In Tools>Options>General>Startup, select to "open home page" instead of "open the tabs and pages from last time". In Tools>Options>Tabs, tick "warn when closing multiple tabs".

If the issue persists after that, please check for it in safe mode and see troubleshooting extensions and themes.

Please notify us of any further progress on the issue.

It is possible you have a set of related problems, so sorry if this attempt at an answer is rather complicated.

The beta 4 version is experimental and intended for testers to use it. When the test version is installed it will normally install in a slightly different location, and users are then expected to create a separate profile to use with the test version. see

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Testing_pre-release_versions

Many things in Firefox are customisable. You are able to choose whether to open at a specific homepage, or set of homepages, including blank pages, or on previously open tabs. For an explanation of these options and how to change them see

• How to set the home page

If firefox 3.6.14 has "quit responding completely!" you may want to look into that. First clear the browser cache and any cookies for the page that will not open then follow the steps in basic trouble shooting but when you use safe mode do not make changes when you see the first dialogue window, just click on the continue button. You must ensure that you have separate profiles for each version of firefox or you will almost certainly have problems. See also

• cookies
• how to clear the cache
• firefox hangs
• managing profiles

Post back with how you get on, someone will probably try to help if you continue to have trouble, or need a better explanation.

Thanks, John, for your quick response. I have used Beta versions of other programs without much incident. This Beta 4 was impossible. I had cleared the cache, history, cookies, etc. etc. They really didn't have all that much in them, as I keep that stuff cleaned out pretty frequently. So here is what I did. First I uninstalled both the 3.6.15, AND the 4. Beta. Then installed only the Beta 4. Upon opening for the first time, it opened to the last page I had visited. There was a little orange Firefox tab in the upper left hand corner which had some options, but none to go to a Home Page. I finally found the arrow to the home page, and when I got there it was empty, but there was a side bar for add ons, extensions, plug ins, etc. When I clicked on the extensions, I found that MOST of what I had from the prior version were "incompatible" with Firefox 4.and disabled. (OK, now I am getting ticked off.) I didn't find much valid help in setting up the Beta version, so I uninstalled it, re-installed 3.6.15, which has restored sanity to my life, and appears to be working. All of the old extensions are there, and working. I am either too unsophisticated to be a "tester" of the beta Firefox, or it has some serious screws loose! I just wanted it to WORK! I had the Not Responding issue before I ever downloaded the Beta version, so I don't know what was the problem there!?! However, I do thank you for your suggestions, I am going to stay away from any BETA versions of anything from now on and just be a plain old user, because I have loved Firefox for years. I hope this version 4.0++ doesn't screw it up completely! I don't want to have to be a rocket scientist just to set up a homepage! And clearly I am not (hahaha!) Mary

I am glad things seem to be sorting out.

Take care when installing any firefox versions, if you use the delete settings option., or whatever it is called it deletes everything regarding all versions. Your bookmarks are probably important to you, and it may be worth making your own manual backups of them and keeping them somewhere safe so that you can restore them if something goes wrong with firefox.

The reason on that you need the separate profiles if you use two versions of firefox inclues as you have noted some extensions etc are not likely to be compatible with both versions. Hopefully because so many people test the new beta versions they will be relatively trouble free when released.

Thanks again, John. I did uncheck the box which would have deleted all my bookmarks, so that when I re-installed, they were saved. But making a backup of my bookmarks is really a good idea, and I am going to do so now. I appreciate your help. Mary

@gryllida: I did do as suggested, and that seems to have resolved the issue. Thanks so much. I appreciate everyone's effort to make Firefox better. I am just not quite enough of a geek to weed through the Beta version, it seems, and I leave it to those far wiser than me to find fixes. Y'all rock. Mary

mareizona,

I'm happy the issue was resolved. Please indicate that my reply solved the issue so that the thread has a 'solution chosen by...' line at the top and use new threads to ask about any further issues you have.

Thanks!

If the Cookies window is open and no browser or other Firefox windows are open, opening a new browser window will now still open the last page visited instead of a blank page, even if "Show a blank page" is selected for "When Firefox starts:", and even if the last browser window opened was blank; I tested this by opening a webpage and then opening a blank browser window, closing the browser window with the webpage, then closing the blank browser window, then opening a new browser window while the Cookies window remained open. It is a time waster to have to continually close and reopen the Cookies window and a potential privacy disaster to have your website reopened after you closed your browser. Please, please, fix this.

It is also a waste of time to have to re-clear cookies, and flash cookies as well, when the webpage reopened when you weren't expecting it.

@jecg
You may be more likely to get an answer if you ask a new question providing full system details etc I suspect your own concerns differ from the original post in this thread.

I had same problem. I have windows vista laptop (I use sleep mode) and Firefox 4 release version. I was planning to remove all user data and if that doesn't help then uninstall hole Firefox.

But I couldn't remove user data and then I check Task manager and I notice That Firefox was still running.

After terminating Firefox process, all start to work normally. Now Firefox loads my homepage at start-up and doesn't show last session pages.

The problem of firefox continuing to run is covered in

• "Firefox is already running but is not responding" error - How to fix
• see also firefox hangs.

The profile data is usually considered important, it will include your bookmarks, history and passwords.

You mention "I was planning to remove all user data and if that doesn't help" that sort of action is usually not necessary, and if it is steps are normally taken to ensure the data may be recovered later, eg backing up bookmarks, and rather than deleting a profile, making it unavailable by renaming it, or by creating a separate additional profile to use.

Please note if on uninstalling you use the option to remove user data, (or whatever the exact wording) it will delete profile data from all installed versions of firefox, and that is then unrecoverable. (Without resorting to data recovery programmes and being lucky).

As an aside, if on a Windows OS you use the Hibernate option, that is intended to store the current state of the system and the RAM, with the intention of restarting from hibernation with everything much as it was when you hibernated, and so you could expect web pages may remain open (unless for instance the server times out). Also note if you have a small hdd - so especially notable on netbooks with solid state drives - that the hibernate option may require a fair amount of disk hdd space. (It will require something similar to the amount of RAM installed)

Firefox always opens a page that I very first visited just after installing Firefox 4. It's very annoying! I'm going to uninstall firefox 4 and revert to go old trusty firefox 3.

Try changing what your homepage is
look at the solutions already posted above by Gryllida