When I started using firefox this morning I had a blank screen and gobs of New Tabs. Had to use add on Session Manager to fix my prob. Will 57+ restore tabs?
As I said in my question I was using Firefox 55.0.3 on my macbookpro and this morning it came up with a blank screen and probably about 50 or so "New Tab" tabs in the tab bar and the screen was blank. I searched for solutions and tried several to no avail. I then manually deleted all the New Tab tabs and from my history file started making new tabs. I have a lot of tabs and the process was so slow. I then remembered I had an add on called Session Manager. I ran it and Bingo! all my tabs were back. I would like to upgrade to 57+ but see that add ons and extensions are going away. will version 57 have a fail safe way of restoring my tabs if this happens again. If not I guess I'll stick with 55.0.3 or switch to another browser which I really don't want to as I have been using Firefox on all my PC's since it came out.
All Replies (8)
I don't think anything exactly like Session Manager will be possible in Firefox 57 because it requires certain super-powers that will not longer be available to extensions. But there might be something that implements part of its feature set.
More generally, you could consider using another backup method to make copies of your session history files in a safe location at regular intervals. This could be an ordinary backup program that you point toward your Firefox profile folder, or it could be something more purpose-built. I imagine people will be posting a lot of suggestions during the next 5-6 weeks before Firefox 57 becomes the stable release.
Restoring backup files in a way that Firefox will use them will be more challenging without an extension that can do it for you, but it is possible with some moving around and renaming of files.
And consider the option to create session snapshots in a stable format for reference even if they can't be restored directly. I have a tool for that here:
https://www.jeffersonscher.com/res/scrounger.html
You can drop a file from your sessionstore-backups folder (in your profile folder) onto that page to convert it to an index of windows and tabs in the file and save it for future reference.
If you have any suggestions on how to make that more useful, let me know.
Thanks for your response. But it seems like a bit of a pain compared to just running an add on. I guess, I'll wait awhile to see if a better quicker solution comes available. If not, I guess, I'll maybe have to switch to another browser, which I hate to do after using Firefox since it came out. Also, I started Firefox later in the day and it upgraded to version 56 all by itself. Never gave me the option to stay put with 55.0.3 that allows the slick Session Manager program to fix my tabs problem in a matter of seconds.
Is Session Manager disabled or not working in Firefox 56? I don't see any problem reviews yet:
Been looking at Safari, never been to excited about it but if Firefox has this tab restore issue in a few weeks. I guess, I'll have to think of switching to another browser. Seems like Firefox developers don't care about tabs and I'm a tab aholic. :-)
Looks like I can't get Session Manager to work anymore on 56. Oh well....looks like Firefox was fun while i lasted....loosing confidence in a previously great browser...:-(
I see another great add on is now broken Screen Grab, was working on 55.0.3 but not on 56. What are the developers in Firefox thinking? Session Manager author had worked a year or so developing it and now is giving up, since 57 is coming out. Seems Firefox doesn't care about what the users want...sad...
How often do you use Session Manager??
bigal7878 said
I see another great add on is now broken Screen Grab, was working on 55.0.3 but not on 56. What are the developers in Firefox thinking?
I assume you mean Screengrab! What isn't working about it in your experience?
A reply to one of the reviews says that copy to clipboard won't work again until Firefox 57. If you want to reinstall the last "Legacy" version, try 0.99.12:
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/screengrab-fix-version/versions/?page=1#version-0.99.12
To disable extension updating, go to the Add-ons page, Extensions list, click the More link for the extension, then below the description you can turn off automatic updating for that extension.
Anyway, there are an astonishing number of screen capture add-ons, and Mozilla even has one now. If this one doesn't turn out the way you like, you have alternatives.
I only use session manager when Firefox loses all my tabs and I can't get them to restore, especially if I have a blank screen and can't do the restore from there. I appreciate you suggestion of going back to the Legacy version of Screengrab, it works fine now. Is there a way to go back to Firefox 55.0.3 and not loose my tabs? At least things still worked back then. Have been getting up to speed on Safari as a possible solution if 57 is going to be loosing my tabs etc with no easy way to restore them.