Can I retrieve my History and Tab Groups?
I left my computer, via remote connection, in the hands of an employee of a company I'll leave unnamed to tune-up and cleanup my computer. There had been no mention of any problem with Firefox.
He: 1) Reset my home page to SnapDo. Easy enough to fix, but I don't understand why. 2) Wiped out my History. I save all my history. 3) Closed all my active tabs. 4) Worst of all, he wiped out all my Tab Groups which contained things I was working on and had taken several months to assemble.
I'm still fuming, but the question at hand is: Is there some way to recovery my History and Tab Groups?
You can try to restore a previous version of the sessionstore.js file.
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Session_Restore
*https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Session+Restore
Right click: Properties > Previous Versions
*http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Previous-versions-of-files-frequently-asked-questions
Similar Messages
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ffox crashed, when the window came up to choose tabs to close, and then restore the remaining tabs, i accidently hit start new session so I lost all tabs and tab groups when the new firefox window opened. In disbelief that this had actually happened, I then closed this new firefox window, and then started firefox again in hopes that it was some sort of fluke, but again it was a new session without any of my old tabs or groups.
Uh oh, you closed and re-opened Firefox. When you start up, Firefox saves your previous session tabs from sessionstore.js to sessionstore.bak, but it's only there until you start up Firefox again, when the backup is replaced. So I don't hold out much hope...
But you could take a look here:
Help > Troubleshooting Information > "Show Folder" button
This will open your currently active Firefox settings folder (AKA Profile folder). If you look for sessionstore files, you should see at least sessionstore.js (current session) and sessionstore.bak (previous session). You may also see other files with numbers appended to the name.
Copy all of today's files to a safe location (e.g., Documents folder). The strategy is to work through them to see whether they contain anything useful.
Keeping your profile folder open, switch over and exit Firefox. Then delete sessionstore.js and rename sessionstore.bak to sessionstore.js. After restarting Firefox, can you restore the earlier session (using either History > Restore Previous Session, or the button on the built-in Firefox home page)?
If that isn't the correct one, did you find any other sessionstore files that might be a bit older? If so, repeat the process. If not, unfortunately, it's gone, and you'll have to use your memory or Firefox History (e.g., Ctrl+Shift+h) to reconstruct the missing session.
There is an extension named Session Manager that lets you save more than just the one previous session. If you can't live without your list of tabs, you might want to look into it: [https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/session-manager/]. -
Hello, I closed unintentionally 10 files and I can't retrieve the history for each file.Is there a solution ?
Hello, do you mean 10 tabs ? check in [http://kb.mozillazine.org/Viewing_the_browsing_history_-_Firefox#Library Library] menu to view the browsing history (except if you [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/Clear%20Recent%20History Clear Recent History] ).
thank you
Please mark "Solved" the answer that really solve the problem, to help others with a similar problem. -
What happened to my tabs and tab groups when I synced to a new computer?
I have spent the morning trying to sync Firefox. On my previous computer, I was running FF31, but not as a clean install--as an upgrade from FF28. In the Sync screen, I saw my email address and recovery key, so I thought I was good to go.
Turns out that that wasn't the case, and I needed to set up a new Sync account.
Here are the steps I took to get my data back:
1) I uninstalled FF31, reverted to 28, used my email address and recovery key, and got my information back.
2) Then I updated to FF31.
3) In FF31, I unlinked my computer, created a new Sync account, and logged in to sync my data.
However, I was unable to access my tab groups. And when I upgraded to FF31, my tab groups still weren't back.
I tried looking in "Tabs from Other Devices", and there were no other devices listed.
How can I get my tabs and tab groups back? I had literally dozens of hours of work-related research saved in these tabs. I have so many visited sites in my history that there's no way I'd be able to recreate all of them.
Please help--I'm desperate. I can't lose all of those tabs.Hello,
'''Try Firefox Safe Mode''' to see if the problem goes away. [[Troubleshoot Firefox issues using Safe Mode|Firefox Safe Mode]] is a troubleshooting mode that turns off some settings, disables most add-ons (extensions and themes).
If Firefox is open, you can restart in Firefox Safe Mode from the Help menu:
*In Firefox 29.0 and above, click the menu button [[Image:New Fx Menu]], click Help [[Image:Help-29]] and select ''Restart with Add-ons Disabled''.
*In previous Firefox versions, click on the Firefox button at the top left of the Firefox window and click on ''Help'' (or click on ''Help'' in the Menu bar, if you don't have a Firefox button) then click on ''Restart with Add-ons Disabled''.
If Firefox is not running, you can start Firefox in Safe Mode as follows:
* On Windows: Hold the '''Shift''' key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
* On Mac: Hold the '''option''' key while starting Firefox.
* On Linux: Quit Firefox, go to your Terminal and run ''firefox -safe-mode'' <br>(you may need to specify the Firefox installation path e.g. /usr/lib/firefox)
When the Firefox Safe Mode window appears, select "Start in Safe Mode".<br>
[[Image:Safe Mode Fx 15 - Win]]
'''''If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode''''', your problem is probably caused by an extension, and you need to figure out which one. Please follow the [[Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems]] article to find the cause.
''To exit Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.''
When you figure out what's causing your issues, please let us know. It might help others with the same problem. -
Firefox loses my tabs and tab groups
I closed down my system normally last night. Firefox closed down. When I started up Firefox this morning all of my tabs and tab groups had gone - AGAIN!
Firefox has done this to me several times and I have never been able to recover my tabs and groups by any of the methods described previously. I am currently using FF 29.0.1 on Windows 7 Ultimate. This loss of tabs and groups has happened in exactly this way on several previous occasions over quite a few years with different versions of FF.
My history is still present.
Leading up to this I have noticed that FF 29.0.1 was not faithfully preserving tab states. There have been several tabs where, during a session, I have changed the URL that the tab was pointing to only to find that FF has preserved the original URL for that tab when I have restarted it the next morning.
I have come to suspect that what is happening is:
1) FF saves the tab and groups state in sessionstate.js on close down (and at intervals while running). It creates sessionstore.js with a syntax error in it.
2) On start up FF loads sessionstore.js, hits a syntax error, (silently) decides that it can't use that store and creates a new one, thereby losing all information in the previous sessionstore.js.
When I save the new sessionstore.js as something else, rename sessionstore.bak to sessionstore.bak.js and then double click it to launch it I get an error dialog:
Line: 1
Char: 11
Error: Expected ';'
Code: 800A03Ec
Source: Microsoft JScript compilation error.
Here are the first few characters of the file:
{"windows":[],"selectedWindow":0,"_closedWindows":[{"tabs":[{"entries":[{"url":"http://php.net/",
The frustrating thing is that I (think I) can see data in there relating to my tabs and groups. Because the JS is minified it's almost impossible to extract the data structures in a meaningful way. Because the file is so large (>2.9MB) and the syntax error my code editors can't make any sense of prettifying it so it's very difficult to pull apart.
I question the use of JS for preserving data in this way. There may be performance reasons for using JS. Wouldn't it be better to use something like XML? At least us poor humans would have a chance of eyeballing the data and doing a manual recovery if necessary. Sod it! We could even write a program to load up the tabs ad groups from the XML!
I have wondered about using Firefox Sync for all of my systems. My worry is that a problem on one machine will blow away my settings on all of them. Does anyone have any experience with respect to FF Sync in this respect?
I've preserved copies of my sessionstate.bak (along with the previous one) in the hope that someone may have a way of recovering the tab and group information contained in there.
If anyone has any suggestions about recovering the tab and group information I'd be really glad to hear them. I can't say loudly enough how frustrating it is to keep losing the tabs and groups. Each time it happens it blows away the context of the several jobs that I'm doing at any one time.
Oh. And I'm writing this message using Chrome as my browser.What have you tried for session recovery so far?
3MB is quite large and may well indicate some corruption. Still, since as you can see it is largely text, you often can extract the URLs. Doing that by hand would be arduous...
I assume you have seen the following links in other threads mentioning data mining techniques to rescue the URLs from the sessionstore.js or sessionstore.bak file:
* Using Firefox's Browser Console (formerly known as Error Console): https://support.mozilla.org/questions/969046#answer-471950
* Using Firefox developer tool "Scratchpad": http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=622036&start=60&p=12098147#p12098147
* Using a third party website: https://firefox-session-restore.herokuapp.com/
Do any of those work on your file(s)? -
How to restore Lost App Tabs and Tab Groups
I make a lot of use of App tabs and Tab Groups. Today at startup of FireFox it showed only 1 blank tab with the default FireFox startup page. As far as I know there wasn't anny update recently.
I have lost session restore before but then FireFox start page showed me the option te restore it, this isn't the case now. Also the restore session button in the menu is grayed out.
Is there anny way to restore my tabs?
Thanks in advance.
I'm using FF 5 under Windows Vista.As well as having had this problem a couple of times on different machines, both immediately after upgrades, I also use the synch capability so that tab groups from more than one machine can be accessed from any of the others - a really useful capability. It's really frustrating to have lost everything and have to try to recreate things from history. It occurs to me that the contents of my sets of groups are stored on a synch server somewhere so they ought to be recoverable from the hopefully, periodic automatic server backups - only problem is, how to access them? unlikely to be possible at this stage!
In this context, a useful enhancement would be a capability to make user-created named backups of all current groups of tabs which could later be restored at will; any upgrade process should also automatically create such a backup for the user so that the problem of lost groups of tabs would be solved. In addition it would give users additional flexibility to create groups of groups - accessed by the save/restore mechanism - say for development, personal or social or whatever. -
I can not delete my history and adding new bookmarks.
Upgrading to later Firefox versions and/or re-installing didn't rectify it either.
The address bar still shows the web addresses of old and whenever I make new bookmarks, it's always gone as if it was never made.
Also, I have noticed that every once in awhile you can not close tabs you've opened, either by pushing on the X button and/or clicking on the mouse to close it. Although closing the window and opening it again (without closing the Firefox application) seemed to rectify the problem in the short term, it's becoming quite annoying.
== This happened ==
Every time Firefox opened
== the Firefox is being usedI think I have a solution.
First, download the add-on SQManager. This should be included with FireFox, it is really good.
Look for the file '''moz_hosts''' in the folder '''places.sqlite'''.
Don't delete the file, just delete the information in the file. My file has over 3600 websites, which go back years!! I did not know they were there, but I was frustrated about not being able to get rid of them. They popped up every time I used the address bar. Clearing my history would not get rid of them.
This is where they are stored!! I found that by deleting the pesky web site from '''moz_hosts''', it does not appear in my address bar anymore!!!
I think that if I just delete all the websites in moz_hosts....
Wa-la...History Gone!!!
As long as you don't delete the file, just empty it, FireFox won't know the difference. It will just keep adding websites to it until you empty it again.
Why running "clear recent history" doesn't do this, I don't know. You are doing manually what "clear recent history" is not doing.
Please tell me if you see any flaw in this.
''I think it's the solution we've all been looking for!'' -
How do I restore my tabs and tab groups after an update to version 36.0?
I work with many tabs when I use Firefox. I keep them ordered in Tab Groups, which helps separate the different kids of work I do and interests I have. I have been using this environment for years. When I started my work today, Firefox updated to v36.0, and the following behaviour was noticed:
1. There is only one tab group when attempting to show Tab Groups in Panorama, as opposed to around a dozen;
2. Normally though the hidden tabs (the tabs in the same group as the startup group and not the default page) don't download content until clicked, the name of the page and icon, if available, will show on the tab. Presently, the tabs show "New Tab" and no icon. There appears, however, to be the number of tabs that exist across all Tab Groups but now are ghosts this one, default Tab Group. I'd have to add, though, I don't count the number of tabs, so I can't be exactly sure. When clicked, there is just a blank page. So it is odd that Firefox knows they are there but cannot simply attach the address to it.
I have tried to restore the following files from my Windows Home Server backup to the AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<gobbletygook>.default folder:
1. In the sessionstore-backups folder, I replaced the previous.js, recovery.bak and recovery.js files (not any of the upgrade~) with files from yesterday and from two days before.
When that didn't do anything, I replaced
2. sessionCheckpoints.json
I didn't see any file with a recent date that appeared to be one that I should restore. I should add that I do see hidden files. I thought about restoring the whole lot, but wasn't sure how this would affect the program on v36.0 and the profile files on 35.0.1.
I have deadlines this week and need to immediately restore my environment in order to make those deadlines. I have no list of addresses to my Web pages to work in IE or other. Any help would be very much appreciated.
On a second note, I had been wondering recently whether this tab group environment is a suitable way to maintain my work environment. Occasionally, when opening Panorama, I would get an error saying a script is taking too long, but if I clicked Continue, it would display the groups in a few seconds. I had considered putting all of it in Bookmarks though it would be tedious and more difficult to access and open multiple tabs. In the beginning, I tried Tab Groups thinking it was a simple matter of maintaining a table of addresses (in tabs) with a tab group ID or name. How could that go wrong? Well, it has, so it is obviously more complicated than that, and I didn't realise that upgrades would affect personal data. Should I abondon using tab groups?With the help of information from user, ptressel, in [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1032154#answer-673322 a post here about the existence of sessionstore.js when version 33 was released], I was able to easily recover my tabs and tab groups as follows:
# close Firefox and, perhaps, allow a few seconds (30s?) for any final closing of files;
# check to see if you have a sessionstore.js file in your profile folder, named like the one I documented in my original post above;
# if it is not timestamped prior to the discovery of your problem, open the sessionstore-backups folder;
# check if the recovery.js file is suitably timestamped and, if not, the recovery.bak.
# At this point, you are likely to find that none of them are prior to your problem occuring. If so, open your backups of this folder and go through steps 2-4 to find a file prior to your problem occuring.
# When you find a file, copy it to the root of your current profile folder and name it, "sessionstore.js"
# Open Firefox. Mine opened up as desired.
This is a Windows solution. Sorry I can't comment on other platforms, but I'd bet that as this is just a file copy and renaming, it is likely the same.
For Windows users, you may find you need to sign out and login as an administrator in order to access the backups. You need not logoff your standard account, but do have Firefox closed as described above.
Hope that helps. -
Is there a way to use Sync to restore the windows and tab groups I had on my previous computer?
I recently set up a new computer. Signing into Sync restored my bookmarks but not my Firefox windows and tab groups. I can get a LIST of "Tabs From Other Devices" to show up, but what I want to do is to restore the session from my previous computer. Is it possible to do this with Sync? I thought that this was supposed to be one of the things it was for.
You can copy the sessionstore.js file in the current Firefox profile folder to an USB stick and copy that file to the profile folder on the other computer.
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/sessionstore.js
*https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Recovering+important+data+from+an+old+profile
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox
You can use this button to go to the currently used Firefox profile folder:
*Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Show Folder (Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder) -
Can i retrieve the photos and contact to my iphone even i reset and erase all the setings?
i sync my iphone in itune its my first time to sync but i backup in another iphone,then all my photos and contacts erase. i panic,so i reset and earse my iphone,then i sync again to perform backup but i cant find my iphone history in itunes backup,can i retrieve my photos and contacts? plz,help me in my problem.
In itunes, click on itunes, clck preferences, devices, and see if and what backups it lists for you.
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When there is an automatic update from Windows or Microsoft Security Essentials, it regularly has removed all my tabs and tab groups. A very frustrating occurance so I have to do a system restore to get all these back. Any solutions to this issue?
After your computer restarts, you should be able to choose '''[[Session Restore|"Restore Previous Session" from Firefox's History menu]]''' to restore all your tabs and groups from last time.
For this to work, Firefox must be set to remember history in the [[Options window - Privacy panel]]. -
Often when Firefox is closed and reopened ALL the tabs and tab groups are missising. FIX!!!!
For reasons that are unclear to me I sometimes close Firefox and later re-open it. In some cases ALL the tabs and tab groups are gone. Today it opened in MSN.com and ALL tabs were gone. I put a lot of pages on these and have NO WAY to find them all again. If this continues and you cannot give me a way to recall them I simply will have to go to another browser. It always happens when I need them most and don't have time to even track down one. It completely upsets my day, week, month whatever!!!.
Is there a way to get them back? Someone asked a similar question and was never given a useful answer.I've begun having this problem as well. Reviewing the above, I seen no errors that I' making. A few weeks ago, without being aware of an update to Firefox, it began behaving differently than it has for years. I've always had it set to open to an empty tab, now it often opens to the 'Firefox Home Page' (which I've never used)... this despite resetting my opening page to "Show my windows and tabs from last time" (upon troubleshooting the 'home page issue' I found that the opening page had reset to FF Home somehow. I store a lot of pages in tab groups and having them disappear is a major bummer since they're news articles I'm waiting to copy.
Also... I run CCleaner weekly and I know that will erase the group tabs I've stored so before running it I have to store those URL's another way. Does anyone know what I can uncheck in CCleaner to keep those tabs?
Thanks. -
Do App Tabs and Tab Groups maintain an active connection with the websites they represent?
I really like the concept behind App Tabs and Tab Groups. I have a few questions, though.
1. Will I use more memory opening a new window or creating a tab group with the same number of tabs? I am addicted to Alt+Tab and am frequently frustrated by tabs because I have to use the mouse (I don't use ctrl+1,2,3 because I can rarely remember where a given tab is in the sequence). I see there is a shortcut to access the panorama view, so maybe tab groups will work for me. It really is down to which method uses up more memory.
2. With tab groups, I assume the websites maintain a live connection until you close a tab or a group. This is not like a fancy shortcut, right? Is the same true of App Tabs? We have an unreliable connection speed and I am wary of keeping all my apps connected through potentially long periods of non-use.
At any given time, it is not uncommon for me to have 5 or 6 tabs open (per window), but if I use App Tabs, it could bump me up to 20 or more. Since a handful of my "apps" periodically update (fb, twitter, email, pandora, etc), I'm not sure it makes sense to keep them all active. Any thoughts/suggestions/recommendations on the subject are welcome.
Thanks!
~KJWith the help of information from user, ptressel, in [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1032154#answer-673322 a post here about the existence of sessionstore.js when version 33 was released], I was able to easily recover my tabs and tab groups as follows:
# close Firefox and, perhaps, allow a few seconds (30s?) for any final closing of files;
# check to see if you have a sessionstore.js file in your profile folder, named like the one I documented in my original post above;
# if it is not timestamped prior to the discovery of your problem, open the sessionstore-backups folder;
# check if the recovery.js file is suitably timestamped and, if not, the recovery.bak.
# At this point, you are likely to find that none of them are prior to your problem occuring. If so, open your backups of this folder and go through steps 2-4 to find a file prior to your problem occuring.
# When you find a file, copy it to the root of your current profile folder and name it, "sessionstore.js"
# Open Firefox. Mine opened up as desired.
This is a Windows solution. Sorry I can't comment on other platforms, but I'd bet that as this is just a file copy and renaming, it is likely the same.
For Windows users, you may find you need to sign out and login as an administrator in order to access the backups. You need not logoff your standard account, but do have Firefox closed as described above.
Hope that helps. -
I keep losing my tabs and history and I have it set in FF to save my history. It doesn't happen all the time just randomly but still annoying. I read all the help and everything that they said to check was fine. I also don't get the icons on every tab like I used to. some have it some don't. I have a tab up for Yahoo and it used to show the Y and now just an empty box. but Facebook shows the F.
I can live without the tab icons but it is really annoying when I lose all my history and tabs.Firefox > Tools > Options > Privacy > History
Firefox will "Use custom setting for History"
Keep until "They Expire" -
After upgrading to Lion, Preview (5.2.2) appears to have lost the facility to run a slide show by using my mouse to click an icon in the visible menu bar, as I could in the previous version. Can I retrieve that icon and thus that facility?
Unfortunately not. Lion has made many adjustments to the previous system. Try opening your pdfs in keynote.
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