735694 - Firefox lost my session, including grouped tabs, after running Firefox while it was still closing in the background.

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Session Restore, defect)

Description

[Sil]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:10.0.2) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/10.0.2
Build ID: 20120215223356

Steps to reproduce:

I ran Firefox after closing it, but it was still running in the background (I didn't know that at the time), so a new window was opened instead of a new process. I think it was still downloading safe-browsing rules which is what kept it from ending the Firefox process quickly.


Actual results:

My session and all my tab groups were lost. My sessionstore.js was backed up by Firefox but Firefox won't load it.



Expected results:

Nothing should have been lost and Firefox should exit on demand.

Comment 1

[Frédéric Buclin]

I wonder if I have been hit by this problem too. I updated the flashplayer plugin while Firefox 11 was still running and playing a video on YouTube (I'm on Linux), and I restarted Firefox when I was done with the plugin update. Maybe I didn't wait long enough before restarting Firefox, and now all my tabs and pinned tabs are lost too.

I replaced sessionstore.js with sessionstore.bak which was 2 hours old and which seems to contain all the tabs I had before restarting Firefox, but it seems to be ignored. My old tabs are still gone, and the sessionstore.js file, which is 235 Kb in size, is replaced by a file which is only 22 Kb. So for some reason, Firefox is ignoring my backup of sessionstore.js.

Comment 2

[Frédéric Buclin]

I found the reason: there was still a firefox process running in the background (no idea why it was still there), and so it was ignoring my backup of sessionstore.js. So I first killed this old process, replaced sessionstore.js by my backup, restarted Firefox, and now all my tabs and pinned tabs are back. :)

Firefox should be more robust against this kind of problems. Maybe it should be able to detect that an old process is still running?

Comment 3

[Frédéric Buclin]

Dupe of bug 692738?

Anyway, this problem happened to me again today (the 2nd time in 3 months!). Yesterday, Fx 14.0.1 (on Linux) was working fine; I shut down my PC during the night, and this morning I see that all my tabs (including pinned tabs) are gone, including several of my bmo cookies. I don't know if Firefox had still an active process in the background when I shut down my PC, but I clearly closed Fx several seconds before shutting down my PC.

Yesterday, sessionstore.js was close to 235 Kb in size. Today, its size is only 2.7 Kb!! And sessionstore.bak is 2.7 Kb too, so useless to restore my previous session.

Even if Firefox was still running in the background, I see no reason why sessionstore.js is lost. Does this file get corrupted at shutdown or when restarting Fx?

Comment 4

[Alex Keybl [:akeybl]]

Sadly, tracking flags aren't a method of getting longstanding issues investigated. They're meant for issues critical to upcoming releases. We have no indication in our support feedback that this error is a more prevalent issue in new versions.

Including a couple of module peers ont he CC list, however, to hopefully help you out.

Comment 6

[Erdin Kacan]

Today the exact same thing happpened when i updated Firefox(Aurora).Actually my pc had frozen while trying to update but im not sure if that was Firefox releated.

I'm not sure how Firefox handles updates but i think it should backup inmportant information like tabs,groups etc before critical operations that might casue data loss such as updating etc. so if any thing happens while the update process (crash etc..) Firefox can just revert back to the that backup.

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Have you seen the problem in the last 3 years?
(Session recovery files were refactored last year, and this year shutdown hangs were changed to crashes)

Comment 8

[Frédéric Buclin]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk, use Needinfo for questions) from comment #7)
> Have you seen the problem in the last 3 years?

no

Comment 9

[Erdin Kacan]

That's a bit of a long time-span to remember to be honest. I remember it happening, I do not if it has happened in last 3 years. I don't think any one could give precise answer to that, tbh.

Comment 10

[Sil]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk, use Needinfo for questions) from comment #7)
> Have you seen the problem in the last 3 years?
> (Session recovery files were refactored last year, and this year shutdown
> hangs were changed to crashes)

I don't think I've encountered this bug recently

Comment 11

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

2 out of 3 indicate WFM, so closing