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How to disable restore previous session in firefox quantum?

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So I've tried checking some of the restore options in about:config which have not resolved my problem.

I don't want the restore previous session option to come up.

New quantum firefox is amazing, but this is super annoying. For many many people obviously who will never post and never figure this out. Why would you set that as a default setting without an option to change it

So I've tried checking some of the restore options in about:config which have not resolved my problem. I don't want the restore previous session option to come up. New quantum firefox is amazing, but this is super annoying. For many many people obviously who will never post and never figure this out. Why would you set that as a default setting without an option to change it

Chosen solution

krohm said

Every time I close firefox quantum when I have pages open, I reopen firefox, and it prompts to restore the previous session, which I do not want.

That should only happen if Firefox thinks it crashed during shutdown. Possibly there actually was an incomplete shutdown, or possibly some session files were deleted leaving others behind, making it appear that the shutdown was incomplete.

Do you use CCleaner? Make sure you have the updates from the last 4 months.

You didn't mention what settings you changed. This one might prevent the crash recovery screen from appearing *NOT RECOMMENDED*:

(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

(3) Double-click the browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash preference to switch the value from true to false

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All Replies (13)

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That would be in your General option where you would make those changes.

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krohm said

I don't want the restore previous session option to come up.

Where does it come up?

Do you get a page saying that Firefox couldn't restore your previous session and do you want to pick and choose tabs to restore? That page normally appears only after a failed crash recovery, meaning, Firefox things it crashed after the last session and it wasn't able to restore the previous session tabs automatically.

What did you try changing?

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Sorry if I wasn't clear.

Every time I close firefox quantum when I have pages open, I reopen firefox, and it prompts to restore the previous session, which I do not want.

I want it to go to my homepage, not prompt me to restore my previous sessions.

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Sounds like you may not be using Exit when closing Firefox.

Three ways to Exit Firefox.

  1. Use the 3-bar "Open menu" button then select Exit at the bottom of that menu.
  2. Hit Alt then hit F then use the Exit menu item.
  3. Or use { Ctrl + Shift + Q } which is the keyboard command for Exit.


And if that isn't the issue look at Options > General - under Startup > When Firefox starts is Show your home page selected?

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Chosen Solution

krohm said

Every time I close firefox quantum when I have pages open, I reopen firefox, and it prompts to restore the previous session, which I do not want.

That should only happen if Firefox thinks it crashed during shutdown. Possibly there actually was an incomplete shutdown, or possibly some session files were deleted leaving others behind, making it appear that the shutdown was incomplete.

Do you use CCleaner? Make sure you have the updates from the last 4 months.

You didn't mention what settings you changed. This one might prevent the crash recovery screen from appearing *NOT RECOMMENDED*:

(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

(3) Double-click the browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash preference to switch the value from true to false

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jscher2000 said

krohm said
Every time I close firefox quantum when I have pages open, I reopen firefox, and it prompts to restore the previous session, which I do not want.

(3) Double-click the browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash preference to switch the value from true to false

It's not crashing, just closing firefox quantum it always prompts to resume the session.

That was the setting I was after, perfect!

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Maybe it's not crashing in any visible way, but when Firefox doesn't find sessionstore.jsonlz4 in the expected location and does find other session history files suggesting that shutdown was abnormal, it may assume there was a crash.

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It does this on my machine plus several others I have tested.

It is a function of firefox quantum

It prompts to restore session if you close firefox with any tabs open

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This can happen if Firefox doesn't close properly.

Use one of these to close Firefox if you are currently doing that by clicking the close X on the Firefox title bar.

  • "3-bar" menu button -> Exit (Power button)
  • Windows: File -> Exit
  • Mac: Firefox -> Quit Firefox
  • Linux: File -> Quit
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No one wants to have to close firefox by having to click into menus

Clicking the X is closing an application properly

This would be extremely frustrating for most people as they don't want to have the option to restore their session, they just want to start a new one immediately. It's a terrible forced feature. If you want to restore, there is the option to click the menu to restore previous session. It should not be a forced option. This is only from the new quantum version of firefox.

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Clicking the X is closing an application properly

This is only valid for applications that only open one window. In Firefox you can have multiple windows open and using the menu item is the only way to close all open windows at once correctly. Otherwise you only close one window and it depends on the presence of other windows whether Firefox decides to close Firefox. If you use the menu item then Firefox know you want to quit Firefox and can initiate a proper shutdown. This will avoid issues when closing a window isn't working properly or takes too much time, but it is up to you to decide how to close Firefox.

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I think restoring pages from an old (or crashed) session is a annoying, useless and dangerous behaviour. If firefox does so, the startup will take longer and I will be confronted with webpages which I did not expect. All of the sessions in the tabs (webmail, amazon, company adminsitrative, ...) are expired and will just show error messages. And HOPEFULLY all session cookies are gone, as keeping them would allow everybody with access to my conputer to mess with open accounts I have not closed because Firefox was not running when leaving the desk. Opening Firefox should ALWAYS lead to a new browser window with only the home url open. There is the "restore last session" and "History" option anyways.

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Hi peter.steier, resuming the previous session is ideal for me, but I understand you are not interested in that. If you don't want Firefox to perform automatic crash recovery, you could have asked what setting controls that, and here's the answer to that question:

(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

(3) Double-click the browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash preference to switch the value from true to false