Firefox not remembering previous session

[Teunis]

Now this might not be a 14.04 problem but hey, that's where it shows up.

Because there were problems with Firefox not displaying certain elements a few days ago decided to removed my (very old) .mozilla directory to generated a new one and around the same time I installed Firefox 29.
Today I found out Firefox no longer remembers the previous session and I have to reopen my regular tabs.
It does work to add them to the start page but that's not what I was after.

Before I try a reset, any others with a similar behaviour?

[Goeroeboeroe]

Did you look in settings? General -> When Firefox starts. Maybe 'show windows and tabs like they were" is reset.
(Since you live in the Netherlands you probably read Dutch. So I repeat this with the Dutch text in Firefox, because the English is probably not correct: Voorkeuren -> Algemeen -> Opstarten -> Als Firefox start)

[Teunis]

Yes that one is selected but not functional.
Thanks for implicitly confirming it's a problem specific on my computer.
Bedankt aan deze uil

[jlittle]

Yes.

I spent a lot of yesterday trying to cudgel firefox 29 back to How I Like It, and made several missteps*, including one like yours. I suspect the new "Customize" function is buggy, especially if one uses an add-on bar. I've mostly got it okay, now.

*Here follows some lowlights of my struggle yesterday; normal, easily bored people would be best ignoring it; like rants its main purpose is catharsis for the writer. I won't go into the secondary effects from being so repeatedly frustrated; they involve, f.ex., kinetic furniture and family discord.

• I used to have browser.tabs.onTop set to false, and initially firefox 29 honoured it, sort of, but after reinstalling the Status-4-Evar add-on, to get back a status bar, the tabs were overwriting the top of the page. So, I tried moving .mozilla to one side, inspecting about:config to see what a vanilla install looked like, then moving it back again. The result: everything lost, I reached a blank, completely uncustomized firefox.
• They've messed with firefox sync, and I was supposed to get a nice explanation of this and what I had to do, but didn't, perhaps owing to the earlier misstep. I had to fire up my old windows XP install, run firefox, update it to 29, and create a new sync account, and sync to that. Then, back on Saucy, sign in to the new sync account, this at least, got me back to where I'd last synced the XP firefox.
• I found the actually latest version of Status-4-Evar; the automatic one is not the latest, and doesn't work. See
  (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/a...evar/versions/ ; note the first "addons" has an "s", but the second does not, another misstep).
• I realized I need the "Classic Theme Restorer" add-on. Then followed much wrestling with the Customize function, to get things where I want. The status bar now overwrites the bottom of the customize screen, which has the "Exit customize" button...

[Teunis]

A difference is I am totally happy with he new design and did not attempt to change anything.
I added a few plugins, Ghostery, Adblock+ and Flashblock, that's it.

[Teunis]

I found part of the reason Firefox does not *seem* to remember it's last session.

On closing it there remains a process called Firefox...
Once I kill the process and then restart Firefox all is well.

Over the past days I noticed that when switching between tabs Firefox like flashed and suddenly I'd have different tabs, with the old content that I missed during start up.
So it seems the GUI can run separate from the back end process.

Now I have to find out how comes the Firefox process stays alive.

[jlittle]

... over the past days I noticed that when switching between tabs Firefox like flashed and suddenly I'd have different tabs, with the old content that I missed during start up.
So it seems the GUI can run separate from the back end process.

Have you set up sync, including tabs? I've been switching between installs a lot recently, and when I had sync set to include tabs I had behaviour as you describe. I suspect their servers are sagging under the load, producing delays; that background process is trying to sync your tabs. How a delayed tab sync fits with a session tab restore might be difficult.


Regards, John Little

[Teunis]

No Sync here, I don't trust or encourage cloud-like 'solutions'.

Presently I'm trying to find out if different ways of shutting down give different results.

[Guest]

I was having a similar problem. Whenever I closed firefox or rebooted, it wouldn't restore my tabs. The system monitor showed that firefox had 2 windows open, the one I was using and a "restore session" window, but the "restore session" window never popped up and I couldn't find it manually. When I ended the process through the system monitor, it saved my tabs.
I ended up removing firefox and then reinstalling it without the "ubuntu specific configuration" option and now it saves my tabs when I close the firefox window without having to use the system monitor.

[Teunis]

Which reminds me, for me the problem was a couple of days later fixed after a bunch of updates.