This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

The Firefox about:home page always shows "Restore Previous Session" and opens random things even after a clean exit.

  • 6 cavab
  • 49 have this problem
  • 27 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

more options

I don't like anything opening automatically when I start Firefox, so before Firefox 4 I set Firefox to open a blank page when it starts. I still had set a page I visit frequently as my home page, so I could get to that page quickly by pressing the home button. If I needed to close Firefox it was nice and easy to have the option to save my session and close (I've already searched and read another post and answer on how to restore this feature in about:config). I understand that Firefox 4 always saves your session and you can restore it from the history menu, but then I would have to remember if I had anything open and click menu/History/Restore Previous Session.

Now in Firefox 4 I have left the home page set to about:home so if I had tabs open when I closed it I would see the Restore Previous Session "button" the next time I start it. However, when I close all windows and tabs before exiting Firefox, the Restore Previous Session "button" will be sometimes be there. If I click it, it will open a random tab or window that I visited the previous day, which was NOT the last tab/window that I had open.

If I do have tabs open when I close it, it does correctly re-open them when using the Restore Previous Session button, it only does this if I do a clean exit (close all tabs/windows before close).

I tried deleting the sessionstore.js and sessionstore.bak files from my Firefox appdata directory (there were no other sessionstore.* files). This is a clean install of Firefox 4, I didn't install on top of Firefox 3.6.xx. I uninstalled Firefox 3.6.xx before installing and made sure to delete any leftover files in my appdata, programdata and program files directories.

I don't like anything opening automatically when I start Firefox, so before Firefox 4 I set Firefox to open a blank page when it starts. I still had set a page I visit frequently as my home page, so I could get to that page quickly by pressing the home button. If I needed to close Firefox it was nice and easy to have the option to save my session and close (I've already searched and read another post and answer on how to restore this feature in about:config). I understand that Firefox 4 always saves your session and you can restore it from the history menu, but then I would have to remember if I had anything open and click menu/History/Restore Previous Session. Now in Firefox 4 I have left the home page set to about:home so if I had tabs open when I closed it I would see the Restore Previous Session "button" the next time I start it. However, when I close all windows and tabs before exiting Firefox, the Restore Previous Session "button" will be sometimes be there. If I click it, it will open a random tab or window that I visited the previous day, which was NOT the last tab/window that I had open. If I do have tabs open when I close it, it does correctly re-open them when using the Restore Previous Session button, it only does this if I do a clean exit (close all tabs/windows before close). I tried deleting the sessionstore.js and sessionstore.bak files from my Firefox appdata directory (there were no other sessionstore.* files). This is a clean install of Firefox 4, I didn't install on top of Firefox 3.6.xx. I uninstalled Firefox 3.6.xx before installing and made sure to delete any leftover files in my appdata, programdata and program files directories.

All Replies (6)

more options

A possible cause is that you close Firefox immediately after having closed some tabs and in that case sessionstore.js might not get updated properly. You can try to test if that is happening by opening a lot of tabs and close them quickly and then close Firefox. Repeat this and then wait 10 seconds before closing Firefox to see if that makes any difference.

more options

I thought about that before and tried it, and it doesn't seem to make a difference. I did it just now, I opened a blank tab and closed everything else, waited a minute then closed Firefox. I waited another minute and launched Firefox. The Restore Previous Session box was there on about:home. I clicked it and it opened a new window with about:home in it.

more options

Do this...... type in url

about:config

then type "home" in filter.

the entry browser.startup.homepage needs to be edit.

mine had "about:home|http:\\google.ca"

you need to remove "about:home|" part. What this is basically telling the browser to open about home page and google.ca tab everytime when you open a browser.

Hope it helps.

more options

That's not what is happening. It always opens something different, which is never the last thing I viewed.

more options

Hi! can you please explain to me how to fix it... but in details, cuz I have the same problem and I really don't know how to resolve it (I'm a stupid girl lol). Or if you know any other way to fix it, please tell me...

Thanks in advance

more options

@TeaTeica

Please start a new thread for your problem or question and provide troubleshooting information like your operating system and installed extensions and installed plugins.


[locking thread due to the age]