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Why is Restore Previous Session is Grayed Out?

  • 10 replies
  • 48 have this problem
  • 7 views
  • Last reply by sdrum49

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I had to close Firefox by clicking on the red X. (because it grabs so much memory and won;t release it without restarting the browser, but that's ANOTHER complaint). Normally I go to History/Restore previous session to restore my tabs. Now that option is grayed out in the menu. How do I restore the tabs I had open previously?

I had to close Firefox by clicking on the red X. (because it grabs so much memory and won;t release it without restarting the browser, but that's ANOTHER complaint). Normally I go to History/Restore previous session to restore my tabs. Now that option is grayed out in the menu. How do I restore the tabs I had open previously?

All Replies (10)

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Are you sure Firefox exited fully? If you check the following, is anything listed:

History > Recent Closed Tabs
History > Recent Closed Windows

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Make sure that you do not run Firefox in (permanent) Private Browsing mode (Never Remember History).


In case you are using "Clear history when Firefox closes":

  • do not clear the Browsing History

Note that clearing "Site Preferences" clears all exceptions for cookies, images, pop-up windows, software installation, and passwords.

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None of those are applicable, unfortunately. Show All History displays a history of all the tabs I've had opened as well as Recently Closed Tabs. And When Firefox starts "show my windows and tabs form last time" is selected. This seems to have started when Firefox released V 23.

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The other thing that is different now is that when you mouse over the Firefox icon in the Windows 7 task bar, it now shows ALL the tabs that are open in the window. before it used to show only the active tab.

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The other thing that is different now is that when you mouse over the Firefox icon in the Windows 7 task bar, it now shows ALL the tabs that are open in the window. before it used to show only the active tab.

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Hi sdrum49, if Firefox is set to automatically resume your previous session, it makes sense that the Restore Previous Session item on the history menu would be grayed, because it has already been applied. (Perhaps unsuccessfully...)

In case you somehow have more than on tab group in the window, can you press Ctrl+Shift+e to check for and switch to the other one? This interface also should allow you to drag all the tabs into one group, if needed.

Regarding the Windows taskbar: You can control whether you see previews only for the active tab in a window or for all windows by changing this preference:

orange Firefox button (or Tools menu) > Options > Tabs > ""Show tab previews in the Windows taskbar"

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Why would the Show tab previews in the Windows taskbar" option change when Firefox 23 was installed? It was never set to that before.

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(Perhaps unsuccessfully...) Yes, of course, but why would it be unsuccessful? The computer didn't crash. I simply closed the browser with the red X in the corner.

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Hi sdrum49, I have no idea why your preferences changed. Neither starting up into your previous session nor showing tab previews is a default setting in Firefox 23. Do you use any tab-related extensions that might modify those settings?

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Not that I know of. The "start with previous session" is something I have had set for some time. Thanks for all your help. Now if you could tell me why Firefox grabs and keeps so much memory . . . . :-)