When opening my previous session, after a random amount of time all/a lot of tabs start loading even though the tab loading settings are correct. How to fix?
Basically everything that's in the question line already. I open my previous session and after a random time (sometimes instantly) a whole bunch of tabs will start loading, causing firefox to take up huge amounts of RAM and run slow until everything is loaded or crash when there is not enough memory. I rely mostly on my sessions not loading everything because I store a lot of tabs for later review but if everything starts loading all at once I get blasted with all kinds of audio and delayed responses which is quite a bother. This only started happening recently but I have not installed anything recently either (at least, not in the time frame of when this started happening).
All Replies (3)
Normally when you restore your session, Firefox doesn't load the tabs until you access them. You can confirm that you have the default setting here:
orange Firefox button (or Tools menu) > Options > Tabs
_X_ Don't load tabs until selected
So what is happening that could override this... Is it possible that one of your add-ons is taking some action on those tabs so Firefox is forced to load them?
If you restart in Safe Mode, that might be a useful test to see whether it is caused by one of your extensions. Firefox's Safe Mode is a standard diagnostic tool to bypass interference by extensions (and some custom settings). More info: Use Troubleshoot Mode in Firefox.
You can restart Firefox in Safe Mode using
Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled
In the dialog, click "Start in Safe Mode" (not Reset)
Any difference?
I am guessing there are two likely possibilities
- Malware
- Repeated failing to closedown correctly has somehow resulted in duplicated or corrupted session store files
Suggestions for trouble shooting this
- Try in Firefox's safe mode. I would not necessarily expect that to help but it is such a simple step it is worth trying. e.g. hold the shift key whilst Firefox starts
- Try creating and using a new profile
- That will use a new set of sessionstore files
- Note: Please always close Firefox by using the appropriate Firefox menu option do not for instance just close down the window or kill the process
- If the above do not help consider the possibility of malware and scan with multiple tools. See under
Sometimes a problem with Firefox may be a result of malware installed on your computer, that you may not be aware of.
You can try these free programs to scan for malware, which work with your existing antivirus software:
- Microsoft Safety Scanner
- MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware
- TDSSKiller - AntiRootkit Utility
- Hitman Pro
- ESET Online Scanner
Microsoft Security Essentials is a good permanent antivirus for Windows 7/Vista/XP if you don't already have one.
Further information can be found in the Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware article.
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Note that Firefox will reload pinned App automatically by default.
- browser.sessionstore.restore_on_demand (true)
- browser.sessionstore.restore_pinned_tabs_on_demand (false)
- browser.sessionstore.restore_hidden_tabs (tabs in other tab groups)(false)