Odd Firefox 4 Restore Previous Session Behavior
If I can’t hibernate my desktop, not to worry, Firefox always has the Restore Previous Session feature. The newer builds of Firefox 4 beta – right now I’m still using 4.0b12pre – will no longer ask the user to save the session if there is more than one tab open. Its default action is Save Session. So don’t be surprised.
However, you might be surprised when the next time you start Firefox 4 it does not automatically restore the previous session. I was used to that behaviour in earlier versions and even with Firefox 3. Maybe so were you. But don’t panic. The session is still there but you will have to manually restore it. See the image below? Look at where the mouse pointer is resting. Surely you noticed that big button just waiting to be clicked.
If in case you changed the Home Page to something else, you will have to go to the menus. It is under History > Restore Previous Session, as seen in the next image below.
Another way to auto-load previous session is to set that as default action. Go to Preferences > General > Startup > When Firefox Starts > Show my windows and tabs from last time, and voila!
That isn’t the odd behavior in the title just yet. What is odd is when the session is restored, another Firefox window comes out, this one with all the tabs from the previous session. Now there are 2 Firefox browsers on the desktop. Weird isn’t it? Has anyone, using the same beta version or newer, noticed the same behavior?
How to prevent Firefox from doing its 2-window trick? Simple. Just pin some tabs (right click a tab and select Pin as App Tab). Do this before restoring the session.
Let me say again that I’m currently using Firefox version 4.0b12pre. This is a beta version folks. One I’m comfortable with for a long time. I stuck with this because I didn’t want to see warnings, yet again, that my “addons do not work for this particular Firefox version.” And yes I’m aware that final release of Firefox 4 is on the way. HURRAY for that! 
Update: This behavior I’ve experienced only in beta 12 and earlier versions.
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9 Responses to “Odd Firefox 4 Restore Previous Session Behavior”
March 30, 2011 at 4:01 am »
Re the restore-all-tabs hidden feature, I thought FF was supposed to be the smart browser. Who needs to discover all these clicks when a little more effort could have gone into design by the open source gurus?
Off subject, I’ve just upgraded to win 7. After one week of it, I plan to establish a support group and start a local Luddite Society chapter. Alas, the Macs are out of budget for this old man.
March 30, 2011 at 5:16 am »
My bad, the title of the post is a bit misleading. But everything is explained the further you read.
Actually, I did say you can have Firefox restore all previous session tabs as default action when you open the browser. It is under General Preferences. That will do away with the many clicks just to restore the previous session. Second, it is clearly stated that I am using beta software. What I didn’t state is that it is from a daily build, even more unstable. It is not recommended for regular users and daily use without stumbling into something odd. Last, it’s implied that this entire post was intended for those who were using the same beta version that time or for those who had the same experience as I did.
RE: Off topic: I am not a fan of Windows 7. It’s great but that’s not me. Try an Ubuntu! 10.10 is the latest stable, but I suggest you go with 10.04 because it is LTS (long term support). You want LTS if you are the kind who does not want to install a new OS every year.
Oh I missed that part about a Luddite Society. LOL! Good luck with that. (I hope you go against MS technology particularly.)
April 4, 2011 at 1:19 am »
The restore previous session didn’t work for me. I’ve had FF4 open for days (was it 3 days or one week…?) and I closed it, expecting a “save and quit/quit prompt”.
When I reopened FF and chose the “restore previous session” it restored 4 tabs from more than a week ago. (I was expecting it to restore the 28 tabs I had open for the past 3 days but never bookmarked) I hope this restore session thing is fixed soon.
I agree with Thad that the UX should have been better. I guess I was used to FF always getting thing right that I whine a lot when they mess something up.
April 4, 2011 at 3:25 am »
Hi,
FF4′s Restore Previous Session has never failed me on both Windows XP and 7, and all the more for Linux (Ubuntu), even from back in the beta versions. I think it is something you did on your end. For example, if you open a second FF4 browser window (not tab) without restoring first, that previous session is ‘bye bye’. However, if you are really sure that it was FF4′s fault, and you have experienced this several times, you can ask them about it or report a bug. I encourage you to do both.
April 24, 2011 at 12:05 pm »
Hi
I’m having some strange behaviour too. Closed firefox last night with (I think) no tabs open. Opened up today and it gave me a single page of a site I closed several days ago.
Closed that tab and opened again and it gave me a random assortment of tabs from all over the place. About 25 of the damn things.
Very irritating!
I also think the Tab group function and new user interface are a step backwards, tab groups are useless if you cant save them for future opening
And win 7 is superb, if you have issues with it you need to learn it, not start jumping to another OS. My workflow has been dramatically improved with Wind 7 over XP
Lee
April 27, 2011 at 2:47 am »
Heya!
What do you mean? Tab groups are saved when you restore the previous session. If it does not save for you, better report that as a bug.
I’m not having any weird ‘zombie’ tabs/pages being restored after closing for several days. Even in the earliest beta of FF4 and, mind you, I’m a heavy FF user with at least 10+ tabs open at one time. You should report this too. Every little bit helps. I’m beginning to think yours is a case of an unusual shutdown, where the disks scrammed, journal entries damaged and fixed, then NTFS only got back those that were several days old. It’s just a theory.
I did say Windows 7 is great, didn’t I? But I added that I am not a fan of Windows 7, or any Windows version for that matter. This is a moot point. You prefer Windows, I don’t. I’m an Ubuntu/Linux* user for 10 years. Yes I still use Windows, I won’t deny that, but 90%++ of the time I’m on Linux. So let’s not argue about this. Jumping OS is not a solution, I merely mentioned to give it a try because most Windows users think Linux is all console stuff. It’s changed a lot since those days of cryptic bash commands. You can still do that, but then you can choose not to and go GUI all the way.
*Oops! I meant I’ve been using Linux for 10 years now, and Ubuntu is my current distro.
April 29, 2011 at 1:42 pm »
The final version of FF4 is weird too. I always disable session restore and i prefer to use a blank startup page (about:blank). Before closing FF, i always close all tabs, including the last (in my setup, closing the last tab does not close the browser; i prefer it that way).
Despite all this, sometimes when i open it up again, it says it cannot restore my last session (what? it was not supposed to restore anything, anyway!), sometimes listing tabs that i explicitly closed before closing FF, and sometimes listing only about:blank…
May 16, 2011 at 4:09 pm »
Nice post! I had a similar issue myself with wanting to automate/schedule, create, upload and ping a sitemap.xml so blogged about it here – http://www.geakeit.co.uk/2011/05/12/generating-a-scheduled-google-sitemap-xml-for-your-ecommerce-or-cms-website/. Hopefully someone can find this useful!
May 30, 2011 at 9:04 pm »
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