I believe that deleting or renaming the sessionstore.jsonlz4 from the user's profile folder should fix the problem.

An alternative solution could be to disconnect from the internet temporarily. Then, when you restart Firefox, the old page can't be loaded.

Hope this helps.

Firefox will automatically try to restore the tabs and windows from the last session if a crash has occurred or Firefox didn't close properly the previous time. You can set this pref to 0 (zero) to always show the Session Restore page in case of a crash or when you use the Task Manager to force a shutdown.

• browser.sessionstore.max_resumed_crashes = 0 (-1:never ask; 0:always ask)
• https://wiki.mozilla.org/Session_Restore#Preferences

Wesley Branton said

I believe that deleting or renaming the sessionstore.jsonlz4 from the user's profile folder should fix the problem.

If Firefox did not shut down normally and therefore you don't see that file, try renaming the sessionstore-backups folder to sessionstore-backupsOLD so Firefox can't find those files to use for crash recovery at startup, but you can still mine that folder for data later if desired.

Wesley Branton said

I believe that deleting or renaming the sessionstore.jsonlz4 from the user's profile folder should fix the problem. An alternative solution could be to disconnect from the internet temporarily. Then, when you restart Firefox, the old page can't be loaded. Hope this helps.

jscher2000 said

Wesley Branton said

I believe that deleting or renaming the sessionstore.jsonlz4 from the user's profile folder should fix the problem.

If Firefox did not shut down normally and therefore you don't see that file, try renaming the sessionstore-backups folder to sessionstore-backupsOLD so Firefox can't find those files to use for crash recovery at startup, but you can still mine that folder for data later if desired.

Thanks for the replies. Perhaps I am wrong about restoring tabs causing the problem. tbh in retrospect that was an assumption on my part, not sure why I came to that conclusion........ anyway none of these suggestions have helped unfortunately.

Okay, so to restate the basic problem: "Firefox crashes at startup."

Are any of the bug report going through? This article describes where to look on disk for the crash report IDs of submitted crash reports: Troubleshoot Firefox crashes (closing or quitting unexpectedly) ("Get help" section Note). I think this is the Linux part:

If you can't open Firefox because it crashes at startup even in Safe Mode, use these alternative instructions to locate Report IDs:

1. Go to ~/.mozilla/firefox/Crash Reports/submitted.
2. In the resulting folder, there will be a text file for each crash report you have submitted. Using the View menu, arrange them by date to find out which is the newest file; and double-click on it to open it.

jscher2000 said

Okay, so to restate the basic problem: "Firefox crashes at startup." Are any of the bug report going through? This article describes where to look on disk for the crash report IDs of submitted crash reports: Troubleshoot Firefox crashes (closing or quitting unexpectedly) ("Get help" section Note). I think this is the Linux part: If you can't open Firefox because it crashes at startup even in Safe Mode, use these alternative instructions to locate Report IDs:

1. Go to ~/.mozilla/firefox/Crash Reports/submitted.
2. In the resulting folder, there will be a text file for each crash report you have submitted. Using the View menu, arrange them by date to find out which is the newest file; and double-click on it to open it.

Ok thanks, yep this is from yesterdays crash report:

Crash ID: bp-b2e824aa-f5b7-41eb-a50d-46eeb0200226jscher2000

Thanks augustusgorman, that crash report's Bugzilla tab links to the following bug affecting Firefox 73.0-73.0.1 which is fixed in Firefox 75 and should be "uplifted" to beta (Firefox 74) soon: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1613130

I don't know where there is a mitigation for Firefox 73 such as disabling hardware acceleration. Can you start Firefox in its "Safe Mode"? This article has the steps: Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode.

If that works, then you could turn off hardware acceleration on the Preferences page as described in this article: Firefox's performance settings.

Or you could consider running the Beta version? More info on that: https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/channel/desktop/

jscher2000 said

Thanks augustusgorman, that crash report's Bugzilla tab links to the following bug affecting Firefox 73.0-73.0.1 which is fixed in Firefox 75 and should be "uplifted" to beta (Firefox 74) soon: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1613130 I don't know where there is a mitigation for Firefox 73 such as disabling hardware acceleration. Can you start Firefox in its "Safe Mode"? This article has the steps: Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode. If that works, then you could turn off hardware acceleration on the Preferences page as described in this article: Firefox's performance settings. Or you could consider running the Beta version? More info on that: https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/channel/desktop/

Ok great thanks. No luck with safe mode, but I'm happy running the Beta version for a while.