FireFox tabs behaviour after restarting

[FYazdani]

In the past few days, upon restarting FireFox all tabs in all restored windows start to load.   This is very annoying and takes up a lot of memory and time. 

[jscher2000]

Could you check these settings:

(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 on_demand and pause while the list is filtered

Firefox should show two preferences that match this filter.

(C) If browser.sessionstore.restore_on_demand is bolded and has a value of false, double-click it or click the Toggle button to restore the default value of true -- only the active tab will be restored in each window rather than every tab

You don't need to change the preference for pinned tabs unless you use a lot of pinned tabs.

Does that work on your Firefox?

[janguv]

I am having the exact same problem as OP. I tried the about:config setting, but it was already set to true. Any other ideas? Could it be an add-on clash of some sort? It's basically unusable. I can only get Firefox to work if I quickly launch a private window and close the open window with all the tabs in it. 

Edit: I was able to check for two recent add-on updates, and I disabled them both. They were: Consent-o-matic and Bitwarden. After disabling both, Firefox started normally. Great news. I haven't whittled it down further, but it stands to reason it's one of them. So, to OP and any others experiencing this problem, I recommend doing the following: 

1. Open a private window as soon as you launch Firefox, and close the main window (so you have resources to work)
2. Go to your Manage Extensions page, click to settings cog, view recent updates. 
3. Disable the add-ons recently updated. 
4. Re-open closed window, the one with all your tabs (make sure you have the relevant setting on not to lose all your tabs in the first place...)

Hope this helps!

[FYazdani]

Thank you for your response.
The said value was already set to "true". 
There are no recently updated extensions to account for the behaviour. 

[jscher2000]

I can't explain it. You just use the built-in session restore feature, not a session management add-on?

[firefox_chuck]

I found the extension that was causing this for me: NordVPN -  a VPN proxy extension for Firefox.

I disabled this, reopened Firefox, and it was back to normal. But once I re-enabled the extension, all the other tabs started refreshing immediately.

I'll contact them and let's see how responsive they are.

[Tituss]

You nailed it!  I also contacted Nord regarding the plugin issue.  For me, it started with FF update

125.0.1 Firefox Release - April 16, 2024

[firefox_chuck · Accepted solution]

I got a response from NordVPN: uninstall the add-on; add it back to FFX from the add-on store, restart FFX. Seems to be working so far.