How can I prevent old session from opening without disabling session restore?
I am currently running Firefox 5.0, but had the same problem occur under Firefox 4.x. I am using Windows XP Pro.
I often close Firefox properly (please note: Firefox does not crash, does not hang, I close window and choose "Don't Save" when it asks if I want to save my tabs for the next session) and when I open Firefox again later, find that all my tabs from the previous session have opened again!
To make things more confusing, sometimes this occurs after I have closed individual tabs. Example: I have 5 tabs open. I close tab 1, close tab 2, close tab 3, close tab 4, close tab 5. I now have a blank page (about:blank). I close Firefox, obviously there is no message asking if I want to save tabs, since none are open. The next time I open Firefox, tabs 1-5 open again!
Any ideas why this would occur, or what I can do to prevent it? I do NOT want to turn off session restore completely, as I DO want to be able to recover tabs if Firefox crashes. I just do NOT want to have it constantly recovering tabs when it has NOT crashed.
All Replies (12)
Tools > Options > General > Startup: "When Firefox Starts": "Show my home page", "Show a blank page"
I'm sorry, but that answer does not solve my problem. I want the system to show my home page when it starts up. (And this is the current setting.) The problem is that it does NOT show my home page, but occasionally opens up previously closed tabs, which I did not wish to see again.
If you do not use "Show my windows and tabs from last time" then make sure that Firefox closes properly to prevent session restore from reopening a possibly crashed session.
See "Hang at exit":
I just started having this same problem and can't get FF to stop doing this. I have gone to "Tools" > "Options" > "Startup" tab and selected "show a blank page", but it STILL does it. I have not been able to make it stop. I have subscribed to this thread, I hope someone figures it out. There are real "parental" concerns with this happening if you get my drift... ;)
You can use Clear Recent History to clear the browsing history if you close Firefox to prevent session restore from restoring that session if you do not close all open tabs before closing Firefox.
Sorry, but that response does not help, either. I'm fairly certain that Firefox IS closing properly, and not hanging. I do not see any "firefox.exe" processes running in Windows Task Manager.
Definitely a puzzler.
Sounds like either your profile is corrupted or one of your databases is. Back up your bookmarks and then delete your profile or run SpeedyFox and see if that helps or check if you have duplicate sessionstore.js files in your profile directory. Backing up your bookmarks and then deleting the profile is probably the easiest take care of everything fix.
Modified by donpb2
I was having the same issue, easy fix here from mozilla:
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Session%20Restore#w_configuring-session-restore
Basically I just followed the easy instructions and changed the drop down bar to "Show my home page". By default mine was on "Show my windows and tabs from last time" which was causing the issue.
Take Screenshots of your Bookmarks, Toolbars, Add-ons before performing the following steps because after the below solution is done, you will start Firefox as if you just reinstalled it from scratch.
Following are the steps for you to perform in order to Start Firefox in Safe Mode: Click the Windows Start button, select Run.... Type one of the following in the Windows Run box:
firefox -safe-mode
OR
"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -safe-mode
Safe Mode window will appear -> select ALL options and click "Make Changes and Restart"
Now Firefox will start as if you just downloaded & installed it from scratch. Check and tell if its working.
Modified by Hasan
I have exactly the same problem and it is clearly one of many bugs in the session restore system.
I have the following options disabled:
- "Show my windows and tabs from last time"
- "Remember my browsing history" (and all other checkmarks on the privacy page except from "Cookies")
- browser.sessionstore.max* is all set to "0"
- browser.sessionstore.privacy_level* are both set to "2"
- browser.sessionstore.resume* are both set to false
And YET I am still able to restore my session by clicking the "Restore previous session" button on the main mozilla homepage OR from the history tab. (where is it getting this information from, if I'm not saving a history and disabled every single option to do with session restore??). On top of that, I often get firefox opening my last tabs automatically (which should not happen either, even in the event of a crash).
I'm using the latest version of Firefox 5 on Arch linux.
Check my previous post, i modified it
Modified by Hasan
@mha007:
Please do not advice users to remove all their profile data via the Save mode start window even if you tell them to backup.
In such a case it is better to ask them to create a new profile to see if that helps.
See "Basic Troubleshooting: Make a new profile":
- https://support.mozilla.com/kb/Basic+Troubleshooting#w_8-make-a-new-profile
- https://support.mozilla.com/kb/Recovering+important+data+from+an+old+profile
Make sure that Firefox closes properly if the previous session is restored automatically.
See "Hang at exit":