578619 - Restoring session with only about:blank is treated as a crash

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 853779

(Firefox :: Session Restore, defect)

Description

[u22404]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; de; rv:1.9.2.6) Gecko/20100625 Firefox/3.6.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; de; rv:1.9.2.6) Gecko/20100625 Firefox/3.6.6

My preferences: Restore from last session.
Problem:
Some website is opened. Then I open a blank tab and close the tab with the website. Only the about:blank page is opened. I close firefox. Restarting firefox, it says: Problems occured in restoring, want to restore the tabs "about:blank", and so on?

Hope you gonna fix it.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Run fox.
2.Open a website.
3.Open a blank tab.
4.Close websitetab.
5.Close firefox.
6.Restart firefox.
7.Sometimes the problem occurs - or not.


Expected Results:  
Open about:blank as usual.

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

do you see this when starting firefox in safe mode?
 https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode

Comment 2

[u22404]

(In reply to comment #1)
> do you see this when starting firefox in safe mode?
>  https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode

I do not know. The "bug" does not appear every time.

Today I saw it some times (took a screenshot). Firefox 3.6.8. I guess it happens when Windows 7 changes to "hibernate"-mode while Firefox is still running. After returning to Windows and then closing Firefox, the errormessage appears after the next start. But I was unable to reproduce the result every time (only 2 times out of 6?).

It is nice to know, why the bug appears. But can't you change the "session restore"-behavior with blank pages? Show session restore dialog _except_ in case of blank pages?

Comment 3

[Paul O'Shannessy [:zpao] (not bugmail, email directly)]

It sounds like Firefox thinks it crashed the previous couple times. How are you quitting Firefox? Do you still see firefox.exe in the Task Manager after quitting?

Comment 4

[u22404]

(In reply to comment #3)

> It sounds like Firefox thinks it crashed the previous couple times.

For sure. OK, maybe this bug is not a bug with blank pages, but with closing firefox unproperly. Why? I do not know.
Nevertheless, I think there should be the "special case" if there was a crash with a blank page. Open it (about:blank) again and thats it. Firefox need not to ask for restoring a blank page. It is irritating for users (ok, in fact it is irritating to me) if there is a message that says there was no information lost.

> How are you quitting Firefox?

Click on [x].

> Do you still see firefox.exe in the Task Manager after quitting?

No.

Back to topic: So, this is not a bug, but an irritating feature with room of improvement? :)

Comment 5

[u279076]

I tend to agree, somewhat, with what the reporter is saying here.  If a session only contains a single blank page, I'd say we should just start a new session; regardless of how many times a session has crashed or not.

Paul, what are your thoughts on this scenario?

Comment 6

[Paul O'Shannessy [:zpao] (not bugmail, email directly)]

(In reply to comment #5)
> I tend to agree, somewhat, with what the reporter is saying here.  If a session
> only contains a single blank page, I'd say we should just start a new session;
> regardless of how many times a session has crashed or not.
> 
> Paul, what are your thoughts on this scenario?

We've got bug 523073 for that (sort of). It gets to be a matter of defining what a session is. Is it just the open tabs? Or does it include all the closed tabs & windows?

I'd like to keep this bug around though to figure out what the actual problem is here.

Comment 7

[Matthew N. [:MattN]]

I can reproduce this using STR from mozillazine at http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=12771677#p12771677

Quoting mahi:
 Steps to reproduce:

    1) Launch Firefox with a fresh profile
    2) In "about:config" set:
        browser.newtab.url = about:blank (blank tab instead of tiles screen)
        browser.startup.page = 3 (enable session restore)
    3) Click the "+" button (new tab button) or press CTRL+T
    4) Close "about:config" and "Mozilla Firefox Start Page" tabs [so only about:blank with no history remains]
    5) From the menu perform "Firefox/File" > "Exit" to close Firefox

Following steps can be repeated infinitely - it always works correctly:

    6) Launch Firefox
    7) From the menu perform "Firefox/File" > "Exit" to close Firefox

However following approach always fails on the third launch:

    6) Launch Firefox
    7) Press ALT+F4 to exit Firefox

On the third launch you are greeted by the "Session Restore" tab: "Well, this is embarrassing. Firefox is having trouble recovering your windows and tabs". If "browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab" is "true" you can also reproduce the issue with shurtcut CTRL+W (close tab) instead of ALT+F4. It also goes wrong when using the top right close button. To reset the situation (in order to repeat the instructions above):

    Click the "+" button (new tab button) or press CTRL+T
    Close "Restore Session" tab
    From the menu perform "Firefox/File" > "Exit" to close Firefox

There appears to be a difference in the Firefox closing mechanism between using the menu and the other methods (shortcut keys, window close button,...).

Comment 8

[Matthew N. [:MattN]]

Simplified STR:
1) Start in clean profile
2) Open about:blank in a *new* tab (it probably matters that there is no history)
3) close the other tabs
4) Exit Firefox from the menu or Firefox button
5) Launch Firefox
6) Alt-F4 to exit
7) Open Firefox
8) Alt-F4 to exit
9) Open sessionstore.js in the profile folder

Expected result: "recentCrashes":0

Actual result: "recentCrashes":1

Comment 9

[tabmix.onemen]

I can reproduce this issue on Windows with Firefox 21, 22.0b and 23.0a

however in order to trigger this on windows you need to close Firefox (one window with one about:blank tab) with File > Close Window or with the window close button (top right), closing Firefox with File > Exit work ok

Comment 10

[Alice0775 White]

Regression window(m-c)
Good:
http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/e8f8a3f6f1f6
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:21.0) Gecko/20130218 Firefox/21.0 ID:20130218212328
Bad:
http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/3f0f2fc4bd0f
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:21.0) Gecko/20130219 Firefox/21.0 ID:20130219014027
Pushlog:
http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/pushloghtml?fromchange=e8f8a3f6f1f6&tochange=3f0f2fc4bd0f

Regressed by Bug 829568