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Firefox just updated. Now all of my open tabs are GONE! WTF!? How do I get them back? How do I avoid this in the future?
Return my tabs. Tell me how to avoid this situation in the future.
Wšykne wótegrona (1)
Sorry to hear about this problem, that's not supposed to happen.
Did Firefox mention either:
(A) Doing a tune-up/refresh, or (B) Having to create a new profile?
In either of those cases, your data may be in a different location than what I am about to describe.
Usually Firefox will do an automatic session restore after an update. If it doesn't, first check whether either of these are available (not hidden or grayed out):
- "3-bar" menu button > History > Restore Previous Session
- (menu bar) History > Restore Previous Session
If they are missing or grayed, check either:
- "3-bar" menu button > History > Recently Closed Windows
- "Library" toolbar button > History > Recently Closed Windows
- (menu bar) History > Recently Closed Windows
Can you get any windows back?
If that doesn't help...
Firefox creates numerous session history files, but because session history is only for the immediately previous session, it is unfortunately too easy to lose it. Could you start by making a backup of your existing session history files? Here's how:
Do not exit Firefox, or if you closed it, don't re-open it.
(1) To open your profile folder...
If Firefox is still running:
You can open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either
- "3-bar" menu button > Help > More Troubleshooting Information
- (menu bar) Help > More Troubleshooting Information
- type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter
In the first table on the page, find the Profile Folder row and click the "Open Folder" button. This should launch Windows' File Explorer listing the contents of your current profile folder. (Note: if you installed Firefox from the Microsoft Windows Store, your folder will be in a more obscure location.)
If Firefox is closed:
Type or paste the following into the Windows Run dialog or the system search box and press Enter to launch Windows Explorer:
%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
In that folder, do you see a semi-randomly-named folder? If so, click into it. If you find multiple such folders, find the one that was most recently updated.
(2) Copy out session history files
In your profile folder, double-click into the sessionstore-backups folder. Save all files here to a safe location such as your Documents folder.
(3) What files did you find?
The kinds of files you may find among your sessionstore files are:
- recovery.jsonlz4: the windows and tabs in your currently live Firefox session (or, if Firefox crashed at the last shutdown and is still closed, your last session)
- recovery.baklz4: a backup copy of recovery.jsonlz4
- previous.jsonlz4: the windows and tabs in your last Firefox session
- upgrade.jsonlz4-build_id: the windows and tabs in the Firefox session that was live at the time of your last update
Sometimes you can tell from the last modification time which one will have your missing tabs, but not always.
Optional File Contents Preview
These compressed files are a pain to view, so I created a tool on my website to list out their contents. If you want to try that, you can drag and drop it onto the large box on the following page, then click the "Scrounge URLs" button:
https://www.jeffersonscher.com/ffu/scrounger.html
If you don't get a list within 15 seconds, that probably means the script is caught in a loop. You may need to close the tab to avoid a tab crash and then try again in a new tab.
If you get a useful list, use the "Save List" button to archive it as a web page of clickable links for future reference, in case no other approach is successful.