Profile/session doesn't ever save/load
I run normal firefox on linux. Fully up-to-date. Every time I quit the app, it reverts to a version of my profile from a month ago, and loads all the tabs I had open then, and then receives all the tabs that I sent to the device in the interim (~1 month). As I speak, it just caught the 60 or 70 tabs in this window.
I tried changing the name of my profile folder to randomstring.defaultOLD and changed one of the backups to randomstring.default. This didn't change the behavior. I'm still stuck in the loop. I saved my tabs with onetab, because firefox isn't remembering my session anymore. I thought it was something to do with updates, like it only loses its mind upon updates, but that's not true. It thinks it's updating firefox EVERY TIME, because the one time it's loading to 1 month ago it was updating, but I'm 100% sure there are no updates to firefox in my linux. It's just hallucinating.
The articles on restoring from backup are outdated. They say to use an html file. There is no html file. It's just folders for profiles, not html files. HELP!
All Replies (28)
And POOF, both profiles are now completely gone. Have to start from scratch again, this firefox update (update today or yesterday, just took effect today).
The newer profile loaded to the start page, no extensions, nothing logged in, as if it was totally wiped.
The original/default profile says it can't/won't even load.
I want my only profile to be the default one. Not my current default profile, which is unaccessible, but the default for the install of the browser.
Modified by pontaf
about:sessionrestore
Sorry. We’re having trouble getting your pages back.
and all blank. But there are some saved sessions in sessionstore-backups folder. Bizarre.
about:sessionrestore is for selective crash recovery if need be, not for planned shutdowns like updates (they're saved differently)
I don't really have anything else than what was posted earlier — if you don't have sessionstore-logs there's not much to look into even if you open a bug to get an engineer triage it. (This looks like file system access level issue, try changing your installation — if snap or flatpak store the profile folder elsewhere, use a mozilla repository via apt instead of running a binary that needs to write its location etc.)
What permissions ought I set on the whole .mozilla/firefox folder?
I never got a /sessionstore-logs/, ever. Are you sure it should exist?
This was an unplanned shutdown.
What permissions ought I set on the whole .mozilla/firefox folder?
I don't know for each specific installation method — maybe someone with similar setup will know better.
It's still not apparent how you install it and how it updates itself, from the description it sounds like it's not managed on your system and runs just a plain tarball setup that seems to be updating on its own, which is not a setup I'm familiar with.
In general it's ideally something the firefox binary writes when set up — so if I had update issues with profile data loss, I'd generally: 1.) move/rename the whole .mozilla folder away so there's none to get it recreated, 2.) pick installation that I don't have to set specific permissions for, like a mozorg APT repo source — thus only updating it via apt, not letting it run autoupdater from userspace itself, 3.) remove any other binaries, sources and packages and check the priority order and that it's not in the unattended installs, 4.) start without existing profile path to have the fresh packaged binary recreate its path from scratch as necessary, creating a new default set of profile data using the current binary, 5.) selectively move old profile data from the renamed location in 1. to the new profile folders.
Here's the primary way to install:
https://www.firefox.com/en-US/thanks/
basically a tarball.
I've installed from apt, migrating.
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