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All my tabs (including app tabs) are lost when I restart my computer

  • 3 replies
  • 4 have this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

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For some reason every time I restart my system none of my tabs are saved. They're in my History log, but the "Restore previous session" etc. options are grayed out.

The options are set to "show my windows and tabs from last time" and on the privacy tab "Firefox will: Remember history"

I was using Firefox 8 when this started happening and have just upgraded to 9 but that hasn't fixed the problem. I did try searching online but couldn't find a solution.

Any ideas?

For some reason every time I restart my system none of my tabs are saved. They're in my History log, but the "Restore previous session" etc. options are grayed out. The options are set to "show my windows and tabs from last time" and on the privacy tab "Firefox will: Remember history" I was using Firefox 8 when this started happening and have just upgraded to 9 but that hasn't fixed the problem. I did try searching online but couldn't find a solution. Any ideas?

All Replies (3)

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Which security software (firewall, anti-virus) do you have?

Does it have a virtualization feature that restores files to their previous state on each boot of Windows?

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Not only have we lost the tabs, but also the tab groups, although not particularly related to restarting computer. I often lost my groups, but for some reason they'd come back. Then they didn't, and the active tabs disappeared on a Firefox restart. But not consistently. I've restarted computer today and have most of my tabs restored from when I last closed. But not the old ones. Disappointingly, History - Restore Previous Session is greyed out, and History - Show All History - Import and Backup does not restore the tabs from a previous day, as might be hoped.

I am using Windows firewall and AVG virus checker

Modified by henryfm

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Use "Firefox/File > Exit" (Mac: "Firefox > Quit"; Linux: "File > Quit") to close Firefox if you are currently doing that by clicking the close X on the title bar.

App (pinned) tabs and Tab Groups (Panorama) are stored as part of the session data [1] in the file sessionstore.js [2] in the Firefox profile folder [3].

Make sure that you do not use "Clear Recent History" to clear the "Browsing History" when Firefox is closed because that prevails and prevents Firefox from opening tabs from the previous session.

It is also possible to use the "Show my windows and tabs from last time" setting, that is usually a more reliable way to restore session data.

If you use cleanup software like CCleaner then make sure that Session is unchecked in the settings for the Firefox application.