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All of my tabs (including pinned tabs) are open but empty. Any suggestions?

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  • Last reply by sandpail

sandpail
sandpail
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I have about 10 pinned tabs and at least 50 regular tabs open, and the last few times I've opened Firefox, all of the tabs are showing, but have no information in them. The pinned tabs have the sign of the grayed-out Firefox globe, and the regular tabs say only "New Tab." Does anyone have any suggestions for getting the actual websites back? I have installed the most recent - as of today - Firefox security update. All of the new tabs I've opened since this happened appear to be working - and saving - fine.

Thanks.

I have about 10 pinned tabs and at least 50 regular tabs open, and the last few times I've opened Firefox, all of the tabs are showing, but have no information in them. The pinned tabs have the sign of the grayed-out Firefox globe, and the regular tabs say only "New Tab." Does anyone have any suggestions for getting the actual websites back? I have installed the most recent - as of today - Firefox security update. All of the new tabs I've opened since this happened appear to be working - and saving - fine. Thanks.

Chosen solution

Thank you, jscher2000! The file that was the closest to today's date didn't have all of my tabs in it, but close enough. Complicated, but a remarkable save.

Thanks again!

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jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 25 Contributor
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Firefox is having a problem processing the file. You might need to just salvage the URLs out of the current session history file -- or a past file -- it if Firefox can't read it correctly.

Could you back up the files you have for safekeeping:

Open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either

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

In the first table on the page, click the "Show in Finder" button.

In your profile folder, scroll down and double-click into the sessionstore-backups folder. Save all files here to a safe location, such as your Documents folder. If not too much time has passed, we may be able to use them to recover your lost tabs.

What files did you find?

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

  • recovery.js: 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.bak: a backup copy of recovery.js
  • previous.js: the windows and tabs in your last Firefox session
  • upgrade.js-build_id: the windows and tabs in the Firefox session that was live at the time of your last update

Could you take a look at what you have and the date/time of the various files to see whether you think any of them would have the missing tabs?

If the latest file is really the only good candidate, you could try this:

Create a copy of the file and rename the copy to losttabs.txt (or another .txt file).

Open losttabs.txt in a Firefox tab. Then open the Web Console in the lower part of the tab using either:

  • Developer menu > Web Console
  • (menu bar) Tools > Web Developer > Web Console

Then paste the code from the following post into the space at the bottom of the Web Console and press Enter to run it, and that should extract a list of URLs that were in the file: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1085742#answer-786810

sandpail
sandpail Question owner
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Chosen Solution

Thank you, jscher2000! The file that was the closest to today's date didn't have all of my tabs in it, but close enough. Complicated, but a remarkable save.

Thanks again!