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The close tab icon ("x" box) does not appear on the tabs. Safemode and no add-ons, new window with only 2 tabs, still the same behavior. Why? How to fix?

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 9 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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It would seem the key is explained by the browser.tabs.closeButtons setting ( http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.tabs.closeButtons ). Mine is set to 5. If I set it back to the default of 1, then I get the close buttons ("x") showing up on the tabs again (or on the active tab only, if there are several). But 5 is not a valid value according the description. I'm sure that *I* did not change it to 5. So anyway, I changed it in safe mode back to the default of 1, and the close icons appeared immediately. Yeah! So then restarted firefox to have the add-ons working again. This caused it to be be automatically changed to 5 again. Grrrr!

Is there no way to trouble-shoot which add-on is screwing with the setting? I mean, other than turning them off one by one and restarting firefox each time? That could take all day.

It would seem the key is explained by the browser.tabs.closeButtons setting ( http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.tabs.closeButtons ). Mine is set to 5. If I set it back to the default of 1, then I get the close buttons ("x") showing up on the tabs again (or on the active tab only, if there are several). But 5 is not a valid value according the description. I'm sure that *I* did not change it to 5. So anyway, I changed it in safe mode back to the default of 1, and the close icons appeared immediately. Yeah! So then restarted firefox to have the add-ons working again. This caused it to be be automatically changed to 5 again. Grrrr! Is there no way to trouble-shoot which add-on is screwing with the setting? I mean, other than turning them off one by one and restarting firefox each time? That could take all day.

All Replies (3)

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You should be able to change the setting in about:config in normal mode. Does it change back every time you restart?

Do you run any tab-related extensions that might have as a feature changing the close button?

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OK, perhaps it changed back to "5" only because I did the editing while in safe mode. I tried the whole thing again, starting not in safe mode, and this time the reset to a value of 1 persisted. Admittedly, I also disabled two "older" versions of some add-ons that had newer versions active (I don't know why that situation would come about in the first place, but I was seeing 2 distinct versions active at the same time). At first, I disabled the add-on "IE Tab" in all versions, and still saw the parameter set to 1 after restarting, and then I re-enabled the latest version of "IE Tab" (2.0) and restarted again -- the value was still set to 1. Baffling. But perhaps someone can say for certain whether changes to the config while in safe mode are not retained?

In any case, I have fixed the problem by going to about:config and changing (resetting) browser.tab.closeButtons back to the default value of 1. Hope this helps someone.

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You can also check for problems with a user.js file if settings do not stick after a restart.

You can set the browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab pref to false on the about:config page to prevent closing the last tab from closing that window and make a close button appear if only one tab is open.