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Recently installed a "cleaner" app called PrivaZer. Ran the app and rebooted as part of the process which also included creating a restore point. Once system rebooted and logged in, pinned tabs were gone?! Using the created restore point did NOT restore the pinned tabs. Is there a way to recover the pinned tabs? Thanks in advance. FRANK

Recently installed a "cleaner" app called PrivaZer. Ran the app and rebooted as part of the process which also included creating a restore point. Once system rebooted and logged in, pinned tabs were gone?! Using the created restore point did NOT restore the pinned tabs. Is there a way to recover the pinned tabs? Thanks in advance. FRANK

All Replies (11)

Hi Frank, I don't know what that program does, but here are some places to check:

(A) Manual Session/Window Restore

Are either of these available?

  • "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

If that doesn't help...

(B) File Mining

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.

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.

I do find the SESSION FILES and opened SESSION-STORE BACKUPS. Dragged most recent file to "scrounge URLs" and ran. App does find my open tabs but not my pinned tabs. If doable, where do I find these? How do I protect/save pinned tabs in future?

Normally, pinned tabs are saved automatically as long as you didn't close the window with the pinned tabs before some other window. If they were in the not-last-closed window, you need to use one of these to get them back:

  • menu button > History > Recently Closed Windows
  • (menu bar) History > Recently Closed Windows

Are the missing pinned tabs in any of the Closed windows found by the Scrounger tool?

If not, are the pinned tabs in the latest upgrade.jsonlz4-2024... file? That might be a couple weeks old by now, so they wouldn't be the latest set.

Only 3 "closed windows" were shown... 1) Sign In - Google Account 2) AOL Mail - jscher2000 (I assume first support post) 3) AOL Mail - jscher2000 (I assume second support post)

NO missing pinned tabs.

Yes, it's normal for Firefox to only keep the tabs for 3 closed windows. The actual tabs in those 3 windows aren't listed on the menu, you would need to restore the window to see what tabs are/were in it.

Nothing, nada, zero...  :-(

Did you check any of the older files, like the upgrade.jsonlz4-2024... files, through the Scrounger tool? I'm pretty sure it can find pinned tabs, but I will test now just in case...


Yes, it finds pinned tabs, but they aren't indicated as pinned, they are listed like any other tab in the window.

Ezalaki modifié na jscher2000 - Support Volunteer

When I click on the 06/12/2024 SESSION-BACKUP folder is EMPTY. The 06/14/2024 "upgrade" folder only finds pinned tabs that are current using scrounger...nothing else.

It sounds like you got the Firefox 127 update today. Was there a previous update from a couple weeks ago with any tabs in it? I'm not sure an external cleaner would remove the contents of the file without just deleting the file, but if it's empty, I guess that is possible.

"Was there a previous update from a couple weeks ago with any tabs in it? " Where do I locate this info? IF there is an earlier version can I open it while running the latest?

Sorry, I meant a previous upgrade.jsonlz4-2024... file in your sessionstore-backups folder (or if you have multiple profiles, or an Old Firefox Data folder on your desktop, any available sessionstore-backups folder).

Since that would be several weeks out of date, I think it's probably best used for research rather than rolling back that far.