Create a new profile as a test to check if your current profile is causing the problems.

See "Basic Troubleshooting: Make a new profile":

• https://support.mozilla.com/kb/Basic+Troubleshooting#w_8-make-a-new-profile

There may be extensions and plugins installed by default in a new profile, so check that in "Tools > Add-ons > Extensions & Plugins" in case there are still problems.

If that new profile works then you can transfer some files from the old profile to that new profile, but be careful not to copy corrupted files.

See:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox

See:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_crashes
• https://support.mozilla.com/kb/Firefox+crashes

If you have submitted Breakpad crash reports then post the IDs of one or more Breakpad crash reports (bp-xxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx). You can find the IDs of the submitted crash reports on the about:crashes page. You can open the about:crashes page via the location bar, like you open a website.

See:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Breakpad (Mozilla Crash Reporter)
• https://support.mozilla.com/kb/Mozilla+Crash+Reporter
• https://developer.mozilla.org/en/How_to_get_a_stacktrace_for_a_bug_report

Does not work.

Most of the time you just replace sessionstore.js with a previous one with all you saved session to restore everything. I've inputted all the sessionstore.js I could recover with no luck in any to load my previous session. I've also converted all the sessionstore.bak I recovered as well to sessionstore.js with no luck. I need someone who can analyze those two files to tell me what's wrong with them and why I can't load my previous session.

Happened again! This time I had sessionstore.js from my current session copied in another location. This is not right!

Try to use Firefox/File > Exit to close Firefox if you aren't doing that way now.

Always been doing that.

It is possible that there is a problem with the files sessionstore.js and sessionstore.bak in the Firefox Profile Folder.

Delete the sessionstore.js [2] file and possible sessionstore-##.js [3] files with a number and sessionstore.bak in the Firefox Profile Folder.

• Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Open Containing Folder
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox

Deleting sessionstore.js will cause App Tabs and Tab Groups and open and closed (undo) tabs to get lost, so you will have to create them again (make a note or bookmark them).

See also:

• [1] http://kb.mozillazine.org/Session_Restore
• [2] http://kb.mozillazine.org/sessionstore.js
• [3] http://kb.mozillazine.org/Multiple_profile_files_created

One of the links you provided gave me an idea. However, for it to work I need something to search out all the url within the text and remove any duplicates. Does anyone know of a program that can do that?

Do you mean URLs in sessionstore.js?

• http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=10768811&start=45

Yes, I am talking about the URLs in sessionstore.js.

Thank you cor-el. After spending some time reading the posts, I finally figured it out. Found a couple good sessionstore.js and sessionstore.bak from the ones I recovered that I was able to start with. I hope that I can restore all the tabs and windows I have lost.

Here are the steps I followed to recover my lost tabs for those who experienced the same thing I went through:

Once you lost your tabs or windows, do not panic!

1. Exit Firefox (Firefox > Exit).
2. Open up your file recover program, I always go with Recuva. Make sure to do a Deep Scan for all file types if you have that option.
3. Search within your user account (C:\Documents and Settings\User).
4. Once the scan is finish, find all sessionstore.js and sessionstore.bak within a few hours and recover them on a flash drive or a separate hard drive.
5. I then used the link cor-el provide of dickvl’s bookmarklet script to recover my lost tabs and windows.

For those who do not want to bother with figuring it out follow the steps below:

1. Open Firefox and then open up the bookmark side panel.
2. Right click New Bookmark.
3. The New Bookmark window will open. Fill out the following lines:

• To open all opened tabs and windows:

• Name: Open

• Location: javascript:(function(){var D=document,H,i=j=0,P=D.getElementsByTagName('PRE'),t='',R=/[^:]\{"entries":\[\{("url":"([^"]*)")\,("title":"([^"]*)"){0,1}/g,T,U;for(j=0;E=P[j];j++){H=E.innerHTML;while(R.exec(H)){U=RegExp.$2;T=RegExp.$4;if(T.length==0){T=U;}t+="<b>["+(++i)+"]</b> <a href="+U+">"+T+" ("+U+")<\/a><br>";}}with(window.open().document){write(t);close()}})();

• Click Add.

• To open all closed tabs and windows:

• Name: Close

• Location: javascript:(function(){var D=document,H,i=j=0,P=D.getElementsByTagName("PRE"),t="",R=/"state":\{"entries":\[\{("url":"([^"]*)")\,("title":"([^"]*)"){0,1}/g,T,U;for(j=0;E=P[j];j++){H=E.innerHTML;while(R.exec(H)){U=RegExp.$2;T=RegExp.$4;if(T.length==0){T=U;}t+="<b>["+(++i)+"]</b> <a href="+U+">"+T+" ("+U+")<\/a><br>";}}with(window.open().document){open();close();body.innerHTML=t;}})();

• Click Add.

1. Open the folder containing all the recovered sessionstore.js and sessionstore.bak.
2. Go to Tools > Folder Options.
3. On the Folder Options window, got to the View tab and uncheck Hide extensions for known file types.
4. Click OK.
5. One by one, rename sessionstore.js and sessionstore.bak to sessionstore.js.txt and open the file in Firefox (File > Open File).
6. Once loaded, click either Open or Close bookmark to open all the links from the tabs and windows inside sessionstore.js.txt on a new tab.

• Repeat the two step above until you go through all sessionstore.js and sessionstore.bak you recovered or until you have all your tabs and windows. After you are done, make sure to check Hide extensions for known file types again.

Look the heart of this problem is that there is no way to save user tab groups. At the moment saving the last session has unpredictable results because of unpredictable user behavior.

For instance I have 6 named tab groups with 40-50 tabs total between my wife and I. She tends to open multiple FF windows, some with no tabs at all. If she closes the main window (with 50 tabs) _before_ closing the empty windows, then the last session saved will be one with no tabs. And there you go, all my careful tabs organization just vaporized with no way to recover from the 'sessionrestore.js' file.

The only solution I believe is to support user saving and persisting named tab groups

I lost all my tabs and tab groups after a crash. Then I looked at this forum and searched all subdirectories under Program Files/Mozilla and there is not a "session*" under there anywhere, hence I can not restore the earlier sessions. This seems pretty lame - there should be multiple backups of the sessions. Is there a setting somewhere to have it "automatically" backup the sessions? thanks

FLIPD9, Did this actually restore your tabs though and the histories (back button links) in those tabs or just simply a list of URLs for the missing tabs that didnt load?

@tonyznewmexico,

Sorry for the late response, I didn't get a notice of your post.

Both sessionstore.js and sessionstore.bak are located in your Firefox's profile folder under Application Data. To access the Application Data folder, run this, %appdata%, to take you to that folder. Then go to ...\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles to access your profile.

If you've lost your tabs, you don't really need the statement above since all you need to do is follow my post in how to recover them. There's no automatic back up from Firefox to back up Sessions the way you want. You can set one up with a backup software that back ups your Firefox profile.

@ey143,

No, it just list all of the URL in a Firefox window where I could click on them and rebuild my tabs and windows.