421278 - Unexpected Behavior when starting saved tabs

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Session Restore, defect)

Description

[Prashant Sheoran]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b3) Gecko/2008020514 Firefox/3.0b3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b3) Gecko/2008020514 Firefox/3.0b3

I have both FireFox 2 and firefox3 beta3 installed in my system . 
when I closed firefox3 beta3 with multiple tabs open .. it asked me to save the tabs, which I replied with yes and when I ran again it again I launched FF2 by mistake and closed it .. and then I launched FF3 again .. saved tabs were not there .

I guess I know  happened here.. when I launched FF2 it loaded the tabs saved by ff3 and when I closed it the saved Tabs were destroyed and were not available for FF3. 

So It could be a problem for those who still have FF2 installed .

Regards 
Prashant Sheoran

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.open some links in multiple tabs in FF3 beta 3. 
2.Close FF3 beta3 and click on yes to save tabs. 
3.open FF2 and the saved tabs will load , 
4. Close FF2 .
5.Open FF3 and the saved tabs are not there.
Actual Results:  
The saved tabs were not present in FF3 beta .

Expected Results:  
1. The tabs saved when FF3 is closed should not be available in FF2 and vice versa .
2. Closing FF2 should not affect saved Tabs of FF3 and vice versa.

I have mentioned Firefox 2 as FF2 and Firefox 3 beta 3 as FF3.

Comment 1

[Simon Bünzli]

Firefox 2 just doesn't offer saving all open tabs when you quit, so all your tab data gets discarded when you close Firefox, unless you've set the option to "Show my windows and tabs from last time". That's the expected behavior, as unintuitive as it might be at first sight for somebody already used to Firefox 3. -> INVALID

BTW: Using Firefox 2 and 3 with the same profile isn't really recommended, considering that bookmarks, history, cookies, etc. are now all saved in a different format while toolbar settings and other preferences (and the saved tabs/windows) are still the same.

Comment 2

[Prashant Sheoran]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Firefox 2 just doesn't offer saving all open tabs when you quit, so all your
> tab data gets discarded when you close Firefox, unless you've set the option to
> "Show my windows and tabs from last time". That's the expected behavior, as
> unintuitive as it might be at first sight for somebody already used to Firefox
> 3. -> INVALID
> 
> BTW: Using Firefox 2 and 3 with the same profile isn't really recommended,
> considering that bookmarks, history, cookies, etc. are now all saved in a
> different format while toolbar settings and other preferences (and the saved
> tabs/windows) are still the same.
> 
I know that. but my point here is -- 
"Why were the tabs saved in FF3 were available in FF2 when I ran FF2 by mistake"
if "bookmarks, history, cookies, etc. are now all saved in a
different format" then why FF2 was able to open it . 
secondly 
why I am using FF2 and FF3 at the same time -- Because FF3 is still in beta and not the final version.
when the final build is released , there will be no FF2 or IE on my system.  

Comment 3

[Simon Bünzli]

(In reply to comment #2)
> "Why were the tabs saved in FF3 were available in FF2 when I ran FF2 by
> mistake"

For the same reasons most of your preferences and extensions will be available back in Firefox 2.0 - Session Restore data happens to be largely compatible between the two versions.

BTW: Had you set Firefox to always restore your tabs and windows on startup, it'd be even more unexpected if it didn't restore them just because you're using version 2.0 instead of 3.0.

Closing as INVALID as this is something we'd have to fix in Firefox 2.0 (by allowing it to save the session on shutdown) which just isn't going to happen at this point. Feel free to reopen should you have a better suggestion than the two "expected" options from comment #0.

> why I am using FF2 and FF3 at the same time -- Because FF3 is still in beta

For beta versions it is even more strongly recommended to use a different profile!