Why does FF act as if every start is a new installation, and hold on to old tabs?
I updated Firefox from version 8.0.1 to 9.0.1 about an hour ago, and it has been trouble ever since. I suspect that it's a preference issue of some kind, but I'm not sure.
Every time I start FF (or restart it), it seems to think that this is the first time it has been run/installed. It checks the compatibility of every extension, again.
It also opens up a new page of "Welcome to Firefox Hooray..." as if it were a new installation. Every time, it adds a new tab with that message. The address it opens:
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/9.0.1/whatsnew/
Further, it doesn't follow my load on startup homepage settings. It sticks with the old tab rather than the one it should open.
I have already gone through and tried using the information on the forum help pages at:
and
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/Preferences%20are%20not%20saved
They do not seem to have helped matters. Admittedly, I don't know exactly which lines in the Prefs.js file need to be removed, but I took out:
user_pref("browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab", false); user_pref("browser.taskbar.lastgroupid", "Mozilla.Firefox.8.0.1");
... and the problems persist. I don't want to go ripping out more information that I don't understand. Thank you for any help.
Oh, and I have made sure that there are no session restore features running, as best as I can tell (including TabMixPlus). My homepage settings in the Options menu are correct.
To summarize:
(1) Stop FF from thinking every start/restart is a new installation. (2) Get my homepage to load to the correct address.
Wot Daniel & Svetlana změnjeny
Wubrane rozrisanje
I'm not sure what is wrong with the old profile and in such a case it is easier to try a new profile than spend a lot of time to figure out what is wrong. It could be a prefs.js file or a problem with the extensions registry file or a problem with the sessionstore files or something else.
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Yes, as I said in the original post, I've already followed the Preferences Not Saved links. They did not work, including simply deleting (renaming) the Prefs.js file after Firefox has been closed.
It comes back from nowhere, and FF continues to think that it is a first-time installation, checking compatibility, asking me if I want to participate in sending troubleshooting information and giving me a welcome screen.
Create a new profile as a test to check if your current profile is causing the problems.
See "Basic Troubleshooting: Make a new profile":
There may be extensions and plugins installed by default in a new profile, so check that in "Tools > Add-ons > Extensions & Plugins" in case there are still problems.
If that new profile works then you can transfer some files from the old profile to that new profile, but be careful not to copy corrupted files.
See:
That solved the problem of FF thinking that every startup was a new install. Does this mean that the error is something in the original Default profile that can be tweaked to fix, rather than reloading all of my preferences and extensions the the new profile? I did already transfer the "recommended" files as per the link supplied.
Wubrane rozrisanje
I'm not sure what is wrong with the old profile and in such a case it is easier to try a new profile than spend a lot of time to figure out what is wrong. It could be a prefs.js file or a problem with the extensions registry file or a problem with the sessionstore files or something else.
I see. Well, that's going to be a disappointing use of my time, but in the end it's better than having Firefox left confused with itself.
Thank you.
I was about to ask the same. FF just updated itself to 10.0.1, and now it keeps opening with http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/10.0.1/whatsnew/, in addition to whatever tabs I had open the last time. Meanwhile, my preferences are (and have always been) set so that it should open with a blank page and even my home page is set as "about:blank". This would seem to be a bug with the update process to 10.0.1.
If I look at about:config and search for "start", I see the following entries. No matter how many times I clear them and restart, they keep coming back:
browser.startup.homepage_override.buildID 20120208060813
browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone rv:10.0.1
startup.homepage_override_url http://www.mozilla.com/%LOCALE%/%APP%/%VERSION%/whatsnew/
I just updated to 10.0.2 which Firefox screamed at me was an important update... and it is back to its old tricks again thinking that it's a new installation.
I can only assume that I need to create another new profile to fix the problem as this only changed when the installation went through. Nothing else was added, removed or changed.
Mozilla you need to fix this installation issue, it is not us end users doing something stupid!
A reboot of the machine seems to have fixed the issue for me after the update. Such restarts are usually not needed after an update. This update seems to have included a problem that IS fixed by a restart (at least for me).