And if I cannot restore using either of these files, please point me to a way I can extract the tab information so I can switch to a different browser. This is the third time this has happened to me and I can not afford to continue using a browser that erases my tabs.

Could you clarify which screen you are seeing (for a moment, before it flashes away)? Is it the "This is embarrassing" screen that lists the previous session windows and tabs, the one that typically comes up after you've crashed a few times in a row?

When this happens, is History > Restore Previous Session still available?

If History > Restore Previous Session is grayed out, are there any items under either:

• History > Recently Closed Tabs
• History > Recently Closed Windows

Here are some threads on how to "mine" your old sessionstore.js or sessionstore.bak 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/

So what happens is that the "This is embarrassing" screen pops up, sometimes it shows the tabs in their entirety, sometimes it shows something completely blank. As soon as this screen pops up, it immediately starts trying to go to my home page. Hitting the red X stop button does nothing. Hitting any button does nothing. At that point it erases whatever was in the sessionstore.js file and replaces it with one window, one tab, and my home page. I have the profiles folder open and I watch it overwrite the js file in real time. Restore Previous session is either grayed out or does nothing when clicking it.

One other thought: since Firefox's session history is only one session deep, if you really depend on it, consider using the Session Manager extension.

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/session-manager/

At this point, I just want my tabs back. I have two different restore files and neither one works(I've tried using the .bak file and it has the same issue).

If I can't get the tabs back in Firefox, then I would at least like to extract the tab data in some meaningful format so I can switch to a browser that doesn't periodically lose all of my tabs.

It JUST happened again, when I only had 7 tabs opened, and again it did the same exact thing. I'm fed up.

Did any of the methods here work: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/982669#answer-520147

It is possible that there is a problem with the sessionstore.bak file.
Firefox copies (renames) the sessionstore.js file to sessionstore.bak when Firefox is started to make it possible to restore the previous session at any time during the current sessions and creates a new sessionstore.js file for the current session.
If this renaming fails for some reason then you won't be able to restore this previous session.
You can try to delete the sessionstore.bak file.

In case you use "Clear history when Firefox closes" then try to disable it because Firefox tries to do this on a next start when it has failed to complete this on the previous close (i.e. privacy.sanitize.didShutdownSanitize is not true).

Well, like I said, I have two different sessionstore files. Both result in the same erroneous behavior. The fact that Firefox crashed and failed to do it a third time on a session that only had seven tabs means that it won't work for any restore. I'm just about at the point where I'm going to wash my hands of this entirely.

jscher2000, the first solution worked. However since there doesn't appear to be any fix for what Firefox is doing, nor any indication as to why it is doing it, I'm giving up on the browser.

This problem could be caused by an undiagnosed problem in your settings folder or in your Firefox program folder. If you decide you miss Firefox, come back for suggestions on how to work around those issues.

Before you go, perhaps you can add a note to this thread on when it started and whether it was coincident with an upgrade or other software change, or seems to have occurred completely out of the blue. This could be helpful if someone else has this problem and finds your thread in a web search.