Firefox restores my old tabs on start up even if I dont want it.

Hi Rabi. I will try my best to help you!

So because Mozilla Firefox has a built-in safety feature called "Crash Recovery", Firefox assumes you lost your work unexpectedly and forces the restoration of all tabs from your last active session.

Thankfully yiu can permanently disable this behavior using Firefox’s advanced configuration panel (about:config).

How to Turn Off Automatic Session Recovery After Crashes: - Open Firefox. Type about:config into the top address bar and press Enter. - Click the blue Accept the Risk and Continue button when the warning screen appears. - In the "Search preference name" box at the top, copy and paste this exact setting:textbrowser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash

- Look to the far right side of that preference row. Click the Toggle button (the icon with two arrows) or double-click the row to change its value from true to false.

Hi Mariam,

Thanks for your reply. I implemented what you said. It WORKS at least as far as normal shutdowns are concerned where I quit Firefox normally with multiple tabs open. But there has been no forced shutdown of Firefox due to some web page / java script malfunctioning where Firefox says with a popup : "Force Quit Or Wait" here in the Linux Ubuntu 26.04. I was waiting for that to happen so I can confirm your solution completely works on all cases . I have a feeling it will work then too. Otherwise Ill let you know. But so far so good. Thanks a Lot.

Rabi Kumar.

Hi Mariam,

It has happened again. Right now textbrowser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash is set to false as you told me last time. I did it myself. In spite of that, one of the websites that I visited sometimes seems to freeze the app (mouse movement still works) which forces me to close the app by clicking the x box at the top right. Then Linux Ubuntu (I am running in Ubuntu 26.04) says "Force quit yes / no " in a popup. and I force quit. Then when I reopen it tries to reopen the tabs as before. I do not want this.

So the solution you gave works in normal cases but not now. Thanks

OK Jbr, I have implemented your solution. It works now when I close Firefox with multiple tabs and reopen . It opens with a clean slate which is what I want. But I cannot simulate the "Firefox force quit scenario in Linux Ubuntu 26.04" which happens occasionally with some website malfunctioning. When that happens we will see if it works or not. If it works in that case also I will mark as solution. I will let you know. But for now it works. Thanks.

Ok jbr. The solution you gave works even if Firefox is forced to shutdown due to some website having some issue in Linux Ubuntu. When restarted it starts in with a clean slate meaning 0 tabs which is what I want. Ill mark this as a solution.

My problem is the opposite of this, i like to see fire fox restores my old tabs on, yet recently is stopped doing this, i have several tabs pinned, now i get nothing, i have tried through the History to restore tabs but nothing happens, its convenient for me to have tabs restored, now i am at a loss, hoping someone can help me with this problem, i`m computer illiterate so asking me to change code or something the same i`m not confident to do it...

Hi DaveTed6 I am the guy who started this threat to solve my problem and my problem got solved. Looks like you have the opposite problem. I'm not a Firefox expert and I'm pretty sure someone will help you out here. There's no coding involved. It's just a matter of changing the configuration parameters. But I suggest you start a new thread rather than tag yourself onto this thread. Because, I don't know if people read sub‑threads, ? So go ahead and start your new thread so that your question appears on top. Say something like, “My tabs are not restored when there’s a crash.” Probably your answer is the opposite of mine. You will have to set those configuration parameters in the opposite way. I've set them to false; you may have to set them to true. In any case, I won't comment on this, and someone will help you.