Restore blank page as "previous session"?
If you close FF with just a blank page, and Startup set to "Restore previous session", it should start next time with a blank page, right?
That's what I thought. It doesn't, though; it opens the last NON-blank page you viewed, whatever it was. Is this intentional, or an oversight?
I've set my Home page to about:blank. When I'm finished viewing pages, I'd like to be able to click Home, exit FF, and see that blank page next time. Any way to do that? Or is it a kind of Catch-22 that FF's devs have no plans to change?
All Replies (6)
What th'...?? I just re-tried what I described—and this time it worked! I'm baffled.
Maybe a certain number of tabs must be open in the window, then closed, before exiting. I'll experiment. Sheesh, though, doesn't it just figure? LOL
Modified by Ander
Okay, it does definitely happen—just not every time. Weird.
It is possible that you need to wait a few seconds before closing Firefox to ensure that the sessionstore files get updated.
See also this pref on the about:config page.
- browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab
You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I accept the risk!" to continue.
There's up to a 15 second delay before changes are recorded to your session history file. So it could be a difference in timing between your tests.
jscher2000 said
There's up to a 15 second delay before changes are recorded to your session history file. So it could be a difference in timing between your tests.
And just in case you wanted to see where that is set:
(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful or accepting the risk.
(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste sess and pause while the list is filtered
The browser.sessionstore.interval preference sets the maximum time Firefox will wait before updating your session history file, in milliseconds. So:
- 15000 = 15 seconds (default)
- 30000 = 30 seconds
- 60000 = 60 seconds
The default value should work for most people. You might increase the value if you encounter performance issues such as Firefox using too much hard drive in the Windows Task Manager, or if you have read scary articles about wearing out an SSD and you want to reduce wear and tear. However, then there's more of a chance of missing new tabs or changed pages at your next startup (or during crash recovery).
Thanks for your replies.
cor-el said
It is possible that you need to wait a few seconds before closing Firefox to ensure that the sessionstore files get updated. See also this pref on the about:config page.
- browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab ...
Interesting! Delay before exit doesn't seem to affect the issue, but I don't think it matters. Rather than clicking Home to set the last tab to about:blank, I'll just close it (Ctrl+W) before exiting FF. With browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab set to False (which I see is the default), this leaves FF with a new blank tab, which it seems to remember.