Firefox ‘Trouble Getting Your Pages Back’ Error: How to Restore Your Session

Firefox shows the "Trouble getting your pages back" message when it cannot read your saved session file at startup. The same gray page appears at about:sessionrestore whenever sessionstore.jsonlz4 in your profile is corrupt or missing.

You can usually fix it in a few minutes. Start with Restore Session and the History menu, then clear cached data, run Troubleshoot Mode, update Firefox, or recover an older backup file by hand.

In this guide, I have covered:

Why Firefox Shows the “Trouble Getting Your Pages Back” Error

You opened Firefox expecting your last tabs and windows back. Instead, you get a gray error page with the headline “Sorry. We’re having trouble getting your pages back.” Firefox shows this when the saved session file is unreadable.

The same page appears at about:sessionrestore when Firefox cannot read the saved session on demand. It offers two buttons, Restore Session and Start New Session, plus a “View previous tabs” list so you can uncheck individual tabs before retrying.

You can hit this after a crash, a forced shutdown, or a close while Firefox was still writing the session file. It also appears if two Firefox processes share the same profile, or if a security tool locked the profile folder. For the community discussion of this exact message, see the Mozilla support thread for the session restore error.

Click Restore Session on the Error Page

The error page is already in front of you. Give Firefox one clean chance to reload the saved session before changing any settings.

1. On the error page, click the Restore Session button.
2. Wait a few seconds while Firefox reads sessionstore.jsonlz4 from your profile folder.
3. If nothing loads, click Start New Session to abandon the broken file and open a fresh window.

If Restore Session succeeds, your tabs come back and you are done. If it fails again or the page reloads the same error, move on to the next step.

Make Sure “Open Previous Windows and Tabs” Is Turned On

If the error keeps coming back, check one Firefox startup setting first. The session restore feature has to be enabled, or Firefox has nothing to restore.

1. Click the hamburger menu at the top right of Firefox and choose Settings.
2. Select the General panel from the left sidebar.
3. Scroll to the Startup section.
4. Tick the box next to Open previous windows and tabs.
5. Also tick Warn you when quitting the browser below it, so Firefox prompts you next time instead of dropping the session silently.

Close the Settings tab to save the change, then fully close and reopen Firefox. Your tabs should restore on the next launch.

If Open previous windows and tabs is greyed out, your profile may be managed by an organization or a policies.json file. Contact your IT admin, or check the browser.startup.page value on about:config and set it to 3 for “restore previous session.”

Use Restore Previous Session From the History Menu

If the error page keeps coming up on startup, trigger the same restore path manually from inside Firefox.

1. Click the hamburger menu at the top right of Firefox.
2. Choose History.
3. Click Restore Previous Session.

Firefox re-reads the last saved session and reloads it in the current window. If the menu item is greyed out, Firefox has nothing saved to restore. The error will then reappear on every launch until you re-enable the feature in Settings.

TIP: Press Alt on Windows or Linux to reveal the classic menu bar, then click History > Restore Previous Session if you prefer that path.

Reopen Individual Tabs or Windows From Recently Closed

When the full session is unreadable but a few tabs were saved, recover them one at a time.

1. Click the hamburger menu at the top right of Firefox.
2. Choose History.
3. Click Recently Closed Tabs to reopen the most recent single tab, or Recently Closed Windows for a full window.
4. Repeat the click to keep walking back through the closed-items stack.

Each click removes the next entry from the closed-items list. This works even when the main session file is corrupted, because Firefox keeps the closed-items list separately inside sessionstore-backups.

Uncheck a Problem Tab and Try Again

If one tab keeps breaking the restore, the error page lets you leave it out. The “View previous tabs” list shows every tab Firefox tried to restore, with checkboxes.

1. On the error page, click View previous tabs to expand the list.
2. Untick the tab you suspect caused the crash, for example the one that was loading a heavy web app when Firefox closed.
3. Click Restore Session again.

Firefox reloads every checked tab and skips the unchecked one. Open the skipped tab later by hand from History > Recently Closed Tabs if you still need it.

Clear Cookies and Cache in Firefox

If the error only shows up for a few sites, corrupted site storage may be the trigger. Clearing the cache forces Firefox to re-fetch those pages on the next restore.

1. Open the Firefox browser on your computer.
2. Click on the More menu and select the Settings menu.
   
3. Switch to the Privacy & Security tab and scroll to the Cookies and Site data section.
   
4. Click on the Clear Data... button.
5. Enable the checkbox for the 'Cookies and Site Data' and 'Cached Web Content' options.
   
6. Hit on the Clear option.
   It will immediately delete the cache, cookies, and site data on the browser.

Restart Firefox after the cleanup and try Restore Previous Session from the History menu again. You’ll know it worked when your tabs open without the gray error page.

Try Troubleshoot Mode to Rule Out Extensions

If the restore still fails, an extension may have corrupted the session file. Tab managers, session savers, and ad blockers can write a malformed entry. Troubleshoot Mode temporarily disables extensions and themes so you can test the restore without them.

1. Click the hamburger menu at the top right of Firefox.
2. Click Help.
3. Select Troubleshoot Mode….
4. Click Restart in the confirmation dialog.

If your session restores correctly in Troubleshoot Mode, the problem is one of your extensions or your custom theme. You’ll know it worked when your tabs open with extensions disabled. Re-enable them one at a time, restarting Firefox between each, until the error returns. Then remove or update the offender.

Update Firefox to the Latest Version

If you are on an older build, a session restore bug may be the cause. Older Firefox builds have shipped known issues in this path, and a fresh build often clears the error without further changes.

1. Open the Firefox browser app on your computer.
2. Click on the More menu and select the Settings menu.
   
3. Scroll down to the Firefox Updates section within the General tab, and click the Check for updates button.
   
4. Firefox will check for updates and download them. It may ask to restart to complete the installation of the update.
   The browser will be updated to the latest version.

After Firefox updates and restarts, open the History menu and run Restore Previous Session. You’ll know it worked when the error no longer appears.

If the error appeared only after a recent update, see how to downgrade and install an older version of Firefox.

TIP: You can also check the installed build by typing about:support in the address bar and reading the Application Version line at the top.

Refresh Firefox If Nothing Else Helps

When the gentler fixes fail, Refresh gives Firefox a mostly clean profile. It resets preferences, removes extensions, and rebuilds the parts of the profile that are most likely to be corrupted, while keeping your bookmarks, passwords, and browsing history. This is the last soft reset before manual file work.

1. Click the hamburger menu , choose Help, then select More Troubleshooting Information.
2. On the Troubleshooting Information page, find the Give Firefox a Tune Up section on the right.
3. Click Refresh Firefox and confirm by clicking Refresh Firefox in the dialog.
4. Wait for Firefox to restart. Your bookmarks and logins are preserved, but extensions and most site settings are reset.

After the refresh, reopen Firefox, enable Open previous windows and tabs in Settings > General > Startup, and restore your previous session from the History menu. You’ll know it worked when Firefox starts cleanly and the restore error stops appearing. For a deeper reset, see the full Firefox reset guide.

Recover Tabs From the Sessionstore Backups Folder

If the current session file is broken, an older backup can replace it. Firefox keeps rolling backups of the session in your profile directory. If Restore Session still fails after a refresh, copy a previous backup into place manually.

1. Type about:support in the address bar and press Enter.
2. Under Application Basics, find the Profile Folder row and click Open Folder (or Open Directory on macOS).
3. Open the sessionstore-backups subfolder inside the profile.
4. Look for files named recovery.jsonlz4, recovery.baklz4, previous.jsonlz4, and the dated upgrade.jsonlz4-yyyymmddhhmmss backups.
5. Close Firefox completely before touching any of these files.
6. Copy the backup you want to recover to the parent profile folder and rename it to sessionstore.jsonlz4, overwriting the broken file.
7. Restart Firefox. The backup loads as the current session.

For a walkthrough of clearing the data that often sits next to the session file, see the Firefox cookies and cache guide.

ALERT: Do not edit, rename, or delete files in the profile folder while Firefox is running. A half-written sessionstore.jsonlz4 is exactly what causes the error you are trying to fix.

Still Seeing the Error? Try These Last Steps

If the error keeps coming back after every step above, work through these in order. Open a private window first. If pages load there, the problem is your main profile or session file, not Firefox itself.

1. Switch to a new Firefox profile to rule out profile corruption: open the hamburger menu , type about:profiles in the address bar, and click Create a New Profile.
2. Disable hardware acceleration in Settings > General > Performance (uncheck Use recommended performance settings, then uncheck Use hardware acceleration when available). Faulty GPU drivers can corrupt the session during shutdown.
3. Check the profile folder permissions on your drive. If the user account no longer has write access, Firefox cannot update the session file and reads back a half-written copy next launch.
4. Temporarily disable antivirus or backup software that may lock files in the profile folder while Firefox is closing.
5. Clear your local Firefox cache and try again. Old cache data has been reported to interfere with session restore on slow disks.

If none of the above clears the error, your saved session may be unrecoverable. Closing Firefox cleanly from this point forward (using the menu rather than killing the process) will keep the next session intact.

RELATED: Clear Browser Cookies and Cache from the Mozilla Firefox