Session restore is not working (despite renaming files)
Hello folks. I am on Firefox 57.0.3 (64-bit) on a Windows 7 laptop (I think it just updated today 2018.01.01 :/)
I opened up FF and it came up with a blank home page and a new tab, and somehow it did not offer the menu option of restoring old tabs/session (which was two windows with.....over 200 tabs, yes, I can feel you judging me from here).
I researched the following threads and tried their suggestions: - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1182134 (I am trying to restore an older session. I copied a previous session to sessionstore but it still loaded the session I just closed. Help.) - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1190566 (Renaming Session Files Not Working to Restore Previous Session after Crash)
So when I look in the sessionstore-backups folder and the older sessions folder, the latest backup that seems to be the size I need (at least 8MB) is from 11/14/2017, not sure why nothing newer. What I tried: - I used the referenced session scrounger, so at least I have the links for the 11/14 session. - I saved all my backups to a separate folder, then tried copying over the desired backup into the root folder and renaming is sessionstore.jsonlz4 and deleting the old one. - Then copied it into the sessionstore-backup folder and renaming it to take the place of the previous, and 2 recovery backups, and deleting the old ones.
When I restart FF, it keeps coming up with that first page (the blank home page, new tab, and the couple tabs I'd opened searching the Mozilla forums), no matter how many times I overwrite and rename those files. FF is clearly getting session info from some other file. Help???
All Replies (4)
For the future please :
- https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles
- https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/export-firefox-bookmarks-to-backup-or-transfer
Please Copy/Paste : session into the search box for useful Extensions https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/extensions/ _________________________________________________________ Please see if you have 2 Profile Folders. If have 2 folders then the newest was made do to corruption. You can transfer files from a previously used profile to the new profile, but be cautious not to copy corrupted files to avoid carrying over the problem. Never work with original files.
- https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile
- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox
Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance.
Hi thank you for your quick response. However, my problem is I'm trying to recover all my tabs in the windows. The details above about my attempt to recover my session are to recover the tabs for my most recent session (used through 25 December 2017 but none of that info was visible in my profile folder). I used to have a session manager extension that now no longer works since the new FF includes a native session manager.
Problem is, when I look in both session backup folders in my profile, there is no session newer than 14 November 2017, strangely, and no matter how I rename the files, FF is not pulling from any of those to bring up my tabs.
rhythmia said
Problem is, when I look in both session backup folders in my profile, there is no session newer than 14 November 2017, strangely, and no matter how I rename the files, FF is not pulling from any of those to bring up my tabs.
So probably you have tried using History > Restore Previous Session and History > Recently Closed Windows. But just in case... please check again. (You can tap the Alt key or F10 key to activate the menu bar to access the classic History menu.)
If we are looking at files:
You should have more recent files from updates between Firefox 57.0, 57.0.1, 57.0.2, and 57.0.3 with the upgrade.jsonlz4-buildid naming convention. No?
Probably you've installed some Windows updates in the past 7 weeks. You can see whether Windows captured a recovery.jsonlz4 file in a restore point as follows.
While Firefox is running:
Open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either
- "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
- (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
- type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter
In the first table on the page, click the "Open Folder" button. This should launch a new window listing various files and folders in Windows Explorer.
Double-click into the sessionstore-backups folder.
Right-click recovery.jsonlz4 and click Properties.
Click the Previous Versions tab and wait 15 seconds or so while Windows checks recent restore points for shadow copies of the file. If any seem promising, use the Copy button to save them to some neutral location. Then you can scrounge the file to see whether it gets you any closer to what you're looking for.
If you don't keep Firefox open constantly, you could repeat this process with the sessionstore.jsonlz4 file, which should appear in the profile folder (not in the sessionstore-backups subfolder) after you exit Firefox.
Anything interesting?
rhythmia said
So when I look in the sessionstore-backups folder and the older sessions folder, the latest backup that seems to be the size I need (at least 8MB) is from 11/14/2017, not sure why nothing newer.
P.S. Don't judge by file size. The Firefox 56-59 .jsonlz4 files are tiny by comparison to the old .js files because of the lz4 compression.