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Firefox mysteriously starts closing tabs in the background whenever I'm logged in to my other Mac user profile

  • 6 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 10 views
  • Last reply by Michael

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Very strange behavior... when I switch from my primary user profile on my mac over to my work one (while leaving the primary one, and Firefox, open), my Firefox tabs start closing in my primary profile in the background, one by one.

And it's directly correlated to amount of time spent in the work profile... if I switch over to the work profile, then switch back a few minutes later, all FF tabs are still there. But if I remain in the work profile for 20+ minutes then switch back, a few tabs will have closed. If I'm in the work profile for hours, when I switch back 10 or 15 tabs will have closed.

I know it's not an add-on issue, because I've tested it while in Safe Mode, and it still happens. I don't even know how to begin troubleshooting this. Anyone have any ideas?

Very strange behavior... when I switch from my primary user profile on my mac over to my work one (while leaving the primary one, and Firefox, open), my Firefox tabs start closing in my primary profile in the background, one by one. And it's directly correlated to amount of time spent in the work profile... if I switch over to the work profile, then switch back a few minutes later, all FF tabs are still there. But if I remain in the work profile for 20+ minutes then switch back, a few tabs will have closed. If I'm in the work profile for hours, when I switch back 10 or 15 tabs will have closed. I know it's not an add-on issue, because I've tested it while in Safe Mode, and it still happens. I don't even know how to begin troubleshooting this. Anyone have any ideas?

All Replies (6)

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Are you possibly using Sync to sync history or open tabs ?

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Yes I am. And in my work profile I’m logged into the same Firefox account as my primary user profile. I’ll try logging out of Firefox in my work profile tonight and see if that does anything. Thanks for the tip!

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What's your goal by using Sync to connect to synchronize both work and personal Firefox data with the same Firefox Account for Sync?

Typically, most users keep their Firefox data separate between personal and work related use of Firefox. If you're purposely commingling that Firefox data, why the use of two separate Profiles?

Overall, it sounds like Sync is doing what you have it set up to do; although maybe what you want it to do or expect it to do.

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@cor-el Well, that didn't work. I logged out and erased my Firefox data from my work profile, but the problem persists.

@the-edmeister I want to be able to be logged into my work profile so I have separate accounts for Chrome, mail, calendar, messages, etc., but I still want to have access to my primary Firefox account so I can still access my bookmarks and history without having to switch to my primary user profile.

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Hey since you are using a Mac can you try to close all open browser or tabs allow the browser to settle for about 10 minutes then issue the command "lsof -i|grep firefox". This will show all connections running in firefox and if you closed all tabs then you should see no values.

I have noticed that on my Mac I see values like ec2-34-223-130-205.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com:https established with no connections.

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Could you explain how to do that?