Restore session after mistakenly shut down and all tabs lost

[Isis4]

I just had a horrible experience with tech support for my new computer. Didn't deal with the issue I called about, but caused a whole new problem. She closed down Firefox remotely, and when I started it again, all my tabs were gone.

I've located many sessionstore files in my Firefox profile, but the most recent of them is the new session without all the tabs (I'm judging this from the time the file was last updated). There is another sessionstore file that is a BAK file that has an earlier time listed, presumably when my tabs were still intact. Is that something I can work with?

Could someone walk me through how to get my tabs back? Thanx.

[Guest]

First make an extra copy of the sessionstore.bak file - it should indeed have your tabs, but it is frequently overwritten so make a copy now.

[KWierso]

Close Firefox.
Make a copy of both sessionstore.js and sessionstore.bak somewhere outside of your profile folder.
Delete the original sessionstore.js.
Rename the original sessionstore.bak to be sessionstore.js.
Reopen Firefox.

Are your tabs back?

[dickvl]

You can also check for the presence of a numbered file sessionstore-##.js

http://kb.mozillazine.org/sessionstore.js
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Session_Restore

[Isis4]

I copied the BAK file to my desktop, deleted the sessionstore file, and renamed the copy of the BAK in my profile .js, but when I started Firefox again there were no tabs, just one tab to my home page.

I checked the BAK file in notepad, and I can see various URLs of my previous tabs, so I know the file is correct. But I wonder if I'm not changing the name properly. When I add the .js to end of sessionstore, it still identifies it as a BAK file. And after I closed down Firefox again, it created two new sessionstore files, a new .js one and a new BAK one. The one I renamed didn't get overwritten by either.

[KWierso]

I copied the BAK file to my desktop, deleted the sessionstore file, and renamed the copy of the BAK in my profile .js, but when I started Firefox again there were no tabs, just one tab to my home page.

I checked the BAK file in notepad, and I can see various URLs of my previous tabs, so I know the file is correct. But I wonder if I'm not changing the name properly. When I add the .js to end of sessionstore, it still identifies it as a BAK file. And after I closed down Firefox again, it created two new sessionstore files, a new .js one and a new BAK one. The one I renamed didn't get overwritten by either.

Do you have Windows set to show file extensions?

[dickvl]

Did you check for recently closed tabs and windows or for tabs with session history (enabled Back button)?

[Isis4]

I don't think I have it set to show file extensions. How do I do that?

I don't understand the question about whether I checked for recently closed tabs or for tabs with session history and enabled Back button. I don't know where I would check for either, or what the difference is between the two. All I did was check for sessionstore files.

[dfoulkes]

I don't think I have it set to show file extensions. How do I do that?

Show or hide file name extensions

I won't get into any of this resolving of your session stuff as I don't rely on sessions much so I can't help you there... but, for future consideration of advanced session management... it has some nice schedule-backing up options.
Session Manager :: Add-ons for Firefox

[Isis4]

I figured out how to show extensions, and went through the whole thing again. I copied the original BAK file into my profile as a .js file, and started Firefox again, but still no tabs.

I looked at the file in notepad, and I can see a lot of URLs, but they don't all seem to be my tabs. Some may be previous pages I'd viewed on that tab (maybe what dickvl was referring to with the session history and enabled Back button?). I thought of trying to find all the URLs and entering them manually, but the whole file is over 300 pages when I open it in OpenOffice, and I can't make heads or tails of it.

I'm baffled that this huge file with URLs is not restoring my tabs when it's changed to a .js file. Am I missing a step somewhere?

[dfoulkes]

Maybe the tech. killed Firefox and didn't shut it down in a normal what... perhaps corrupting that file?

[Isis4]

She went straight for the X. I loaded Firefox very quickly after she did that, so I thought that maybe Firefox might not have been all the way shut down yet, and considered the new window part of the last session.

I looked at the last sessionstore after she shut it down, and I noticed some of the URLs of the lost tabs in that one too. But all I get is my home page when I start Firefox. I really don't get it.

Is there a way to figure out if the file is corrupted, and fix it somehow?

[dfoulkes]

Try this... and, I'll assume that you've made a copy of the the session file that you think has all your stuff...

Under the History section in your Menu ... there's a Restore previous session... and, as I said I use Session Manager so I'm not familiar with what Firefox does with that ... but what do you get when you click on it?

Or, I would suppose that your Options is set to start with Home page... I would think that in normal circumstances that if you want a previous session to start then the Options/General line has to be set to start with a previous session.

As long as you have that file saved some place you can play around with putting a copy back in there and trying some of that stuff.

Have you seen this?
Restore previous session - Configure when Firefox shows your most recent tabs and windows | How to | Firefox Help

[Isis4]

The Restore previous session option is not available. It's grey. I assume because I've been messing around with the sessionstore files.

I've looked through all the instructions about how to configure Firefox to restore previous sessions, and I have it all configured right. It's always worked perfectly, until she closed my browser.

The only thing that makes any sense to me is what you said before, that the file somehow got corrupted. But I always close it by clicking on the X, and I've never had this happen before. Maybe because she was accessing it remotely?

I'm wondering if there's any tutorial about how to read one of these files, to figure out exactly what the last URL in each tab was. Right now I'm guessing that 'entries' is the magic word that gets me close to the URL that I want. I had a lot of tabs, and doing this manually is going to take me forever, and I hope I don't miss any in the process.

I swear, from now on I will never call the manufacturer's techs again, and will come straight to the forums!

[Guest]

There is more information on extracting info from the sessionstore.js here: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=622036&start=60