Firefox doesn't reopen private windows after forced update.
Firefox forced an update again, while I was at work, in the middle of a very important testing phase for a piece of software. I had some 30+ tabs opened across 4 private windows when the "restart required" happened and prevented me from working. So I restarted, and I did get back the menial, non-private tabs back. But the work? No, the work was lost, along with my test results.
The issue is that Firefox says it will reopen ALL tabs after the restart. The fact that there was a private window open falls under the category of ALL to my knowledge. I'd like to know if there is a redefinition of the word 'all' within the eula/tos, and if this can be somehow fixed to use the dictionary version of the word 'all'?
Alla svar (1)
You appear to be using the Firefox version from the Ubuntu repositories, so you would have to contact Ubuntu for support. I don't think that the regular Firefox version from the Mozilla server would prevent you from continuing and would force a restart.
PB mode tabs aren't included in sessionstore.jsonlz4 and thus won't be restored on a restart. You shouldn't use PB mode for important work that you do not want to lose because any error or problem or in your case an update restart will cause dataloss. You will normally see a warning if you open a new private window that no data is stored to the profile folder unless you use permanent PB mode (never remember history).
You can possibly use a separate profile for testing purposes.