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A message has come up saying that an update is ready and should be downloaded.

Question: Will I lose the websites/tabs that are on the top bar or will they all be reloaded automatically?

Many thanks

John

A message has come up saying that an update is ready and should be downloaded. Question: Will I lose the websites/tabs that are on the top bar or will they all be reloaded automatically? Many thanks John

All Replies (2)

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Hi John, your Firefox is reporting that it is version 69 while the current release is version 79 -- is it possible you've avoided updating for 10 months?

Considering the long span of time, I think there is more risk of something going wrong than usual, so it's a good idea to make a backup of your data. This article has suggestions on that: Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles.


More specifically, to back up your current open windows and tabs (session history):

You can open your current Firefox profile folder using either

  • "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help > Troubleshooting Information
  • (menu bar) Help > 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. That will launch a new File Explorer window.

In File Explorer, double-click into the sessionstore-backups folder. Copy all files here and paste to a safe location such as your Documents folder.

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Note that you may have to update more than once to end up with the current 79 release as there are some so called 'watershed' releases that have special migration code to ensure files in the profile folder are updated properly.


You can backup specific files in the Firefox profile folder with Firefox closed.

  • bookmarks and history: places.sqlite
  • favicons: favicons.sqlite
  • bookmark backups: compressed .jsonlz4 JSON backups in the bookmarkbackups folder
  • cookies.sqlite for the Cookies
  • formhistory.sqlite for saved autocomplete Form Data
  • logins.json (passwords) and key4.db (58+) or key3.db (57 and older) (decryption key) for Passwords saved in the Password Manager
    if you only have key3.db then make sure to remove an existing key4.db
  • cert9.db (58+) or cert8.db (57 and older) for (intermediate) certificates stored in the Certificate Manager
    if you only have cert8.db then make sure to remove an existing cert9.db
  • persdict.dat for words you added to the spelling checker dictionary
  • permissions.sqlite for Permissions and possibly content-prefs.sqlite for other website specific data (Site Preferences)
  • sessionstore.jsonlz4 for open tabs and pinned tabs (see also the sessionstore-backups folder)