Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Why do I keep getting the 'this is embarrassing' message when I try to open Firefox?

more options

All I want my page to do is open to my home page. I don't know why I keep getting the 'this is embarrassing' message that tries to open my last session. I have gone to options, tools, and set what I want as my home page...

All I want my page to do is open to my home page. I don't know why I keep getting the 'this is embarrassing' message that tries to open my last session. I have gone to options, tools, and set what I want as my home page...

All Replies (3)

more options

That page appears when:

(1) Firefox detects that it crashed at the last shutdown, and (2) Firefox wasn't able to restore your previous session automatically

On #1, Firefox may detect that it crashed if you don't exit out of it normally (or if the shutdown process takes more than 60 seconds). By normally, I mean using the menu, either:

  • "3-bar" menu button > "power" button
  • (menu bar) File > Exit

If you let Windows close Firefox for you, it may not allow enough time for cleanup before "killing" Firefox.

On #2, there could be some corruption in the session history file that prevents an automatic restoration. However, you didn't want one anyway, so probably makes more sense to focus on avoiding #1.

more options

I always close Firefox down before exiting.

more options

At shutdown, Firefox should make these changes:

  • recovery.js is moved from the sessionstore-backups folder to the main level of the profile folder and renamed to sessionstore.js
  • recovery.bak is deleted from sessionstore-backups

Then at startup, Firefox should read sessionstore.js and save it in the sessionstore-backups folder as previous.js (assuming you do not restore it automatically)

Perhaps one or more of those files is "locked" in some manner which is causing this problem to recur over and over. Let's hide them! Here's how:

Open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either

  • "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
  • (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
  • type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

In the first table on the page, click the "Show Folder" button. This should launch a new window listing various files and folders in Windows Explorer.

Leaving that window open, switch back to Firefox and Exit, either:

  • "3-bar" menu button > "power" button
  • (menu bar) File > Exit

Pause while Firefox finishes its files moves, then:

(1) Right-click > Rename the sessionstore-backups folder to something like oldsessions (just in case you ever need to fish around for old tabs in there).

(2) Right-click > Delete the sessionstore.js file and any ancient sessionstore.bak file you might find.

Note: By default, Windows hides the .js extension. To ensure that you are deleting the correct files, I suggest turning off that feature. This article has the steps: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hide-file-name-extensions

At the next startup, Firefox should not know about previous sessions and just show your home page.

Success?

If the problem comes back, I'll describe how to investigate a possible user.js file...