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Lost all tabs when Firefox / iPadOS crashes

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  • Last reply by KL

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This appears to be a problem that others have had (with no response). I'm posting it to let the Mozilla team know it continues to be a problem for some users.

Yesterday FF (whatever the latest version is running on an iPad Pro running iPadOS 15.7) crashed, and restarted with the usual "This is embarrassing..." message, and asked whether I want to restore all tabs. I hit yes, and it restarted with all tabs missing. Of course it then proceeded to erase all synced tabs the next time it connects to Mozilla's servers, so now all the tabs are gone.

Questions:

1. Is there a way to restore this to its previous state? As far as I can tell, the moment the mobile FF loses all its tabs and syncs them to the cloud, there's no easy way for the user to get the old tabs back.

2. Is it possible to have Sync set up so it doesn't erase all the tabs automatically? I mean, it should be clear that when this occurs after a crash, this may not be the desired behavior. At the very least, there should be an option to undo.

3. Is there a way to just "bookmark all tabs" on mobile FF? That way users can easily save the current state of their mobile browser without having to bookmark each tab individually. I understand this feature has been requested from time to time, and at some point saw a response from a Mozilla engineer saying it has been implemented but not released for UI reasons.

4. Can I download all my Firefox Sync data? Since Sync seems to write over previous state with no method for recovery, it cannot be relied upon as a backup. I would like to be able to make my own backups of my browser states to the extent I can.

Thanks! In principle I support open source and would like to continue using FF. If these usability / reliability issues can be resolved I think it would make at least a few FF users quite happy.

This appears to be a problem that others have had (with no response). I'm posting it to let the Mozilla team know it continues to be a problem for some users. Yesterday FF (whatever the latest version is running on an iPad Pro running iPadOS 15.7) crashed, and restarted with the usual "This is embarrassing..." message, and asked whether I want to restore all tabs. I hit yes, and it restarted with all tabs missing. Of course it then proceeded to erase all synced tabs the next time it connects to Mozilla's servers, so now all the tabs are gone. Questions: 1. Is there a way to restore this to its previous state? As far as I can tell, the moment the mobile FF loses all its tabs and syncs them to the cloud, there's no easy way for the user to get the old tabs back. 2. Is it possible to have Sync set up so it doesn't erase all the tabs automatically? I mean, it should be clear that when this occurs after a crash, this may not be the desired behavior. At the very least, there should be an option to undo. 3. Is there a way to just "bookmark all tabs" on mobile FF? That way users can easily save the current state of their mobile browser without having to bookmark each tab individually. I understand this feature has been requested from time to time, and at some point saw a response from a Mozilla engineer saying it has been implemented but not released for UI reasons. 4. Can I download all my Firefox Sync data? Since Sync seems to write over previous state with no method for recovery, it cannot be relied upon as a backup. I would like to be able to make my own backups of my browser states to the extent I can. Thanks! In principle I support open source and would like to continue using FF. If these usability / reliability issues can be resolved I think it would make at least a few FF users quite happy.

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PS I do have a backup of the iPad I can restore from, but I would prefer not to have to do that.