Hi

When you say that you restarted your PC, did you just turn it off and back on again, or was this a full reinstall of Windows from installation media?

If you mean the second option, it appears that you are using Firefox Sync as a back up service. This is not what Sync is designed to do. The Firefox Sync service takes a copy of the data you wish to include and transfers it to a second device (typically a mobile device such as a tablet or a telephone) running a copy of Firefox. The storage in between all attached devices is both temporary and fragile and is not stable enough to be (and is not designed as) a reliable backup service.

If you have a copy of your Firefox profile for desktop Firefox, you may be able to recover your bookmarks and other data. Please have a read of this article.

If you have a copy of your data on a mobile version of Firefox, please follow these instructions to connect it to Firefox Sync to copy your data.

Paul, I simply restarted my computer- no updates. Previously, every time, the pages either come back automatically on Firefox or a restore sessions page comes up, without a problem. Even with updates, it has restored. I dont use FF on my mobile or on my mac computer. Ill read the article for help. I wasnt purposely using sync for this. How can I prevent this or save future tabs/pages?

Paul- My bookmarks are in tact.

I'm sure there is some repeated info here, but just in case:

Usually Firefox will attempt an automatic crash recovery for a regular (non-private) session.

Could you 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

Note: Each window also has its own Recently Closed Tabs list.

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.

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.

Your going to have to look here for more help as well. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/restore-previous-session

Thank you! Ill try this!

Interestingly, there was not an option to "restore session", nor did it list any "recently closed windows or tabs". Ive never had this happen. It may have just been a "glitch" w Firefox. Since then, it lists "recently closed windows and tabs" from everything after this occurrence. I will follow the rest of your recommendations and let you know the results! Thank you!

Use one of these to close Firefox if you are currently doing that by clicking the close X on the Firefox Title bar, especially if you have multiple windows open to prevent losing tabs in unnoticed windows.

• "3-bar" menu button -> Exit (Power button)
• Windows: File -> Exit
• Mac: Firefox -> Quit Firefox
• Linux: File -> Quit