FIrefox did not restore tabs and windows after update as promised

[Carlos333]

Recently notified of Firefox update, and it promised open windows and tabs would be restored. They weren't. I had all kinds of things open, and now lost. Mozilla should not promise things they can't deliver. If they had said save and close all windows first, I would have done that!

[daustin97222]

Yes, the update to 114.0.2 kicked me off of gmail, Amazon, ... but some windows recovered.

[tizzybt]

I just lost all my pinned tabs with the latest update (7-7-23). 😠

[Phillip]

The latest "update" (last night) erased over three hundred tabs in one window without any way to restore any of them while restoring three tabs in three other windows that I didn't care about.  Great job.

[N7Bryce]

This just happened to me today, half my windows and dozens of tabs all gone. Who needs to know so this is fixed before people jump ship?!

[arsene_lupen]

Version 124.0.1 and it is still happening, I had two windows and both with multiple tabs and after the restart only one window came back and I lost the other with around 100 open tabs for my research. Seriuosly?

The company I work for uses Chrome and I have never had this issue before. Even if I have 5 windows and numerous open tabs in them.. they all come back after a Chrome update or automatic system restart.

I still have been trying to stick with Firefox as I like it... but I slowly lose my patience and consider to use Chrome... Mozilla developers, please make some progress with this issue. You may lose your core users who have been stiking with Firefox for ages now.

[jscher2000]

---

@arsene_lupen wrote:

Version 124.0.1 and it is still happening, I had two windows and both with multiple tabs and after the restart only one window came back and I lost the other with around 100 open tabs for my research. Seriuosly?

---

Check the History menu's "Recently Closed Windows" list to see whether you can recover the other window from there. Either:

• "3-bar" menu button > History > Recently Closed Windows
• (menu bar) History > Recently Closed Windows

If that doesn't list any closed windows from your restored session, I suggest creating a support thread on Mozilla Support. Here's a link to the new question form (for Windows/Mac/Linux): https://mzl.la/3y1vQUQ 

[arsene_lupen]

Hi jscher2000,

Life saver!

Using the "Recently Closed Windows" worked!

So now I have all of my stuffs back, luckily.

thanks again

AL

[ArnoldGreybeard]

Will this work when using Firefox in Private Browsing Mode?

This is where I usually get irritated when Firefox restarts in this way after an update.

[jscher2000]

---

@ArnoldGreybeard wrote:

Will this work when using Firefox in Private Browsing Mode?

---

No, Firefox doesn't create an on-disk session history file in private browsing mode, so when it closes or crashes, you're out of luck.

---

This is where I usually get irritated when Firefox restarts in this way after an update.

---

If you haven't already, you can select on the Settings page to have Firefox notify you about available updates and prompt you to install or delay the update. I've used that setting forever. There is a problem on Linux, though, because the package manager may block that setting and replace the built-in update mechanism. I don't have a good solution for that situation.

Maybe it would work to bookmark all the open tabs, but of course, this would create an on-disk record of the open tabs. (To bookmark all tabs in the current window, press Ctrl+Shift+D or on Mac, Command+Shift+D.) This would not include the back-forward history, just the latest URL from that tab. After the restart, you can right-click the folder of bookmarks and Open All Bookmarks to reload those pages in new tabs.

[ArnoldGreybeard]

Under "Firefox Updates" here on this PC with Ubuntu I have the following at the end of the paragraph:

"Updates disabled by your organisation". There are NO options to tick or untick.

Firefox is updated via the normal Linux update process. I have to go in manually when Software Updater offers updates to untick the Firefox update. Or block Firefox updates in Synaptic/apt/aptitude and not use Software Updater.

However, the issue is NOT the way that Firefox gets updated but the fact that you CANNOT override a forced restart once Firefox has updated and decided to force a restart.

I want to avoid forced restarts IRRESPECTIVE as to how updates are managed on my devices.

[OzMerry]

This has also happened to me in Firefox version 124.0.2. Firefox Menu > History > Manage History has stored all the tabs, but weeding out the open tabs from all the closed tabs is challenging. Recently closed tabs doesn't help in my case since many of the open tabs were not so recent.

Instead of closing Firefox with the X, it was suggested in a Mozilla Support thread from 2021 to use the Firefox Menu > Exit option instead. I tried this and the tabs I had open appeard when I reopened Firefox.

There is also a glitch when opening Firefox. After clicking the icon in the taskbar, Firefox doesn't open, but doing so again opens Firefox. Yikes!

I hope these issues will be fixed soon.

[omsk8erboy]

I also have this problem about restore last tabs today. For example, when I write this comment now, I close the Firefox window on this tab. When I open Firefox again, I expect it to open on the last browsed tab according to the settings. But it opens on tabs that were browsed a few hours ago. In the meantime, I have closed various tabs and opened newer tabs, but Firefox does not work on the latest changes.

[jscher2000]

---

@omsk8erboy wrote:

I also have this problem about restore last tabs today. For example, when I write this comment now, I close the Firefox window on this tab. When I open Firefox again, I expect it to open on the last browsed tab according to the settings. But it opens on tabs that were browsed a few hours ago. In the meantime, I have closed various tabs and opened newer tabs, but Firefox does not work on the latest changes.

---

That's very annoying. Firefox normally updates the session history file (recovery.jsonlz4) as often as every 15 seconds while you are browsing. Changes made more than 15 seconds before you closed the window should be reflected in the file when you restore the window.

Some users lengthen the update interval because they read advice that frequent updates would wear out their SSD drive. To check your setting:

(A) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

More info on about:config: Configuration Editor for Firefox. Please keep in mind that changes made through this back door aren't fully supported and aren't guaranteed to continue working in the future.

(B) In the search box in the page, type or paste browser.sessionstore.interval and pause while the list is filtered

This value is written in milliseconds, so 1000 = 1 second, 15000 = 15 seconds. I use 30000 = 30 seconds. If your interval is more than 60000 = 1 minute, I suggest shortening it:

(C) If there is a reset button at the right end of the row, you can click that to restore the default update interval. To customize it, double-click the preference to display an editing field, and change the value to (for example) 30000 then press Enter or click the blue check mark button to save the change.

Now, some users occasionally report that the file gets updated normally for a certain period of time and then completely stops getting updated. If I recall correctly, it seems to be related to memory, but don't know whether anyone has tracked down what can cause that, whether it's related to the number of tabs open, the amount of free memory on the computer at the time, etc.

As a backup, you could consider using an add-on like Tab Session Manager that can either automatically or on request store a list of the URLs of the active tabs for later restoration. It doesn't capture the full back-forward history of each tab like Firefox does, but it still might be worth it to recover missing tabs in situations where Firefox's built-in feature fails you. Here's a link to learn more:

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

[omsk8erboy]

Hello sir jscher2000 and thank you for your help. interval set was on 15000, so it can't be issue for Firefox...
Today, I moved left-right number of tabs to test Firefox. I closed some tabs to see if reducing the extra tabs would fix this problem, Firefox changes 4-5 tabs and stops again...When I check from my Firefox account, that's always syncing...Even I click on (Sync now) to update the tabs but Firefox does not update and that problem was not fixed.
.According to your opinion, this problem may be caused by low system memory. Windows Drives Is 4.53GB free of 39 GB.
My Firefox version : 115.9.1esr(Extended Support Release)(32-bit) only this version can installed on my Windows 7
Sometimes Firefox crashes and the page closes, this message appears :
Firefox is already running, but is not responding. The old Firefox process must be closed to open a new window.

[jscher2000]

---

@omsk8erboy wrote:

Hello sir jscher2000 and thank you for your help. interval set was on 15000, so it can't be issue for Firefox...
Today, I moved left-right number of tabs to test Firefox. I closed some tabs to see if reducing the extra tabs would fix this problem, Firefox changes 4-5 tabs and stops again...When I check from my Firefox account, that's always syncing...Even I click on (Sync now) to update the tabs but Firefox does not update and that problem was not fixed.

---

Thank you for checking that. I don't know why the updating stops. Is it possible that some other software such as security software might be scanning/locking the file?

I'm not sure what the issue is with Sync. Session restore uses local files (it reads and loads those files before it connects to Sync).

[nunyabizness]

hello, oddly in my case typing browser.sessionstore.interval into my url bar does nothing except run a search

to get my tabs back i had to follow this advice from this years old post: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1204253

however, whenever i close firefox, it still will not save my tabs now... despite the settings all indicating that it should do so.

[jscher2000]

---

@nunyabizness wrote:

hello, oddly in my case typing browser.sessionstore.interval into my url bar does nothing except run a search

---

Oh, sorry, you first need to load the about:config page, and then type or paste the preference name into the filter box on that page.

---

to get my tabs back i had to follow this advice from this years old post: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1204253

however, whenever i close firefox, it still will not save my tabs now... despite the settings all indicating that it should do so.

---

Do you close Firefox using the menu command (Exit or Quit, depending on your OS)? If you close individual windows, or allow the system to do it, then after Firefox restores the last window you closed, you have to manually re-open the others from History > Recently Closed Windows. Since Firefox only remembers 3 closed windows, it is much safer to use the menu command (then they are all considered open windows when it's time to restore).

[nunyabizness]

strangely enough, although this was never an issue until today, using the menu (File -> Exit) rather than the close X on the Firefox Title bar is the only thing that seems to work for me right now

[nunyabizness]

oh dear... well, it seems i had another desktop instance open with another instance of firefox with all of the same tabs. - and after closing that, all is well again. huh, i forgot i was trying out that multiple desktop feature for the first time and left my browser open there - i guess that explains that for my case

still not sure why i can't check my browser.sessionstore.interval though
oh well

[PaulK1]

LOL, me too! I never use that multi-desktop 'feature' but must have accidentally opened a 2nd one and put a Waterfox instance in it. I closed all Waterfox instances, started again and open tabs where saved on closing. Thanks @nunyabizness!

[Alexbee09]

you can try using a browser add-on like "Session Manager." This add-on allows you to save and restore browsing sessions, so you can easily recover lost tabs and windows.

[jscher2000]

For anyone searching, the old Session Manager extension was retired (it last worked in Firefox 56 or the Extended Support Release of Firefox 52). A current option is Tab Session Manager:

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