Restore Previous session "works", but sometimes loads a "previous session" from 2 months ago, sometimes loads the actual previous session from yesterday??
Hey guys, I've read a ton of articles, and searched a long while, for the answer to this "interesting", and it seems also rare problem?
Background: my laptop has a shit battery and needs to be plugged in almost all the time, or it dies. So when I got from home to work (and vice versa), it sometimes doesn't make it home even before dying (even on standby/sleep).
Anyways, that part is OK, I just plug it back in when I reach my destination and turn on the computer. Problem is, with the Firefox program, although it always gives me the button to Restore Previous Session, sometimes it will load (correctly) the actual previous session, but other times, it will load a "previous session" that I had open 2+ months ago!
Yah it's weird. I feel like I'm playing roulette when I restore previous session on Firefox... Will I get the actual previous session with all the tabs I really need, or will I get the tabs from 2 months ago that I have no need for...
Anyways, I can't seem to figure out 1) how it can do both (either open last session, or 2 months old session) 2) how it decides which one it will load this time
Any help would be appreciated. When it loads the 2 month old session, I lose all the tabs I was currently working on, so I'd like Firefox to always load the actual previous session, and not all these super old tabs that no longer are important for me.
Cheers!
All Replies (2)
Two initial notes:
First, you always have the option to do a proper Firefox shutdown before putting your computer to sleep. Please allow 30 seconds for file maintenance Firefox does during shutdown.
Second, you may want to consider using Hibernate instead of Sleep. This writes the contents of memory to disk and requires almost no power to maintain. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13770/windows-shut-down-sleep-hibernate-your-pc
Why would Firefox restore an older session?
When Firefox detects a crash condition, it works through the available session history files from most recent to oldest. Perhaps the crash is corrupting the most recent files somehow?
Firefox also has the option to create multiple profiles -- each with its own separate history. I will add a section at the end of this reply about checking for that in case Firefox is starting up in different profiles at different times.
Session Manager Add-on Option
There also are session management extensions you could consider which might provide a backup when the built-in feature fails. These are the ones I'm aware of that you might investigate/try out:
Use database storage -- also may be damaged by power-off crashes:
- https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/tab-session-manager/
- https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/session-boss/
Use bookmark storage -- also may be damaged by power-off crashes:
- https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/session-sync/
- https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/my-sessions/
Bookmark storage is more robust in that Firefox backs it up regularly. However, having the extra data show up when you are searching your bookmarks may be annoying.
- - - -
Multiple Profile Folder Exploration
Profile Manager Page
Inside Firefox, type or paste about:profiles in the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it.
This page should list at least one profile and could list many. (Each profile has two folders and one or more buttons. Do not use any Remove buttons!)
The profile that Firefox is currently using will have this:
This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted.
Do you have another profile named default or default-release or default-longnumber listed on this page? If so, you can check whether it is the one you were using recently by clicking its Launch profile in new browser button.
If it isn't what you want, simply close that new window.
If it IS what you want, back on the about:profiles page, click the Set as default profile button for that profile so Firefox uses it automatically at the next startup.
Any interesting profiles besides your main one?
You can also check if you have a sessionstore.js file in the profile folder that Firefox might be using as fallback if sessionstore.jsonlz4 is missing for some reason.