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Can't restore previous session from sessionstore-backups

  • 4 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 6 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

ytiantong
ytiantong
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Today I opened my Firefox and all my tabs are gone. I was able to find a backup in sessionstore-backups, but when I renamed it to "sessionstore.jsonlz4" and replaced the one in the main profile folder, opening Firefox still don't gave me any tabs, just the default "new tab".

Today I opened my Firefox and all my tabs are gone. I was able to find a backup in sessionstore-backups, but when I renamed it to "sessionstore.jsonlz4" and replaced the one in the main profile folder, opening Firefox still don't gave me any tabs, just the default "new tab".

All Replies (4)

cor-el
cor-el
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You can look at this tool to inspect a compressed sessionstore file.

cor-el
cor-el
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Did you look at "History -> Recently Closed Tabs/Windows" ?

Jimw338
Jimw338
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    • UPDATE ** Not looking at the current Library/Application Support/Firefox. Still, FF 90 doesn't want to do my little "always display which-tabs-to-restore dialog" thing anymore.

I just updated to version 90.0 (macosx, intel), and there doesn't seem to *be* a recovery.jsonlz4 file anymore.. I used these to backup tabs regularly (I'm a tab-hoarders, fortunately or unfortunately). FF doesn't seem to want to change my prefs to let me always open with the "Choose Tabs To Restore" dialog (*), but FF doesn't seem to want to save the prefs.js changes anymore. (Nor does Waterfox) But I figured if I could save the recovery.lz4 file, I could make a program to extract the urls and allow me to somehow navigate the enormous "url-data-sea" I have managed to not quite drown in.

But if there *is* no recovery.jsonlz4 anymore.. macOS's (Monterey beta) "Sort by Date Modified" on the FF Profile folder is useless - doesn't seem to update at all. Is the "previous session" now stored in the places.sqlite database along with everything (?) else?

(*) By setting: browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash = false, resume_session_once = true, resuming_after_os_restart = true

Modified by Jimw338

cor-el
cor-el
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Make sure you do not run Firefox in permanent Private Browsing mode (Always use Private Browsing mode; Never Remember History).

  • Settings -> Privacy & Security
    Firefox will: "Use custom settings for history"
  • remove checkmark: [ ] "Always use Private Browsing mode"

In case you use "Clear history when Firefox closes".

  • do not clear the Browsing History