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could we improve the Firefox refresh by keeping one setting?

  • 6 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by Pierre

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For me something very important in any browser is to restore the session as I left if. To save electricity I often turn off my computer and leave tabs open to deal with them later (sometimes too much later, but anyway). When I did the Firefox refresh the browser told me not to worry I will find out my tabs again. After the refresh, they were there. But then I closed Firefox and once I launched it again, they were gone. Because that setting was reinitialized: "Restaurer la session précédente" (FR, means "restore previous session") I cannot find them back in the history, because only those that I opened are in the history. This I did not open were not loaded by FF and therefore do not appear in the history.

My suggestion would be: - either to have this setting always enabled by default OR - during the reset, if this setting was checked, to keep it or ask the user if they want to keep it, warning it can be a source of slowness

For me something very important in any browser is to restore the session as I left if. To save electricity I often turn off my computer and leave tabs open to deal with them later (sometimes too much later, but anyway). When I did the Firefox refresh the browser told me not to worry I will find out my tabs again. After the refresh, they were there. But then I closed Firefox and once I launched it again, they were gone. Because that setting was reinitialized: "Restaurer la session précédente" (FR, means "restore previous session") I cannot find them back in the history, because only those that I opened are in the history. This I did not open were not loaded by FF and therefore do not appear in the history. My suggestion would be: - either to have this setting always enabled by default OR - during the reset, if this setting was checked, to keep it or ask the user if they want to keep it, warning it can be a source of slowness

Chosen solution

Did you look in "History -> Recently Closed Tabs/Windows"?

You can check the sessionstore.jsonlz4 file and sessionstore-backups folder in the "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop to see if you can recover the tabs that way.

You will normally find these files in the sessionstore-backups folder:

  • previous.jsonlz4 (cleanBackup: copy of sessionstore.jsonlz4 from previous session that was loaded successfully)
  • recovery.jsonlz4 (latest version of sessionstore.jsonlz4 written during runtime)
  • recovery.baklz4 (previous version of sessionstore.jsonlz4 written during runtime)
  • upgrade.jsonlz4-<build_id> (backup created during an upgrade of Firefox)

You can copy a file from the sessionstore-backups folder to the current main profile and rename the file to sessionstore.jsonlz4 to replace the current file (make sure to backup the current sessionstore.jsonlz4).

You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.

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Did you look in "History -> Recently Closed Tabs/Windows"?

You can check the sessionstore.jsonlz4 file and sessionstore-backups folder in the "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop to see if you can recover the tabs that way.

You will normally find these files in the sessionstore-backups folder:

  • previous.jsonlz4 (cleanBackup: copy of sessionstore.jsonlz4 from previous session that was loaded successfully)
  • recovery.jsonlz4 (latest version of sessionstore.jsonlz4 written during runtime)
  • recovery.baklz4 (previous version of sessionstore.jsonlz4 written during runtime)
  • upgrade.jsonlz4-<build_id> (backup created during an upgrade of Firefox)

You can copy a file from the sessionstore-backups folder to the current main profile and rename the file to sessionstore.jsonlz4 to replace the current file (make sure to backup the current sessionstore.jsonlz4).

You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.

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Hello,

Thank you for your quick answer!

I looked in history, not specifically in "History -> Recently Closed Tabs/Windows", but I can see now there is not what I am looking for.

I don't have any "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop and Google didn't help me to find where it was supposed to be. It is not in my documents, not in "C:\Users\Pierre\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\" Windows could not find it in the entire C:/ drive. It's not the Windows search feature messing up because I created one folder with that name, and it was found.

So it's OK for my tabs, don't waste more energy in trying to recover for me, I guess they cannot be recovered without looking through my 10 days history line by line myself.

My suggestion was more to improve the "Firefox refresh" feature so that it does not happen to other people. Other settings are OK to re-establish, but this one hurts a bit.

PS: I like your nickname, reminds me of Krypton :)

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If you used the refresh feature in Firefox then you should have the "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop.

If you do not have the "Old Firefox Data folder then you can check the parent location for profiles to see if there are profiles that aren't list in profiles.ini (Profile Manager) or on the about:profiles page.

You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.

Go up one level to this folder:

  • C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

Modified by cor-el

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I only see these.

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Your screenshot lists three profiles. The first an older default profile from 2019. The other two default-release profiles were created recently where the last profile got created after a refresh. You can check both these profiles for your lost tabs like posted above.

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Windows prevents me from entering the one modified yesterday, saying I don't have the rights and it's 0 octets.

In the other one I find upgrade.jsonlz4-20200117190643 Maybe it does not contain my tabs

What should I do with this file then?

Sorry not sure, tried a few things with it that didn't change anything