Sent tabs lost when destination instance changes "signature"?
Hi Moz Support,
I've had this happen several times before, but this time it really annoyed me.
I sent tabs from one Firefox instance to another on another device. I closed these tabs on the source device. These tabs were quite old this time, I'd not opened them in a while - this becomes important later.
On the destination device, let's call it "madbilly's destination Firefox", these tabs didn't arrive. After doing a couple of tests where I sent a tab from my mobile to this instance, I realised that this was a similar problem to what I'd had before, which is one where a Firefox instance/profile for some reasons "resets" itself and it seems to create a new instance in Firefox Sync. Tabs which have previously been sent to "madbilly's destination Firefox" don't arrive, because (I think) it's not registered in Firefox Sync as the same instance. These sent tabs, if closed on the source instance (which I did) are lost, unless one reopens the source instance and Ctrl-Shift+T reopens closed tabs. Unfortunately, in this case because the tabs were old and I hadn't opened them for a while there was no way to do this, because Firefox doesn't remember closed tabs which are not stored in memory (another bug, any fix?), except for looking in old session store backups which I'm going to do after I write this post, though I don't know if that will work.
Also, on Android, because it only remembers 10 closed tabs it's not really feasible to retrieve lost sent tabs this way either, and as there's no access to the session store backups the tabs are definitely lost.
Oddly, when this happens "madbilly's destination Firefox" usually appears twice in the send-tab-to menu, but in this case it didn't. To be able to send to this instance I had to sign out of Firefox sync on this instance and sign in again. Then the same instance appeared twice in the sync menu, the old one being now unreachable.
I'd like to know: 1. Why does this happen? 2. How to avoid it happening? 3. Is there a bug registered about this? 4. When will it be fixed and prevented from happening again.
I generally find that this happens when a Firefox instance isn't shut down properly, which on my old desktop I put down to it running out of resources, but on this shiny new laptop from work that doesn't make sense.
All help much appreciated thanks :)
Krejt Përgjigjet (2)
Maybe you're on a new device? Not sure if there's a new system update. Sync before closing and maybee bookmark.
To Recover: Navigate to your desktop profile folder via about:support -> Profile Folder -> Open Folder. Look inside the sessionstore-backups directory.
Hello Mariam, Yes, the destination laptop was a new device but I'm not sure how that's relevant, could you explain please? Firefox was up to date. Do Firefox updates break sync status?
Bookmarks would be a workaround not a solution and not a habit I want to get into as it will be a faff to manage them. However if the Firefox dev team change Send Tabs to work by creating bookmarks then that would be great - the Snooze Tabs addon works this way and it's very helpful for tracking tabs which have not unsnoozed when they should.
Yes, I know how to recover from old session stores, thank you.
I was hoping for a more in-depth reply explaining why this happens, how to prevent it happening and to know if there's a bug registered for it and a fix being worked on.
Duhet të bëni hyrjen te llogaria juaj që t’i përgjigjeni postimeve. Ju lutemi, filloni me një pyetje të re, nëse s’keni ende një llogari.