How can I stop Firefox updates from closing open pages?
I have Firefox set to reopen all windows/tabs on relaunch, but updates blithely ignore this setting.
This is beyond frustrating. I do research that necessitates large numbers of open tabs at any given time. Many of these are interim results, not ends in themselves, so not candidates for bookmarking.
This morning's update to 103.0.1 wiped out two full windows. I managed to reload one window from a previous recovery file, but the second was a lost cause. I had to recreate it from memory and have lost some tabs as a result.
Short of saving each window as a tab group every time I have to do an update, is there any way to stop this behavior?
(MacOS Big Sur 11.6.8, M-1 MacBook Pro)
All Replies (4)
You should not lose open windows/tabs during an automatic update. But you will lose any private windows, since those tabs are not recorded to disk.
I'm assuming you checked the History menu and did not find "Restore Previous Session". That can indicate that the session already was restored or that the files were missing. The next thing to check is the "Recently Closed Windows" list on the same menu.
What is going on?
Is your Firefox performing a Refresh during the update? That would move your entire profile (data) folder to your desktop inside an Old Firefox Data folder. If you have recent files there, we'll have more suggestions.
Hi, @jscher2000, and thanks for your reply.
This does not occur with every Firefox update, but it has done so twice in the last few months, including with 103.0.1.
No profile files on the Desktop. That's not what's happening, or I would have noticed/reported it.
Yes, I checked the History menu. "Restore Previous Session" brought up two blank windows. 8-( No recently closed windows to reopen.
I found the backup restore file and was able to get one (the most-complex) window of tabs to reopen, but, as I said before, not the other.
Two blank windows, hmm, did either of those have anything on the
History > Recently Closed Tabs
list?
But on the larger question, I can't immediately figure out what is causing the intermittent inability to restore the previous session.
Regarding workarounds, there are a number of session manager add-ons to save the URLs of open tabs. Obviously that is not as complete as the built-in feature which also stores back-forward history, session cookies, and some form data, but it could be a useful tool, especially if it's automatic so you don't have to remember when to make the backup.
Nope, no titles or content, just two blank windows with only a single tab apiece, like newly opened ones.
I figure I probably should just get in the habit of pressing Shift-Cmd-D to save the entire tab group from a window, switching to any other windows and repeating that step. Beats the time wasted in (and the aggravation of) of losing what I have open.