This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Erroneous auto-session restore if Firefox is launched with a private window first, and then a normal window is opened second.

  • 1 reply
  • 3 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by TechHorse

more options

I have set Firefox to not automatically restore the previous session on launch. That is, "Open previous windows and tabs" is unchecked in the Startupsettings.

Most of the time it does not do so, however the previous session will get erroneously auto-restored in the folowing circumstances.

Open a few tabs in a normal Firefox window. Fully quit Firefox (via, for example, pressing ctrl+shift+Q). Open a private window first. Open a normal window second.

What should happen is that the new normal window contains just a single new tab. What actually happens is that the tabs that were open in the previous session get auto-restored in this normal window.

To sum up, there is no auto-session restore if Firefox is launched with a normal window first. There is auto-session restore if Firefox is launched with a private window first, and then a normal window is opened second.

Is this a known issue, and are there any known fixes to prevent the auto-session restore in the latter case also?

I have set Firefox to not automatically restore the previous session on launch. That is, "Open previous windows and tabs" is unchecked in the Startupsettings. Most of the time it does not do so, however the previous session will get erroneously auto-restored in the folowing circumstances. Open a few tabs in a normal Firefox window. Fully quit Firefox (via, for example, pressing ctrl+shift+Q). Open a private window first. Open a normal window second. What should happen is that the new normal window contains just a single new tab. What actually happens is that the tabs that were open in the previous session get auto-restored in this normal window. To sum up, there is no auto-session restore if Firefox is launched with a normal window first. There is auto-session restore if Firefox is launched with a private window first, and then a normal window is opened second. Is this a known issue, and are there any known fixes to prevent the auto-session restore in the latter case also?

All Replies (1)

more options

One off bump.

Does anyone know of a fix or if this is at least known to Mozilla?

Once again, if Firefox is launched with a private window first, and then a normal window is opened second, then the previous session is auto-restored.

This is despite "Open previous windows and tabs" being unchecked in the Startupsettings.

Helpful?

Ask a question

You must log in to your account to reply to posts. Please start a new question, if you do not have an account yet.