you are saying. However, I don't have a profile folder for the new version (as odd as that sounds). This is the reason I think: I had a FFportable folder on my desktop for the old version. When I downloaded a newer version, it put that under the same folder like this...FFPortable\app\firefox and that's where the NEW executable is. However, no profile folder. So I put previous.js into ffportable\Data\profile and that didn't work. So I removed it and put it under ffportable\ app\defaultdata\profile and that didn't bring up my session from 4/13 either (used restore previous session option).

I understand at least now how this stuff works. In the future, when I am in the middle of 12 tabls and it asks me to upgrade and I do, how can I prevent it from putting/mixing up new version with the old folder structure? Thanks for all your help, much appreciated!

Additionally, I found this. When I click the old ff executable (from 2/28) and when I click the new executable (from 4/8), and check the version #, they both show 37.0.1. Isn't that odd? Also, executing the old executable (old defined by the date 2/28), and use restore previous session option, I get at least a few of the tabs from a previous session (not quite the 4/13 session that I crashed and lost 12+ tabs). Just sharing all this in case it makes more sense to you :)

Not sure either of us knows enough about how Portable Firefox handles updates to answer that.

Do you still have a previous.js from the right time frame?

When you tried to use it, did you:

• exit out of Firefox completely AND
• copy previous.js into the main level of the profile folder (not into the sessionstore-backups folder) AND
• rename the sessionstore.js file to something sessionstore.old AND
• rename previous.js to sessionstore.js

All steps are necessary, otherwise, the file will be ignored and Firefox will just use the latest sessionstore.js.

You can only have one Firefox version running at the time. When you would try to start another version then the startup code detects that Firefox in already running and merely opens a new window in the already running Firefox instance. There is a way to run multiple Firefox versions at the same time, each with their own profile folder (it is generally not a good idea to use a profile with different Firefox versions).

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Opening_a_new_instance_of_Firefox_with_another_profile
• https://developer.mozilla.org/Mozilla/Multiple_Firefox_Profiles

cor-el said

You can only have one Firefox version running at the time. When you would try to start another version then the startup code detects that Firefox in already running and merely opens a new window in the already running Firefox instance. There is a way to run multiple Firefox versions at the same time, each with their own profile folder (it is generally not a good idea to use a profile with different Firefox versions).

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Opening_a_new_instance_of_Firefox_with_another_profile
• https://developer.mozilla.org/Mozilla/Multiple_Firefox_Profiles

I only run one at at time for sure.

jscher2000 said

Not sure either of us knows enough about how Portable Firefox handles updates to answer that. Do you still have a previous.js from the right time frame? When you tried to use it, did you:

• exit out of Firefox completely AND
• copy previous.js into the main level of the profile folder (not into the sessionstore-backups folder) AND
• rename the sessionstore.js file to something sessionstore.old AND
• rename previous.js to sessionstore.js

All steps are necessary, otherwise, the file will be ignored and Firefox will just use the latest sessionstore.js.

I followed your instructions to the tee. Closed my browser completely, copied previous.js (from crash date of 4/13) to firefoxportable\app \defaultdata\profile folder. I presume this is the MAIN level of the profile folder? Renamed previous.js to sessionstore.js (there was no other sessionstore.js there EVEN THOUGH I had no FF browser open!). Strange indeed. Reopened the browser and I see nothing from that old session. It's worse than what I saw when I used previous.js without renaming it. That way, at least I saw 7 tabs from ONE window prior to crash on 4/13 although the second FF window with a lot more tabs was still missing. Unfortunately, I am unable to get to that point again using the same js file for some reason. Now I get just two google tabs plus this forum one, none of the 7 tabs.

I noticed session-store backups folder has my old previous.js as well as a bunch of other .js files. They all have the prefix "upgrade" and a year-month-random# suffix for each.

This has been a fun excercise although I didn't get back what I wanted. At least I understand it better. I have a better way to update to new version next time and know where the .js files are stored, how they are used etc. THANKS FOR FOR SHARING YOUR WEALTH OF KNOWLEDGE!

I don't have a "Portable" installation handy on this computer but generally speaking, the main level of the profile folder is one level up from the sessionstore-backups folder. For normal Firefox, it has a semi-random name, but this might not be true of Portable.

The upgrade-various.js files contain a snapshot of your session at the time you approved an update to a newer version of Firefox. If you have been keeping the same tabs open for a long time, one of those might be useful. The procedure for using one of those files would be the same as for using previous.js.

One other obscure feature might be useful: Windows restore points. If you right-click sessionstore.js (the one created when Firefox is fully closed), then Properties, then Previous Versions, you can see whether Windows saved that file in a restore point in the recent past. You could repeat the exercise with recovery.js when Firefox is running, and with previous.js, to see whether either of those has a timely backup. When restoring any previous version file, see whether you can do it in another folder rather than replacing the current file.

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

• Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Show Folder (Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder)