Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Wannan tattunawa ta zama daɗaɗɗiya. Yi sabuwar tambaya idan ka na bukatar taimako.

Firefox incognito tabs are not responding, what to do?

StorpTrooper
StorpTrooper
more options

I have a bunch of incognito tabs opened up, but I can’t do anything with them. I can’t scroll through tabs from left to right, I can’t drag them out of the window, I can’t add them to my bookmarks, I can’t refresh them. When I hover the mouse cursor over one of these tabs, it’ll show the name of a website/tab that I already closed before this problem occured. The thing is, I can click the bookmark button, the refresh button and the ‘close tab’ button, and the buttons will become darker as if it they’re working, but instead of it actually following up with the action, a small white rectangle shows up next to my mouse cursor.

I don’t know what to do and I don’t want to lose these tabs. Does anyone know what I can do to get them to respond to my actions?

I have a bunch of incognito tabs opened up, but I can’t do anything with them. I can’t scroll through tabs from left to right, I can’t drag them out of the window, I can’t add them to my bookmarks, I can’t refresh them. When I hover the mouse cursor over one of these tabs, it’ll show the name of a website/tab that I already closed before this problem occured. The thing is, I can click the bookmark button, the refresh button and the ‘close tab’ button, and the buttons will become darker as if it they’re working, but instead of it actually following up with the action, a small white rectangle shows up next to my mouse cursor. I don’t know what to do and I don’t want to lose these tabs. Does anyone know what I can do to get them to respond to my actions?

All Replies (4)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions ("3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is is causing the problem.

  • switch to the DEFAULT theme: "3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Appearance
  • do NOT click the "Refresh Firefox" button on the Safe Mode start window
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 25 Contributor
more options

Hi StorpTrooper, this is one of the hazards of using private windows, that there's no session history file to fall back on if Firefox crashes (or in this case, if you End Task or Force Quit).

There might be a method to generate a list of the URLs of all the open tabs by running a script in Firefox's Browser Console. However, I don't know exactly where you would find the code for that in the vast wilds of the web, and I don't know if the Browser Console will be operational right now.

So, more questions than answers, really.

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

You can get the current browser state with this code in the Browser Console. You can inspect this code with this tool, assuming that it includes private tabs. 

ssj = SessionStore.getBrowserState();
prompt("BrowserState: JSON",ssj);
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 25 Contributor
more options

When I try this --

cor-el said

You can get the current browser state with this code in the Browser Console. You can inspect this code with this tool, assuming that it includes private tabs. 
ssj = SessionStore.getBrowserState();
prompt("BrowserState: JSON",ssj);

-- the private window tabs are included. My session isn't frozen, so your mileage may vary.