We're calling on all EU-based Mozillians with iOS or iPadOS devices to help us monitor Apple’s new browser choice screens. Join the effort to hold Big Tech to account!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

How to restore tabs after 3 crashes on Firefox 38.0.5

  • 5 replies
  • 5 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by bbadessi

more options

Firefox crashed three times while I was clearing cache and cookies. All my tabs were restored after the first two crashes but not after the third. I tried everything with no luck. I read many support files regarding this problem. The straightforward suggestions didn't restore my tabs and the technical ones were not useful because I'm not a technical person. I know I made a mistake by quitting Firefox and starting it again a few times. But I feel that there must be a way to recover all the tabs and group tabs I had. Please help! Thanks.

Firefox crashed three times while I was clearing cache and cookies. All my tabs were restored after the first two crashes but not after the third. I tried everything with no luck. I read many support files regarding this problem. The straightforward suggestions didn't restore my tabs and the technical ones were not useful because I'm not a technical person. I know I made a mistake by quitting Firefox and starting it again a few times. But I feel that there must be a way to recover all the tabs and group tabs I had. Please help! Thanks.

Chosen solution

We solved the problem by going into my Time Machine (on my Mac) and restored a previous sessionstore.js and my tabs seems to be back. Thank you for pointing us to the sessionstore,js.

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (5)

more options

bbadessi said

Firefox crashed three times while I was clearing cache and cookies. All my tabs were restored after the first two crashes but not after the third. I tried everything with no luck. I read many support files regarding this problem. The straightforward suggestions didn't restore my tabs and the technical ones were not useful because I'm not a technical person. I know I made a mistake by quitting Firefox and starting it again a few times. But I feel that there must be a way to recover all the tabs and group tabs I had. Please help! I use a MacBook Pro. Thanks.

p.s. I have a MacBook Pro and all the information I found on the Mozilla support is Windows. Is there info regarding this problem for Mac?

Modified by bbadessi

more options

How did you clear the cache and cookies?

Was that via "History > Clear Recent History" or via the buttons in "Preferences > Privacy" (cookies) and Preferences > Advanced > Network (cache)?

You can check the sessionstore-backups folder in the Firefox profile folder if there is a backup from around the time that this issue occurred the first time.

You can backup the session files in the sessionstore-backups folder in the Firefox Profile Folder to make sure not to lose possible important session data.

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).

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

more options

I just got your message. I will try what you explained in your reply and let you know if it worked.

I had cleared the cache and cookies through Preferences, Privacy, Clear your recent history, and choosing Browsing & Download History, Cookies, Cache. Did I messed up? Thanks!

more options

I tried what you mentioned. In the sessionstore-backups there are only two files: the recovery.bak and recovery.js which are constantly upgrading. There is no previous.js. Both files are very small and the time stamp is now while the crash happened this morning. Please let me know if I still should go ahead with the replacing or if there is anything else that can be done. Thanks

more options

Chosen Solution

We solved the problem by going into my Time Machine (on my Mac) and restored a previous sessionstore.js and my tabs seems to be back. Thank you for pointing us to the sessionstore,js.