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Restoring previous tabs does not always work!

  • 4 replies
  • 11 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by SImagery

SImagery
SImagery
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This has been as ongoing problem that I have been tolerating but today when I lost all of my tabs I also lost my patience! I have Firefox set to restore the previous session and it does work for several days, sometimes restarting 2 or 3 times per day however Firefox (without warning) will not restore the previous tabs! This is not always the result of a Mozilla crash, sometimes I get the "this is embarrassing" page which allows me to recover my tabs. However mostly when this happens the options to "Restore Previous Session" is not highlighted or clickable regardless if I am on the History drop-down menu or from the default home page menu!

I run Win 7 Ultimate, Firefox v39.0 and generally have 1 window open with 12 to 24 tabs open however it has happened with only 5 or 6 tabs open! I have read everything related to this subject in the help section but so far nothing has helped. This is not a new problem however it seems to have worsened after the last few updates. I have been a Mozilla user since the beginning going back to Netscape. While I will never use Internet Explorer (other than testing new webdesigns) Chrome is starting to look better & better :( Thank You

This has been as ongoing problem that I have been tolerating but today when I lost all of my tabs I also lost my patience! I have Firefox set to restore the previous session and it does work for several days, sometimes restarting 2 or 3 times per day however Firefox (without warning) will not restore the previous tabs! This is not always the result of a Mozilla crash, sometimes I get the "this is embarrassing" page which allows me to recover my tabs. However mostly when this happens the options to "Restore Previous Session" is not highlighted or clickable regardless if I am on the History drop-down menu or from the default home page menu! I run Win 7 Ultimate, Firefox v39.0 and generally have 1 window open with 12 to 24 tabs open however it has happened with only 5 or 6 tabs open! I have read everything related to this subject in the help section but so far nothing has helped. This is not a new problem however it seems to have worsened after the last few updates. I have been a Mozilla user since the beginning going back to Netscape. While I will never use Internet Explorer (other than testing new webdesigns) Chrome is starting to look better & better :( Thank You

Chosen solution

If this happens then you can backup the session files in the sessionstore-backups folder in the Firefox Profile Folder to make sure not to lose possible important session data. 

previous.js (cleanBackup: copy of sessionstore.js from previous session that was loaded successfully)
recovery.js (latest version of the sessionstore written during runtime)
recovery.bak (previous version of the sessionstore written during runtime)
upgrade.js-<build_id> (backup created during an upgrade of Firefox)

You can copy a file from the sessionstore-backups folder to the main profile and rename the file to sessionstore.js to replace the current file (make a backup copy of the current sessionstore.js).

You can use this button to go to the current Firefox profile folder:

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All Replies (4)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Try to use the "Show my windows and tabs from last time" startup setting to see if that makes Session Restore work more reliably.

  • Tools > Options > General > Startup: "When Firefox Starts":
    "Show my windows and tabs from last time"
SImagery
SImagery Question owner
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Unfortunately this is already set just as you described, but thank you anyway.

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

Chosen Solution

If this happens then you can backup the session files in the sessionstore-backups folder in the Firefox Profile Folder to make sure not to lose possible important session data. 

previous.js (cleanBackup: copy of sessionstore.js from previous session that was loaded successfully)
recovery.js (latest version of the sessionstore written during runtime)
recovery.bak (previous version of the sessionstore written during runtime)
upgrade.js-<build_id> (backup created during an upgrade of Firefox)

You can copy a file from the sessionstore-backups folder to the main profile and rename the file to sessionstore.js to replace the current file (make a backup copy of the current sessionstore.js).

You can use this button to go to the current Firefox profile folder:

SImagery
SImagery Question owner
more options

I apologize for not being able to reply sooner but I wanted to thank you for the help with this. Now that I know which files handle backups ect I can backup my own files daily as a precaution.

I'm not sure if this caused this problem but I have always changed the default directory to one of my own preference. This began way back when the old Netscape would crash almost daily losing all bookmarks. I'm going to create a new profile (default dir) and transfer my important files over to it. Now that I know more about previous.js, recovery.js, recovery.bak and upgrade.js files hopefully losing my tabs will be a thing of the past! Thanks again