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.

Avatar for Username

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

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

FF 4.0 often issues "Firefox is having trouble recovering your windows and tabs" error message upon startup. Any thoughts?

  • 2 replies
  • 16 have this problem
  • 5 views
  • Last reply by GhostShell

GhostShell
GhostShell
more options

Using FF 4.0, including latest betas (I think 10 and up) and Release Candidates, upon start up Firefox sometimes creates a "Restore Session" tab with the following message: "Well, this is embarrassing. Firefox is having trouble recovering your windows and tabs. This is usually caused by a recently opened web page." This is even after the previous session only contained one tab and closed normally. I have FF set to "Show my home page" when it starts. Also, sometimes it will start with a blank tab, instead of my home page. This problem only started with FF 4 (no problems with FF 3.6.x). Any ideas?

Using FF 4.0, including latest betas (I think 10 and up) and Release Candidates, upon start up Firefox sometimes creates a "Restore Session" tab with the following message: "Well, this is embarrassing. Firefox is having trouble recovering your windows and tabs. This is usually caused by a recently opened web page." This is even after the previous session only contained one tab and closed normally. I have FF set to "Show my home page" when it starts. Also, sometimes it will start with a blank tab, instead of my home page. This problem only started with FF 4 (no problems with FF 3.6.x). Any ideas?

All Replies (2)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

See:

If you have submitted Breakpad crash reports then post the IDs of one or more Breakpad crash reports (bp-xxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx).
You can find the IDs of the submitted crash reports on the about:crashes page.
You can open the about:crashes page via the location bar, like you open a website.

See also:

GhostShell
GhostShell Question owner
more options

Thanks for your reply, cor-el. One thing I should mention is that Firefox isn't crashing when this problem occurs. When I start FF 4.0, rather than the web page I have set for my home page, sometimes FF presents a tab entitled "Restore Session" containing the "Well, this is embarrassing..." message. There are two options presented: Restore the previous window (I think), or Start a New Session. FF is still fully functional. I usually close the tab and select the Home button to bring up the home page. Sometimes I can replicate the problem, and sometimes I can't. Seems to occur more frequently if I've closed my previous Firefox session with only one tab open, and that tab was blank (ie New Tab). I've added an image of the Restore Session tab messages that I'm receiving.

Modified by GhostShell