1259048 - "Show my windows and tabs from last time" reverts to "Show my home page"

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect)

Description

[Michael]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/45.0
Build ID: 20160315153207

Steps to reproduce:

Last few Firefox versions will not stay with "Show my windows and tabs from last time".  It reverts to "Show my home page".  This happens on ALL of my firefox installations (4x), including my wife's.  Mine has lots of add ons, hers has none.  Mine might have 50 tabs open, hers less than 5.  

I can't tell what triggers it, but I've actually left the options page open and watched it switch from "Show my windows and tabs from last time" to "Show my home page", all by itself, so there is code SOMEWHERE doing this.  The time between events is inconsistent.  If you wait long enough, it will happen.  I would say that 1 day is typically sufficient to check that it has reset itself to "Show my home page", but it can last longer than that.  It can be as short as 5 minutes.  I've gotten into the habit of checking before I restart, and I would say 90% of the time it has switched after a day or two.


Actual results:

Reverts to "Show my home page".  I didn't do anything.  Suggest looking through all code for the variable that changes that setting, and find an instance that is changing it that is not from user input.  The code is there somewhere.  Very annoying.


Expected results:

Nothing should have happened.  It should stay set to the user preference.  It should be set so that ONLY the user may change this setting.

Comment 1

[Loic]

Could you make a test with a fresh profile to see if it's reproducible?
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles

Comment 2

[Michael]

(In reply to Loic from comment #1)
> Could you make a test with a fresh profile to see if it's reproducible?
> https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-
> firefox-profiles

Hi.  I have already tried a complete refresh, which didn't work.  Then I did a full uninstall, deleted firefox app folders, reinstall, then re-synched to get my add-ons back.  Neither of these worked.  I am experiencing this problem on 4 PCs, including the work one.  All have also had a complete "malwarebytes" scan, which comes up clean.  I have no annoying 3rd party toolbars or anything like that either.  Viruses OK too.  My wife's setup is VERY basic (no add-ons) and she gets this problem too.  Running Win10 on mine, 7 on hers.  Just as a data point, about 10 minutes after I wrote this, it had changed itself back to "show my home page" again.  Can you just search the code for that setting and see who / what sets it and when?  Seems to me there should be nothing setting it at all, except maybe on installation only, as a default setting.

Thank you !!!

Comment 3

[Loic]

This pref is set by the string browser.startup.page in about:config.
Option "Show my windows and tabs from last time" is number "3".

It can be changed by adding this line in the file prefs.js in your profile folder:
user_pref("browser.startup.page", 3);


Are you using automatic cleaner software like CCleaner? Because many cleaner apps clean this file (that can be modified by malwares, that's the reason).

Comment 4

[Loic]

(or any security software like in https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/983705 )

Comment 5

[Michael]

Thank you Loic,
Yes, I'm using CCleaner on all 4 PCs.  Maybe it is a CCleaner bug (or "feature").  I have added the line you suggested to user_pref.  

Do you know whether this pref makes it "stick", or will CCleaner overwrite it next time?

I will test both options by leaving it with the pref (which was not present and did stay after a re-start).  If it stays, we will know that using this line with CCleaner still running fixes the issue, otherwise, if it still happens, I will turn off CCleaner (so it is not running in the task bar), and see if that makes it go away.  If the former works, then maybe this pref should be written to user.js any time the user changes it, so other programs don't overwrite... But really if it happens, maybe CCleaner should fix it and not overwrite a preference.

I will test and write back soon (testing with CCleaner running first)

If it is a CCleaner bug, I will report it to them.  It is not a good thing for their "cleaner" to overwrite user preferences like that - maybe they don't know about it.  I searched all over for it, so it must be uncommon because I just don't see that many reports.  Yet I thought CCleaner was very popular, so it should be showing up often.

THANK YOU FOR THIS... Very good insight!

Comment 6

[Loic]

Yes, I'm 100% sure it's CCleaner issue. This app is known to be problematic with Firefox, especially because some users trust it too much without modifying its settings by default (and CCleaner cleans too much).

Comment 7

[Michael]

OK... I did the following:
1) Added the preference you specified.  Result: With CCleaner running, after a short time, the setting was gone in prefs.js and the setting had changed to "show my home page" in the menu.  So I set it again, this time via the menu, and confirmed that it it was written to prefs.js (it was).  
2) Then I closed CCleaner, inspected task manager, no processes like "ccleaner" running.
3) I checked a couple of hours later, and it had returned to "show my home page" and the preference was gone from the prefs.js file.

I usually have CCleaner running in the task bar, and the only thing checked is "clean cache".  All others are disabled.  I don't have any other "cleaners" running.

So it looks like the CCleaner theory is not confirmed.  Next I'm going to uninstall it, reboot, and see what happens.

Comment 8

[Michael]

Changing status to "unconfirmed" from resolved.

Comment 9

[Michael]

After uninstalling ccleaner and rebooting, it still had the correct setting (windows and tabs from last time).  Then I came back 3 hours later and it is again at "show my home page".  user_pref("browser.startup.page", 3); is gone again.  So it is definitely not CCleaner doing this... Thinking it might be a Firefox problem after all.  

Any other ideas?  Thanks again for the help.  I was hoping CCleaner uninstall would fix it...  Mike S.

Comment 10

[Loic]

What's your AV?

Comment 11

[Michael]

Windows Defender.  I ran a full scan last night.  No issues found.  I also set prefs.js to "read only" (which is not a very good long term solution) but so far, so good.  But I won't be able to save any preferences (and neither will the software)...  I will leave it that way for a while to see if it holds.

Comment 12

[Loic]

You can use the freeware Process Monitor (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645) to monitor the activity on a specific file (ofc, remove read-only for prefs.js).

Comment 13

[Michael]

I'm now turning my attention to add-on "Tab Groups Manager Revived".  I noticed that it has some issues with session restore (some features work, others not - in fact, when I have trouble with sessions, I use its "session saved by timer" to get my tabs back when other methods fail, but "session saved on exit" doesn't work!)... But since it has a session manager-like component I uninstalled it... Looking good so far.  I will report if it makes it 24 hours without this, and if so, will take it up with a new developer that has taken the project over.  My wife's doesn't have this (or any others), but hers has been stable for a while now, she reports.  I'm hopeful.

Comment 14

[Michael]

Marking as resolved.  I have gone about 26 hours on 2 PCs without the issue, as long as I disabled "Tab Groups Manager Revived" (which is otherwise a "must have" add-on, in my opinion, Tab Groups being something that Firefox should do on its own).  It appears between that TGM and Tab Mix Plus, someone is stepping on the other, but someone is doing a no-no and writing preferences that Firefox should be doing exclusively... But with only one going, no problems.  Since TMP is the more established one, I'll work with the new developer on "Tab Groups Manager Revised" and offer to beta test any fixes.

THANK YOU Loic for your suggestions and leading me in the right direction !!!