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import session

  • 2 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by DynV

DynV
DynV
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I'll give some context after getting to the point. I have a saved %AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\SOME_LETTERS_AND_NUMBERS.default\sessionstore-backups\previous.js (includes Windows environment variable) which I'd like its content to replace the current session; I want all the tabs and windows in it to be in Firefox once again.

In a session that included some videos (which tend to play when loading, taking both CPU and attention from me to pause/close them) and numerous tabs, FF crashed. I was in a middle of something and wanted to get quickly back to it so I didn't restore my previous session right away. The time-sensitive event ended and I wanted to recover the session but menu > History > Restore Previous Session was disabled. I hurried to get some information and found out where the session were located and copied the directory content as soon as I could. The 3 other files in the folder were not related to the session I wanted (file in 1st paragraph). I tried to restore the session but when I loaded it didn't show what normally is shown after a clean FF exit, about:sessionrestore with the windows & tabs tree, but instead had my home page and Restore Previous Session enabled, however when I clicked the latter nothing was restored and the files in the session dir (in 1st paragraph) were replaced so I closed FF, deleted the files, replaced them with the good ones and repeated the process and got the same result (I did that a few times with variations on what files I replaced).

Thank you kindly for your help

I'll give some context after getting to the point. I have a saved %AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\SOME_LETTERS_AND_NUMBERS.default\sessionstore-backups\previous.js (includes Windows environment variable) which I'd like its content to replace the current session; I want all the tabs and windows in it to be in Firefox once again. In a session that included some videos (which tend to play when loading, taking both CPU and attention from me to pause/close them) and numerous tabs, FF crashed. I was in a middle of something and wanted to get quickly back to it so I didn't restore my previous session right away. The time-sensitive event ended and I wanted to recover the session but menu > History > Restore Previous Session was disabled. I hurried to get some information and found out where the session were located and copied the directory content as soon as I could. The 3 other files in the folder were not related to the session I wanted (file in 1st paragraph). I tried to restore the session but when I loaded it didn't show what normally is shown after a clean FF exit, about:sessionrestore with the windows & tabs tree, but instead had my home page and Restore Previous Session enabled, however when I clicked the latter nothing was restored and the files in the session dir (in 1st paragraph) were replaced so I closed FF, deleted the files, replaced them with the good ones and repeated the process and got the same result (I did that a few times with variations on what files I replaced). Thank you kindly for your help

All Replies (2)

philipp
philipp
  • Moderator
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hi DynV, please proceed like this which should bring back the old session:

  • close all running instances of firefox.
  • rename your backed-up previous.js to sessionstore.js
  • put the renamed sessionstore.js file directly into your profile folder at %AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\SOME_LETTERS_AND_NUMBERS.default overwriting the existing file there
  • launch firefox

you can find out more information about how the session restore mechanism in firefox works in this blog post by a mozilla engineer: https://dutherenverseauborddelatable.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/firefox-the-browser-that-has-your-backup/

DynV
DynV Question owner
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After doing what philipp suggested, the following is what's happening for me. about:sessionrestore doesn't include anything where a tree would be. Using Restore Previous Session will only restore some of the windows that session contain, in particular the windows I'm most interested in.