Reviews for Session Boss
Session Boss by William Wng
Review by Firefox user 13880448
Rated 2 out of 5
by Firefox user 13880448, 7 years agoWith the latest update the extension DELETED ALL USER SAVED SESSIONS, destroying a full month's work of extensive reading, carefully selecting and organizing news-sources for a series of very important -to be published- news research articles.
No way to track back all those various sources
REPLY:
It's actually been more than a month's work, I had been using Firefox's function to restore open tabs on startup.
When I used your extension, I saved this information in User Sessions, to be sure.
Since then I've been rarely using Firefox's function to open last session on startup, in order to avoid unnecessary burden on the system. but I had it enabled when the 'incident' happened.
What happened was
1) all User saved Session were deleted, not visible to the extension no more.
2) At the same time, on opening last session with FF (built-in function), the "open tabs" of the previous session were opened, but their URL was empty...
...that is, the number of tabs of previous session were opened, but they were all "new tab" tabs...
...and then Session Boss, started automatically saving the new, empty sessions.
It may have been an issue that came up with the joint upgrade of Firefox AND Session Boss...
...,maybe you could try reproducing the issue this way...
However I did NOT reset the browser or anything, nor were the data of ANY other extension messed with.
I am not operating different user profiles on Firefox.
I also upgraded to last FF version on my other computers, where "last session" (built-in function) was not messed with
I found the extension data file you speak of named "storage.js".
HOW CAN I USE IT TO TRY TO RESTORE WHATEVER DATA IT HAS?
I fear it will have saved the "empty" automatic back-up session, and overwritten the previous healthy one.
Can you provide some directions?
REPLY 2:
Unfortunately all the User and Automatically saved sessions prior to updating were deleted, no way to retrieve it.
I asked at FF Support and they suggested the following:
"Session Boss and Tab Session Manager use a single file named storage.js and it's certainly possible the file became corrupted.....
I think this may be an issue that needs to be escalated because extensions may store many kinds of data that no one wants to lose in a crash.
Firefox allows extensions to use database storage as well as the storage.json file, so extension authors could use that for backups from time to time. I don't know how much complexity that would add."
Maybe something to consider?
Also, an "export" function seems necessary, for safety.
REPLY 3
I understand, and I didn't mean to provide discouragement, but I have to state what I experienced....spend a 4-5 days frantically searching online for some sort of solution.
Not there yet, but I was able to get some previously saved sessions from the the browser's sessionstore-backup folder...
Still need to compare and merge files together, but I am not in that same desperate state.
I can provide no suggestions on a technical level whatsoever.
Your extension is the best I came across for Firefox Quantum, but early in the development issue still have to be resolved.
QUESTION
- Is it possible to save separate sessions to distinct session files?
Or is it necessary to save all sessions under a single file?
My - uneducated - thinking is, perhaps the danger of losing past session might be smaller if the current session was being worked on separately from previous ones.
...don't really know...
No way to track back all those various sources
REPLY:
It's actually been more than a month's work, I had been using Firefox's function to restore open tabs on startup.
When I used your extension, I saved this information in User Sessions, to be sure.
Since then I've been rarely using Firefox's function to open last session on startup, in order to avoid unnecessary burden on the system. but I had it enabled when the 'incident' happened.
What happened was
1) all User saved Session were deleted, not visible to the extension no more.
2) At the same time, on opening last session with FF (built-in function), the "open tabs" of the previous session were opened, but their URL was empty...
...that is, the number of tabs of previous session were opened, but they were all "new tab" tabs...
...and then Session Boss, started automatically saving the new, empty sessions.
It may have been an issue that came up with the joint upgrade of Firefox AND Session Boss...
...,maybe you could try reproducing the issue this way...
However I did NOT reset the browser or anything, nor were the data of ANY other extension messed with.
I am not operating different user profiles on Firefox.
I also upgraded to last FF version on my other computers, where "last session" (built-in function) was not messed with
I found the extension data file you speak of named "storage.js".
HOW CAN I USE IT TO TRY TO RESTORE WHATEVER DATA IT HAS?
I fear it will have saved the "empty" automatic back-up session, and overwritten the previous healthy one.
Can you provide some directions?
REPLY 2:
Unfortunately all the User and Automatically saved sessions prior to updating were deleted, no way to retrieve it.
I asked at FF Support and they suggested the following:
"Session Boss and Tab Session Manager use a single file named storage.js and it's certainly possible the file became corrupted.....
I think this may be an issue that needs to be escalated because extensions may store many kinds of data that no one wants to lose in a crash.
Firefox allows extensions to use database storage as well as the storage.json file, so extension authors could use that for backups from time to time. I don't know how much complexity that would add."
Maybe something to consider?
Also, an "export" function seems necessary, for safety.
REPLY 3
I understand, and I didn't mean to provide discouragement, but I have to state what I experienced....spend a 4-5 days frantically searching online for some sort of solution.
Not there yet, but I was able to get some previously saved sessions from the the browser's sessionstore-backup folder...
Still need to compare and merge files together, but I am not in that same desperate state.
I can provide no suggestions on a technical level whatsoever.
Your extension is the best I came across for Firefox Quantum, but early in the development issue still have to be resolved.
QUESTION
- Is it possible to save separate sessions to distinct session files?
Or is it necessary to save all sessions under a single file?
My - uneducated - thinking is, perhaps the danger of losing past session might be smaller if the current session was being worked on separately from previous ones.
...don't really know...
Developer response
posted 7 years agoSorry to hear about that. Hope your bookmarks and history can provide some ways to look back on the sites you visited. It's curious how an extension released two weeks ago (3/6/2018) can facilitate a full month of hardcore research work already. But anyway, I'm sorry you lost your work and hope you can recover your links.
Anyway, I have tried to replicate the problem. I had a fresh install of Firefox, installed Session Boss 1.0, saved lots of tabs and windows and sessions, and upgraded to 1.1. The old sessions were still there. Then upgraded to 1.2. The old sessions were still there. I've tried these on both Firefox 57 and the latest 59. Same result.
Session Boss stores data in Firefox's profile folder, see the "Browser extension storage and offline backup" section on where the extension data file is. See if the data file is still there. The extension data file can be backed up offline.
Since the extension data file is tied to the profile, using a different Firefox profile will not see the original saved session. See if you are using a different profile when upgrading.
Refresh Firefox would also wipe out all extension data.
Reply2:
- Can you use Undo to get back to a previous snapshot of the user sessions? There are left and right arrows at the top of the extension popup UI, in the middle of the top bar. The left arrow is for Undo.
- Does the Auto Backup Sessions have one of your older sessions? Auto backup session is saved in addition to the older backup sessions. Even if the current browser has empty pages and is backed up, the older backed up sessions still have the data.
Reply3:
It's quite concerning regarding FF support's reply on the data file managed by Firefox being corrupted. As extension developers, we use the storage API Firefox provided to store data. We don't know nor should we care whether Firefox uses one file, multiple files, or a database to implement the API to store data. We trust Firefox would do a good job to provide a reliable implementation to the API. In fact, none of the documentation on the API [1] mentions any of the implementation detail. Nor does it have any warning about its reliability. I mean if it's unreliable, they should put a warning there. It's just a big waste of time.
For now, please back up the storage.json file periodically, till I figure out what's the next step. Only started to do development for Firefox and it's not very encouraging...
[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/storage/local
Reply4 to QUESTION:
- I have no control over saving the data to one file or to separate files. The Firefox implementation makes that decision underneath. In fact I've already designed data versioning into the extension - any user changes are stored as a new snapshot version while the old versions are not touched, to avoid accidental overwrite. That's why Undo/Redo functionality can work to roll back changes. But all that precaution are meaningless if Firefox storing everything in one file underneath.
Anyway, I need to figure out the next steps.
Anyway, I have tried to replicate the problem. I had a fresh install of Firefox, installed Session Boss 1.0, saved lots of tabs and windows and sessions, and upgraded to 1.1. The old sessions were still there. Then upgraded to 1.2. The old sessions were still there. I've tried these on both Firefox 57 and the latest 59. Same result.
Session Boss stores data in Firefox's profile folder, see the "Browser extension storage and offline backup" section on where the extension data file is. See if the data file is still there. The extension data file can be backed up offline.
Since the extension data file is tied to the profile, using a different Firefox profile will not see the original saved session. See if you are using a different profile when upgrading.
Refresh Firefox would also wipe out all extension data.
Reply2:
- Can you use Undo to get back to a previous snapshot of the user sessions? There are left and right arrows at the top of the extension popup UI, in the middle of the top bar. The left arrow is for Undo.
- Does the Auto Backup Sessions have one of your older sessions? Auto backup session is saved in addition to the older backup sessions. Even if the current browser has empty pages and is backed up, the older backed up sessions still have the data.
Reply3:
It's quite concerning regarding FF support's reply on the data file managed by Firefox being corrupted. As extension developers, we use the storage API Firefox provided to store data. We don't know nor should we care whether Firefox uses one file, multiple files, or a database to implement the API to store data. We trust Firefox would do a good job to provide a reliable implementation to the API. In fact, none of the documentation on the API [1] mentions any of the implementation detail. Nor does it have any warning about its reliability. I mean if it's unreliable, they should put a warning there. It's just a big waste of time.
For now, please back up the storage.json file periodically, till I figure out what's the next step. Only started to do development for Firefox and it's not very encouraging...
[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/storage/local
Reply4 to QUESTION:
- I have no control over saving the data to one file or to separate files. The Firefox implementation makes that decision underneath. In fact I've already designed data versioning into the extension - any user changes are stored as a new snapshot version while the old versions are not touched, to avoid accidental overwrite. That's why Undo/Redo functionality can work to roll back changes. But all that precaution are meaningless if Firefox storing everything in one file underneath.
Anyway, I need to figure out the next steps.