1758872 - When Thunderbird starts, message tabs that were open may not appear, and ones that were closed may reappear

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Barry Abel]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Fedora; Linux x86_64; rv:97.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/97.0

Steps to reproduce:

1. I started Thunderbird, and I noticed that I was missing several days worth of message tabs, although most messages (from previous days) were still there.
2. I went through my folders to find all the messages that I had, or may have opened, and opened them.
3. I went through all my message tabs and deleted, closed, or moved all of them, so that there was only 1 tab open.
4. After a couple of days or so of not leaving any tabs open when closing Thunderbird and closing the program at least once a day, I now see a bunch of tabs when I start Thunderbird. These are either previously opened messages or pretty much nonsense.

Actual results:

See above.

Expected results:

I expect my tabs to be preserved when I close and later restart Thunderbird. Open tabs should be open, and closed tabs shouldn't reappear.

I previously reported a similar problem in bug 1611562.

This bug is almost as serious for me as having the contents of a message folder changing between sessions.

Comment 1

[Barry Abel]

I don't know whether this is relevant, but before this bug started happening, I had created and deleted a feed account, which is something I hadn't done for a long time. Another thing I had done was search for add-ons, which I may have done more recently than creating a feed account. I mention these actions because even though the bug is new (or a reappearance of 1611562), I don't think I was doing anything else different than I had done many times every day since the latest version of Thunderbird became available in Fedora.

Comment 2

[WaltS48 [:walts48]]

bug 1611562 was resolved WFM.

The latest version I have from Fedora is 91.5.0. The latest from Thunderbird is 91.7.0 released this week.

Missing several days and most still there is a bit confusing. How many tabs do you normally have open?

• I tried with the Mail, Calendar and three emails open in tabs.
• Opened and closed the Add-ons manager tab.
• Quit and restarted Thunderbird and had all five tabs opened.
• Added three folders to the mix and will monitor for a couple of days.

Tested with the Fedora supplied version 91.5.0 on Fedora 35 Workstation, Gnome 41 desktop, X11 window protocol.

Did you try Troubleshoot Mode?

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Check that session.json file exists in your profile, isn't read only, or being deleted by something between restarts.

Comment 4

[Barry Abel]

Sorry for not responding sooner.

Before this bug happened, I would often have more than 43 tabs open, plus the original tab. (On my monitor at my current resolution, I can see 44 tabs at a time in the dropdown launched by the arrow on the right side of the tab bar, and I often had to scroll to see all of my tabs.)

I didn't try Troubleshoot Mode at the time, and there's nothing to troubleshoot now, since I now avoid leaving tabs open. session.json exists in my profile and isn't read only.

I can try testing this further when I get a chance. However, I won't be seeing the bug in normal use, because I no longer consider it safe to leave tabs open between sessions.

Comment 5

[D Holzmman]

I have had the same problem more than once, most recently when starting version 102 for the first time.
Verrry Frustrating!
My workaround has been to Tag every message I open in a new tab with a "Follow-Up" tab (that I've assigned to the number "7" for tagging by keyboard).
I'm about to go searching for those - hope I find them!

Comment 6

[D Holzmman]

Upon reflection, I think it happened recently when I was starting version 102 for the second (not first) time.

(The first time, I think, all the tabs showed up across the top of the screen, but when I clicked on any of them, its content looked blank. So maybe they were in the process of getting lost! I guess I should have saved the session.json.backup then, but didn't.)

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Does this reproduce with version 115?

Comment 9

[Barry Abel]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #7)

Does this reproduce with version 115?

I'll keep an eye out for it.

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Barry Abel from comment #9)

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #7)

Does this reproduce with version 115?

I'll keep an eye out for it.

Good results?

Comment 11

[Barry Abel]

I haven't seen this in 115. However, I've only been leaving a few message tabs open lately, if any. Also, I'm still using 115; I'm waiting for Manjaro to upgrade to the latest version, rather than getting it through Flatpak.

Comment 12

[Phoenix]

Resolved per whiteboard and Comment 11