Don't close Firefox. First try to rescue any sessionstore files in your settings folder that might possibly have your previous session data.

Open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using

Help > Troubleshooting Information > "Show Folder" button

Copy all sessionstore files (e.g., sessionstore.bak, sessionstore.js) to a safe location (e.g., your Documents folder). Whatever was saved before is in one or both of those files.

Note: If Windows does not display the file extension, turn them on using the method in this article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/865219.

Do any of the time stamps on the files look promising?

These threads have suggestions on how to "mine" the old file to extract the URLs:

• Using Firefox's Browser Console (formerly known as Error Console): https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/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/

Can you recover them?

Thanks for your help, but your answer created more problems for me than I anticipated when I started! (Me being a non techie, lol...) Microsoft got me to install Fix It, but that hasn't helped at all....I found files called sessions in this path.....C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\cr3r9xxv.default\sessions Well, I was not sure if these were the ones I wanted, but the dates are all the 14th Jan, 15th Jan & 16th Jan....so I sent them all to My documents. But as they had no files extensions, that's where it got tricky for me....sigh......

Just a little question, do you think If I use a restore point, that might fix the problem? I have had lots of success with this solution in the past!!

Sorry to trouble you, but I hope you can help me today, as I don't want to leave the computer on all night in this awful heat... If I don't hear from you soon, I will try the restore point..... Many thanks for all your help, I really appreciate it.... Kind regards Sylvia

Hi Sylvia, I didn't see your reply last night. The Microsoft article also has the steps to manually change the setting, which just takes a moment.

The Windows system restore feature can have unpredictable effects, but sometimes it works. It all depends on the creation dates of the available restore points.

You can check if you have an user.js file in the Firefox profile folder that sets the browser.sessionstore.resume_session_once pref to true.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/browser.sessionstore.resume_session_once

Note that your System Details List shows that you have a user.js file in the profile folder to initialize some prefs on each start of Firefox.

The user.js file is only present if you or other software has created it, so normally it wouldn't be there. you can check its content with a plain text editor if you didn't create this file yourself.

The user.js file is read each time you start Firefox and initializes preferences to the value specified in this file, so preferences set via user.js can only be changed temporarily for the current session.

You can use this button to go to the Firefox profile folder:

• Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Show Folder (Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder)

You can delete this user.js file.

Note that Windows hides some file extensions by default.
Among them are .html and .ini and .js and .txt, so you may only see the name "user" without file extension.
You can see the real file type (file extension) in the Properties of the file via the right-click context menu in Windows Explorer.

Thanks cor-el once again to the rescue....I did run a System Restore the next day, this seemed to fix the problem. Do I still need to do any of these steps? I hope not, as I get very nervous if I have to do things I don't really understand. I have limited computer knowledge, and, boy, does it show. What you wrote was a bit gobbledegook to me, but I was/am willing to do as you suggested if you think it might help! I'm getting old now, so the learning continues, but who knows when the mind will give out completely? Kind regards Sylvia

If Firefox is working properly after doing the System Restore then there is no need to do the steps that were posted above.

What does one do in the case where opening the sessionrestore.bak only opens a completely blank file?

Hi microchipgirl, how are you opening sessionstore.bak? Could you provide a little more information on what you're trying to do?

I re-visited this question about the user.js file, Cor-el. But I couldn't find it! I did Help>Trouble shooting Info, then didn't know where to go after that, (there was no Profile Directory/show folder....) Do you think it would help any by finding it?

My session Manager is working perfectly now. When I am closing down, it prompts me by asking I if I want to 'save this session'. I was so glad, I was in a panic for a little while there....lol... Thanks for all your help.. Sylvia

The user.js file isn't there by default. It is only present if you or other software had created it, so if you can't find it then it is OK. Note that Windows hides the .js file extension, so you likely only see a User file with the JScript type.

You can see in the screenshot in this article how the about:support page is supposed to look like and where the button is located in the Application Basics section below the user agent.

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Using+the+Troubleshooting+Information+page