Sorry I mean automatic of course

leishman said

Sorry I mean automatic of course

Hello leashman,

Absolutely no need to apologize for a typo !

May I ask why you don't want to close Firefox ? When you close Firefox (and have it set to remember history etc.), wouldn't that do what you want ?

Of course that would (and does) work. But when I log out I have many open windows. Logging out closes them all automatically. I would hope that firefox closes cleanly. If it doesn't and thinks this is a crash the about:config settings should still mean there is no automatic restore.

Is there some additional config that will help me ?

leishman said

when I log out I have many open windows. Logging out closes them all automatically.

I must be needing a break, cause all that I read here is : you do want to restore the previous session ......

I sure hope that someone with better working braincells will come to your rescue (so sorry ... )

No I want the default behavior on startup to be a new session. The option to restore the old session (if I want it) is available in the menu.

leishman said

No I want the default behavior on startup to be a new session. The option to restore the old session (if I want it) is available in the menu.

Now, this will probably be another dumb question : but why don't you just use the "Restore previous session" option, close Firefox, and at startup, when you want to start a "new session" just open a new window or tab ? You'll still have all your previous windows and/or tabs, and be able to start a "new session". And you can close any window/tab that you no longer need.

But I'll make myself scarce now - don't want to drive you nuts.

'Couldn't let it go just yet and was thinking that maybe you could use this add-on :

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/window-session-saver

Worth a try .....

Then you can just close Firefox, and at startup your homepage will open.

Thanks for the suggestion. I installed the addon. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to make a difference. After a new login when I start firefox it reloads all the old tabs and windows.

Is this really a bug? If the restore is switched off in the preferences and the about config has "browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash false" then there should never be an automatic session restore, right ?

You know, I must be totally misconstruing your question, so I'm going to do what I should have done in the first place and let you wait for someone else to come to your rescue ......

OK. Thanks anyway

I will now forward this thread to a fellow contributor who just might come up with the perfect solution for you (fingers crossed .... ).

leishman said

in about:config I have ...
browser.sessionstore.max_resumed_crashes 0

It seems you have Firefox set to not automatically restore the previous session after a crash, but instead to show you the screen indicating Firefox wasn't able to restore automatically and giving you the choice between restoring or starting a new session. Selecting to start a new session there may discard your session history, so this isn't what you want to do.

But you also have:

leishman said

browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash false

Although I have never tested that setting, I assume it does what it says.

So why is your session getting restored? If you were running Windows 10, I would point to a feature where Firefox integrates with the OS to restore your session. The preference for that is described in the following article:

Firefox starts automatically when I restart Windows

However, I don't know whether Linux versions of Firefox have anything like that.

I log out of KDE without closing firefox. At the next login all my tabs and windows are restored.

Are you sure that logging out is actually terminating Firefox, and not leaving it running in the background somehow? I would be more convinced this is a session restore behavior if it occurred after you did a complete shutdown.

Does Firefox create a sessionstore.jsonlz4 ?

If Firefox is forced to close in such a way that sessionstore.jsonlz4 doesn't get created then Firefox will fallback to files in the sessionstore-backups folder. Also keep in mind that you might corrupt your profile folder or lose other session data that was kept in memory and isn't written to the profile folder. If you close Firefox properly via "File -> Quit" then this should work.

I'm curious why you logout of KDE, but do not want to close Firefox properly.

Do you intend to login as another user or are you closing down the computer (i.e. not hibernate or suspend to disk)?

leishman said

Thanks for the suggestion. I installed the addon. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to make a difference. After a new login when I start firefox it reloads all the old tabs and windows.

I totally misconstrued your reply to my question why you don't close firefox : I thought you kept firefox open so you wouldn't lose your open windows and tabs, and yet you wanted to start a new session .....

(edit : typo)

I find it easier to use multiple Profiles with dedicated desktop shortcuts:

Profile Manager - Create, remove, or switch Firefox profiles

Profiles - Where Firefox stores your bookmarks, passwords and other user data

Thanks to all for your help.

I made the settings

 browser.sessionstore.max_resumed_crashes 0
 browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash false

in order to try and stop the automatic session restore. The resume_from_crash setting appears to have no effect. This may be a bug.

KDE does have a session management system but I am not using it and start firefox manually.

When I log out it is almost always to shutdown the computer. Firefox is no longer running after a logout. KDE terminates it - not sure how.

As I mentioned above - if I quit firefox by closing it manually everything is fine - When I restart firefox it will start with a new session. Why don't I do this ? When I logout (usually to shutdown) I have lots of windows open. I don't want to spend time going around my desktops closing everything (call me lazy). The logout should be a normal event for firefox and not be interpreted as a crash.

I don't know how kde stops processes in the logout process. If I kill firefox manually (killall firefox-bin firefox) then firefox is terminated. No sessionstore.jsonlz4 file is created in my profile. However If I restart firefox it does NOT restore the session - it starts with a new session - exactly what I want !!

leishman said

When I logout (usually to shutdown) I have lots of windows open. I don't want to spend time going around my desktops closing everything (call me lazy).

See the last post in this thread :

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1138603

Okay, this much is clear:

(1) Crash recovery is not happening in your Firefox, as evidenced by what happens when you intentionally crash it.

(2) Your Firefox does not automatically restore your previous session, as evidenced by what happens when you use Quit.

That implies your OS is doing something special to restore your open windows, but I'm not aware of how your shell or distribution work, so I don't know whether that is what's happening. But what else could it be?

Hi thanks for your response and taking time to think about my problem.

 (1) Crash recovery is not happening

I tried switching browser.sessionstore.max_resumed_crashes and browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash back to default. When I then crash firefox (killall firefox firefox-bin) and restart the session is restored. with browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash false the session is not restored.

So I agree the normal crash recovery is not happening when I restart firefox after a logout and subsequent login.

 (2) Your Firefox does not automatically restore your previous session

Certainly when I quit normally (eg. quit from menu) and restart, firefox starts with a new session and does not restore the previous session.

 That implies your OS is doing something special ...

I don't really believe that. There is some software around to try to integrate firefox with kde but this is done using additional addons - I have none of these installed.

It seems that when I logout of kde while firefox is running it leaves the profile in a state where firefox on restart doesn't do a crash recovery but still restores the previous session.

Are there any other config possibilities I can try ?

It sounds as though Firefox is getting a signal similar to the one used for updates where

browser.sessionstore.resume_session_once

is set to true. This could be done in

• prefs.js
• user.js
• Autoconfig file

But as far as I know, Firefox would never be doing that itself when being shut down by the OS.

Good luck finding that or whatever else is happening.