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Why did Firefox stop restoring my open tabs when I restart after a crash?

  • 7 replies
  • 4 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by castoffs

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After a crash I get a blank tab, not even my hompages. I have to close and re-open firefox to get my home pages and never get tabs restored from the time of the crash.

Setting the pref browser.sessionstore.max_resumed_crashes to 0 does not change this.

After a crash I get a blank tab, not even my hompages. I have to close and re-open firefox to get my home pages and never get tabs restored from the time of the crash. Setting the pref browser.sessionstore.max_resumed_crashes to 0 does not change this.

All Replies (7)

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Is Session Restore working in that you can reopen tabs from the previous session?

  • Tools > Options > General > Startup: When Firefox Starts: "Show my windows and tabs from last time"

It is possible that there is a problem with the files sessionstore.js and sessionstore.bak in the Firefox Profile Folder.

Delete the sessionstore.js file and possible sessionstore-##.js files with a number and sessionstore.bak in the Firefox Profile Folder.

Deleting sessionstore.js will cause App Tabs and Tab Groups and open and closed (undo) tabs to get lost, so you will have to create them again (make a note or bookmark them).

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Tools > Options > General > Startup: When Firefox Starts: "Show my windows and tabs from last time"

is not set as I don't want my tabs restored from last time unless there is a crash.

No sessionstore files exist in the profile.

Modified by castoffs

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My point was to test if session restore works if you select that choice or if that fails as well. So please give it a try.

You can also try to reset Firefox:

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Thanks, the reset fixed it.

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OK, I found out what does this.

When "Clear history when Firefox closes" is checked Firefox does not restore windows and tabs after a crash.

How and why would Firefox remove history on a crash thus removing the ability to retstore on restart.

This hasn't always happened by the way as I've always had this option checked.

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Maybe it is caused by a missing privacy.sanitize.didShutdownSanitize pref in prefs.js that tells Firefox that clearing that data has been successful.
Firefox may be deleting that that data on a next start if it didn't happen on shutdown or you may have a crash that happened after that data already had been removed.

  • prefs.js: user_pref("privacy.sanitize.didShutdownSanitize", true);
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Many thanks. It was missing and has solved the problem.