538671 - Seamonkey 2.0.1 does not correctly handle options for what to display on startup when switching profiles

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(SeaMonkey :: Session Restore, defect)

Description

[R McGowan]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.6) Gecko/20091206 SeaMonkey/2.0.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.6) Gecko/20091206 SeaMonkey/2.0.1

Sorry if this is a duplicate, but I couldn't find any bug in the system relating to this.

Seamonkey 2.0.1 does not correctly handle options for what to display on startup when switching profiles.

Build identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.6) Gecko/20091206 SeaMonkey/2.0.1

I use two profiles extensively because I have separate sets of bookmarks, cookies, passwords, etc for personal and work usage. Both of my profiles have the setting in "Preferences":

Preferences -> Display on
	Browser startup: Home page
	New Window: Home page
	New tab: Blank page
	
I never use the option to "restore previous session", and never want that. (If I restore previous session, I always end up with some out-of-date page that complains about POST data, needs a password, etc. I therefore never want that option.) I like to always start with my home page, whether I am starting from scratch or by switching profiles.

It appears that when switching profiles, Seamonkey always (or almost always) restores the previous windows that were in effect in the profile I'm switching to.

I have set the options many times, and double/triple checked that I have the options set as I indicate above, to always go to the home page, never restore sessions. The functionality doesn't work reliably.



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Set options as above to always go to home page, never restore session.
2. Load profile A and get home page H.
3. Navigate away from home page to Page X
4. Switch to profile B with home page I. Navigate to page Y.
5. Switch back to profile A. You get Page X, not home page H.
6. Switch back to profile B. You get Page Y, not home page I.
Actual Results:  
Seamonkey always (or almost always) restores the previous windows that were in effect in the profile I'm switching to, even though the options are set to go to the home page.

Expected Results:  
I expect that switching profiles has the same effect as starting the browser (or even making a new window). If it does not have that behavior, then you should probably add another option in the pull-down menu for what to display for "Switch Profile" (along with the current settings for Startup, New Window, and New Tab).

Comment 1

[R McGowan]

It appears that the pull-down for "Display on" in the Preferences dialog is not certain whether there should be 3 or 4 items in the list of possibilities. Sometimes I see "Restore previous session" as the fourth item and sometimes it is not present at all. If I change the prefs, dismiss the panel, and bring it up again, sometimes the 4th option re-appears after it had been not present.

In any case, I cannot get Seamonkey (ever) to go to the home page on startup or switch-to-profile for one of my profiles. For that oddball profile, it *always* tries to restore my session no matter how many times I go to the prefs and set it to "Home page" for every possibility in the pull-down list. But for the other profile, it always goes to the home page that I've specified.

This is 100% reproducible all the time.

Note: I have been using Seamonkey for a long time. I had 1.1.18 or whatever the previous version was before 2.0, so the profiles are all ones that I imported to Seamonkey 2.0 when that came out.

Comment 2

[therube]

Might you have a setting in user.js overriding any changes you make in prefs.js?

Comment 3

[R McGowan]

Whatever was causing this seems to have gone away. It's not reproducible any longer with Seamonkey 2.0.14. Probably the bug can just be closed.

Comment 4

[therube]

WFM.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14

As far as 3 or 4 'Display on' preferences, only 'Browser Startup' has 4, the other selections only have 3.  That is intended (logical) behavior.

Per Comment 3, WFM.