I think I may have answered one of my questions from above. I used the scrounger.html, and this time clicked on the UNSTRUCTURED URL LIST button - to see what it does. It worked in a few seconds and created a list of what looks like the many tabs I had open. I recognize the very first one (a link to a 'Livonia Garage" that I did have open before my problem started - so it looks like a list of my lost session.

The Livonia Garage - 11 Photos - Auto Repair - 15140 Middlebelt Rd, Livonia, MI - Phone Number - Yelp https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-livonia-garage-livonia

Box | Simple Online Collaboration https://ten-x.app.box.com/preview/expiring_embed/gvoct6FE!RiT-gQQgwkAkR7Oe02kGpU8GSBfo-

Your instruction that I should follow now, is this? So Firefox is going to look for sessionstore.jsonlz4 first, at the main level of your currently active profile folder. If it doesn't find that, it will look in the sessionstore-backups folder for recovery.jsonlz4. Probably the easiest thing is to make sure all Firefox can find is the recovery.jsonlz4 you copy into the current sessionstore-backups folder.

Yes. File swaps should only be done while Firefox is closed.

I also just activated 'Restore previous session" under the GENERAL ... STARTUP preferences. I thought I had that activated before all this, did the REFRESH I did yesterday undo 'Restore previous session" ?

Yes, Refresh resets that and other settings to default.

Does firefox need 'Restore previous session" to be activated in order to look use the recovery.jsonlz4 in the current sessionstore-backups folder?

It's needed for an automatic restore. In theory, it should be available from the menu as "Restore Previous Session" for a manual restore.

Also, I just looked in my current profile folder, and two things confusing me about what is in the sessionstore-backups folder ... First there are two files therein - recovery.jsonlz4 and recovery.baklz4. When I copy the recovery.jsonlz4 file that Recuvva restored, should I do anything with the recovery.baklz4?

I think the .baklz4 file is removed during normal shutdown.

Second, I noticed that the sizes of the two files right now, are 22,616 kb, and the Recuvva file size is 22,040 kb , which makes me wonder if the file Recuvva restored is large enough to hold the multiple windows and tabs that I hope to get restored? Shouldn't the file Recuvva got me be a LOT LARGER (assuming the current files in sessionstore-backups represents only about 12 tabs in one window that I have active in Firefox right now?

Hmm, sometimes windows and tabs get nested under a previous session's previous session or something like that, and Firefox no longer sees them, even though they are still in the file. I thought I updated the Scrounger a while back to find those and list them out, but it seems it didn't work in this case, if that's the situation.

I used the scrounger.html, and this time clicked on the UNSTRUCTURED URL LIST button - to see what it does. It worked in a few seconds and created a list of what looks like the many tabs I had open.

The "Unstructured" list is a backup option for when the regular script can't handle the file for some reason. So clearly the file has URLs in it, but possibly it is not accessible simply by reading the file structure. Or my script doesn't understand the structure of your JSON data.

You can Save List and use the HTML file to re-launch links if other restoration methods do not work.

I think for now I will assume I have a good bookmark file. (IF not, I have the recovered one I can use later, right?).

I think for now I'd like to just try using what appears to be the good recovery.jsonlz4 file in my current profile. (I recall doing the create a test profile once before, on a 2nd PC, and i still have to select it every time I start Firefox on that pc, which is an extra step I'd rather not use right now.

I have copied the two files in my current profiles sessionstore-backups folder to different names recovery-copy.baklz4, and recovery-copy.jsonlz4 (just for safety I guess). Should I now delete the recovery.baklz4 and replace the current recovery.jsonlz4 with the one I got from Recuvva? Also is there another current sessionstore file I should remove that is NOT IN sessionstore-backups folder?

I have copied the two files in my current profiles sessionstore-backups folder to different names recovery-copy.baklz4, and recovery-copy.jsonlz4 (just for safety I guess). Should I now delete the recovery.baklz4 and replace the current recovery.jsonlz4 with the one I got from Recuvva? Also is there another current sessionstore file I should remove that is NOT IN sessionstore-backups folder?

(1) If all goes well, recovery.baklz4 will only be used if recovery.jsonlz4 is unusable. No need to rename it.

(2) After Firefox has completed a normal shutdown, look for sessionstore.jsonlz4 at the main level of the profile folder. You need to hide that from Firefox, for example, by renaming it.

OK, I will try that.

Let me verify with you first though, that I currently not seeing a sessionstore.jsonlz4. Does that file get 'created' after Firefox has been shutdown?

Let me verify with you first though, that I currently not seeing a sessionstore.jsonlz4. Does that file get 'created' after Firefox has been shutdown?

Yes, sessionstore.jsonlz4 is created created during a normal shutdown. All file operations in your profile folder should be conducted AFTER Firefox shuts down because files are constantly being updated.

OK, Got it. I am going to try to fix this in a little while. I will report back afterwards. Thanks!

Oh, and I just activated the RESTORE PREVIOUS SESSION under PREFERENCES...GENERAL...STARTUP. Which I think I WANT - to restore a previous session. Does this option work automatically to look at recovery.jsonlz4? Or for recovery.baklz4?

The files should always be tried in this order:

• sessionstore.jsonlz4
• recovery.jsonlz4
• recovery.baklz4

Make sure to update recovery.jsonlz4 with the file you want to use after Firefox completes its shutdown.

Well, I have been preoccupied with other things, but finally got a chance to try the restore. It did not work perfectly.

First, after I shutdown FF, there was no sessionstore.jsonlz4 to be found.

I preceded anyway to copy the recovery.jsonlz4 that Recuvva got for me into my profile. I I left the existing recovery.baklz4 unchanged.

The restart opened all the windows, but all but 3 of them just had one tab in them, labeled NEW TAB.

Two of the three windows were restored correctly.

The third window looked good, but came with a message asking me to continue or cancel a script. I said cancel it. That window opened a 'window' for aol mail, but it had NO TAB! The other several tabs cannot be activated at all. And when I try OPEN NEW TAB - nothing happens! So this third window is essentially useless.

The 3rd unstable window does allow the AOL screen to work, I can read mail, etc. but there is no TAB showing an AOL page! Wierd.

Here are two screen captures I grabbed ...

The first shows 3 windows maximized, and the list of windows that should have pages. the second shows a window with only NEW TAB, that had multiple pages open before my crash on 5/27/20

Sounds as though there is something a little bit wrong in the file. Not so wrong that you cannot pull out the URLs, but wrong enough that Firefox can't put the pieces back together correctly when restoring it. It may be that working with the "unstructured" list will be necessary for some of the tabs. Or if the windows are dysfunctional, for all of them. ??

You normally get a window with no tab bar and tabs if this window is a pop-up window.
Such a pop-up window has special properties and you can't open a new tab in it.

Sounds as though there is something a little bit wrong in the file. Not so wrong that you cannot pull out the URLs, but wrong enough that Firefox can't put the pieces back together correctly when restoring it. It may be that working with the "unstructured" list will be necessary for some of the tabs. Or if the windows are dysfunctional, for all of them. ??

I was hoping you had found a mistake in what I did. Rats.

Is it odd there was no sessionstore file after shutdown (which I did by canceling the PROCESS in TASK MANAGER, btw, if that matters?)

How do I work with the unstructured list? Copy/paste urls?

You normally get a window with no tab bar and tabs if this window is a pop-up window.
Such a pop-up window has special properties and you can't open a new tab in it.

I have seen that when I have opened an AOL mail in a new window, and then restarted FF after a crash. But, these windows had several dozens of tabs in them.

Is it odd there was no sessionstore file after shutdown (which I did by canceling the PROCESS in TASK MANAGER, btw, if that matters?)

The file is created during a normal shutdown (menu button > Exit, or File > Exit). I think you probably interrupted or bypassed that.

How do I work with the unstructured list? Copy/paste urls?

If you saved the resulting HTML page, you can click / Ctrl+click the links, no copy/pasting required.

</blockquote> The file is created during a normal shutdown (menu button > Exit, or File > Exit). I think you probably interrupted or bypassed that.

If you saved the resulting HTML page, you can click / Ctrl+click the links, no copy/pasting required. </blockquote>

Ok, so I clicked the UNSTRUCTURED URL LIST button, for my recovery.jsonlz4 file. Then I clicked one SAVE LIST button. I got a pop up (see below image) asking me to either OPEN or SAVE the sessionhist(recovery_jsonlz4).html file. I did save it, but what would happen if I chose to OPEN with FIREFOX? Would that recover all the windows/tabs? Would it mess up the FF windows/session I have open currently?

Ok, so I clicked the UNSTRUCTURED URL LIST button, for my recovery.jsonlz4 file. Then I clicked one SAVE LIST button. I got a pop up (see below image) asking me to either OPEN or SAVE the sessionhist(recovery_jsonlz4).html file. I did save it, but what would happen if I chose to OPEN with FIREFOX? Would that recover all the windows/tabs?

Nothing so fancy. "Open" just saves the HTML document to the Temp folder and then opens it from there in a new tab.

Well, I tried to 'kill' the several open windows that only had NEW TAB in them (by clicking on the "X" in the upper right hand window). They all closed but one - that I cannot even click on that 'X', or any other tabs in that window. It's like a GHOST window at this point. lol (I figured no sense keeping the clutter of all those FF windows since I cannot restore them).

Anyways, then I tried to exit using FILE/EXIT but that does not work! But a box pops up on my screen, but has not substance in it. I am guessing it might be that warning box that I am about to close multiple tabs - but it could be something else too - All I see is a banner of a window, and an X in that pop up window (see below)! What is going on?

Oh, and this is wierd, even though I closed about 10 FF windows that only had NEW TAB in them by clikcing on the 'X' in the upper right of each FF window -TASK MANAGER seems to thinks those windows are still running! (See below)

Maybe Ctrl+w -- the shortcut to close the current tab -- will close the ghost windows if they only have one tab?