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I get a "Bad news first: This tab has crashed". How do I restore all the pages of tabs I've kept open for a couple years!

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  • Valiny farany nomen'i the-edmeister

HelpC
HelpC
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I have had 4 windows with numerous tabs in each that open up each time I start Firefox for about 2 years now, until today. I usually shut down each day, by hitting control,alt,del button to bring up the Windows Task Manager on my laptop. Then manually click on Firefox.exe*32 process, then click the End Process tab. Following day on start up, I have the unexpectedly closed Firefox window, which list the 4 Windows and all the tabs/websites in which I just click on restore all tabs (or whatever is says as its not in front of me at the moment). Have been doing this for years with no problems.

Today,I did not get that screen. I get the "Bad news first: This tab has crashed" Where were then given 2 options to close or "restore this tab", I click restore and nothing occurs. From the drop down history menu, "Restore Previous Session" is not available to click.

I do see, in going into the Library tab, that has all the past history, there is a button at the top that says "Import and Backup" Holding the cursor over that, a drop down then pops up that has Backup, then Restore underneath, which I again, hover the cursor over Restore and it shows days starting today, Sept 9th, and a few days prior this week, some in Aug, as well as going back to July 8th and (8.9K - 79 items). I am not sure what this is, or if this will help open up all the plethora of my now closed Windows?

I have ALSO, gone into the "session store-backups" folder where I see I have a recovery.bak file, and a recovery file, which shows that file "type" to be a JScript Script File. Those are the only 2 files I see there. I copied both these 2 files to a new folder on my desktop

Not sure what to do from here, to attempt to restore all of my 4 Windows, each that were full of dozens and dozens of browser tabs?

I have had 4 windows with numerous tabs in each that open up each time I start Firefox for about 2 years now, until today. I usually shut down each day, by hitting control,alt,del button to bring up the Windows Task Manager on my laptop. Then manually click on Firefox.exe*32 process, then click the End Process tab. Following day on start up, I have the unexpectedly closed Firefox window, which list the 4 Windows and all the tabs/websites in which I just click on restore all tabs (or whatever is says as its not in front of me at the moment). Have been doing this for years with no problems. Today,I did not get that screen. I get the "Bad news first: This tab has crashed" Where were then given 2 options to close or "restore this tab", I click restore and nothing occurs. From the drop down history menu, "Restore Previous Session" is not available to click. I do see, in going into the Library tab, that has all the past history, there is a button at the top that says "Import and Backup" Holding the cursor over that, a drop down then pops up that has Backup, then Restore underneath, which I again, hover the cursor over Restore and it shows days starting today, Sept 9th, and a few days prior this week, some in Aug, as well as going back to July 8th and (8.9K - 79 items). I am not sure what this is, or if this will help open up all the plethora of my now closed Windows? I have ALSO, gone into the "session store-backups" folder where I see I have a recovery.bak file, and a recovery file, which shows that file "type" to be a JScript Script File. Those are the only 2 files I see there. I copied both these 2 files to a new folder on my desktop Not sure what to do from here, to attempt to restore all of my 4 Windows, each that were full of dozens and dozens of browser tabs?

All Replies (2)

John99
John99
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You are much less likely to run in to problems if you shut down Firefox properly using Firefox's menu button and the closedown icon to Quit.

That message sounds like it came from Firefox with it's new a multi process mode enabled. That if it worked correctly should have allowed you to restore that crashed tab without the browser itself crashing or restarting.

The restore bookmarks option does what it says, but do NOT use that unless you are sure you need to because what it does is overwrites your existing bookmarks. In some fault situations Firefox uses those backups itself if the current bookmarks will not work. Bookmarks may be used to open tabs, if you created a bookmark, but they are not your open tabs.

I am not sure relying on open tabs in the browser is a very good idea. At one time these were very fragile and not backed up well but since about Firefox 33 the system has been markedly improved. Your killing Firefox from Task Manager may affect what backups Firefox is able to create and use.

It is probably best if you create a new additional test profile to try restoring backup session files in. Details later but it is a case of renaming a suitable file as sessionstore.js If you have not already done so create a copy of the folder "session store-backups" including its contents. It is possible to recover the previous state by renaming these files, but it is best to use a copy of the backup copy and do so in a new profile. Otherwise you may complicate matters or lose important files. There is also a method you may be interested in that converts the file to a list of clickable links.

Have a look at the three posts in this thread from this point down

with instructions on how to restore sessions and how to create a listing from the files. See also

the-edmeister
the-edmeister
  • Moderator
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Are you aware that Firefox has a Bookmark All Tabs feature? Use that for each of those 4 windows "just in case" you ever have a problem with session restore.

And I agree with John, killing the firefox.exe process rather than properly exiting Firefox could cause session data loss. The session restore feature was greatly improved around the time of Firefox 33, and works great as long as the user doesn't overload Firefox and cause it to "hang".