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Open tabs lost on exit after syncing

  • 8 cavab
  • 2 have this problem
  • 9 views
  • Last reply by guigs

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After selecting the new option to sync my settings with my new account, I selected to sync everything except for Passwords and History. But since then, Firefox does not save my open tabs, even though I selected that option. It does not appear to save them locally either.

Under Options -> General, I have "When Firefox starts: Show my windows and tabs from last time". I have tried restarting both Firefox and my PC (on which I just performed a fresh install of Win7 64-bit). Any new tabs I open are lost upon exiting. I did not sync my account prior to the Windows reinstall, and Firefox was preserving open tabs just fine after I had restored my profile following the reinstall. It was only after setting up the account syncing that this became an issue.

After selecting the new option to sync my settings with my new account, I selected to sync everything except for Passwords and History. But since then, Firefox does not save my open tabs, even though I selected that option. It does not appear to save them locally either. Under Options -> General, I have "When Firefox starts: Show my windows and tabs from last time". I have tried restarting both Firefox and my PC (on which I just performed a fresh install of Win7 64-bit). Any new tabs I open are lost upon exiting. I did not sync my account prior to the Windows reinstall, and Firefox was preserving open tabs just fine after I had restored my profile following the reinstall. It was only after setting up the account syncing that this became an issue.

Modified by makilahy

All Replies (8)

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Do they show up in the about:synced-tabs url or the History > Tabs from other devices menu?

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History > Tabs from other devices ... it's grayed out. I'm not sure how to find "about:synced-tabs url". Sorry...

I tentatively solved the problem by opening my history and restoring the tabs one by one.

And although syncing initially worked for everything other than the tabs (retrieving my bookmarks, extensions, and persona), I now get a error that reads: "Sync encountered an error while syncing: Unknown error. Sync will automatically retry this action." I've tried disabling my firewall, and the error persists.

I'm running version 35.0.1.

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First I would try to reset your password, or remove the account and reconnect the account temporarily. IF that error does not go away, we have to look under the hood of Firefox:

  • How do I turn on sync logs:
  1. Open about:config and turn on: services.sync.log.appender.file.logOnSuccess and services.sync.log.logger.engine.bookmarks
  2. Restart Firefox and look at: about:sync-log
  3. Logs and error messages will be located here

Please also use pastebin.mozilla.org for sharring any errors that relate to this issue.

Thank you.

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Note that about: is a protocol used to access special built-in pages. You can open about: pages via the location/address bar.

You can find links to all about pages on the about:about page.

Modified by cor-el

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cor-el said

Note that about: is a protocol used to access special built-in pages. You can open about: pages via the location/address bar. You can find links to all about pages on the about:about page.

Thanks. When I tried "about:synced-tabs" earlier, I got:

The address isn't valid The URL is not valid and cannot be loaded. Web addresses are usually written like http://www.example.com/ Make sure that you're using forward slashes (i.e. /).

I still get that error. However, some of the other about pages do work this time.

As for the about:sync-log, I was getting errors earlier today, but now it shows success. (Nothing has changed since this morning.) Sorry, don't know how to use pastebin.mozilla.org.

I did notice earlier that all the bookmarks in my bookmarks toolbar got corrupted, and I was forced to fix them manually by deleting everything and adding them back. I'm not sure if that's related. But, again, I only get an error why trying to look at about:synced-tabs.

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The correct name of that pref is about:sync-tabs (i.e. all sync related about pages start with about:sync-, see the about:about page).

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about:sync-tabs is blank. It just has "Tabs From Other Devices" at the top and a search textbox.

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Hi makilahy (correction on the about page is my fault!) The tabs will show up in that list when there is more than one device actively syncing to the account. Since it is now syncing successfully, it sounds like the places.sqlite file became corrupted. Tabs are also referenced in this file which may have been why it was greyed out. In the future: Place Maintenance is a nice tool for a corrupt places file. Just be sure to back up the file and un-attach sync temporarily when you run the scan :-)