750084 - Tabs don't restore when FF window closed before restart [Mac]

Status: REOPENED

(Firefox :: Session Restore, defect, P2)

Description

[Kartikaya Gupta (email:[e-mail])]

STR:
1. Open a bunch of tabs (also make sure you have session restore enabled)
2. Decide you need to reboot for some reason (mac software update, or whatever)
3. Click on the "Red X" window-close button in Firefox
4. Reboot (or a simpler equivalent, quit firefox using apple+q or the menu item)
5. Start firefox

Expected results:
All tabs opened in step 1 are restored

Actual results:
No tabs are restored, and there doesn't appear to be any way to get them back easily.

I realize that this behaviour is probably "technically correct" from a programmatic standpoint since step 3 means the user is actively closing their tabs and it should no longer be counted as part of the session. However, many people new to the Mac (and even people who have been using Mac for a while) tend to equate the red X button with quitting the application. Therefore the expected behaviour from the user's point of view is that all the tabs are restored the next time they start firefox. Maybe there's some middle ground here where if the user has only one window open and they close via the red X button, and firefox is terminated shortly after that, the session gets restored on next start?

Comment 1

[Roscoe Primrose]

I'm seeing the very same behavior on 26.0 on Windows 7 64-bit.  Very annoying to loose all your tabs every time you need to install Windows updates....

Comment 2

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Have you seen this again in the last 1-2 years when using a current version?

Comment 3

[Kartikaya Gupta (email:[e-mail])]

Yes, I can repro this on current OS X Nightly. On a clean profile:
- Open a bunch of tabs in a single window
- Close the window by hitting the red "X" in the window titlebar
- cmd-q to exit firefox
- Open Firefox again

The tabs from the closed window are not restored, and the about:home tab that is opened doesn't have a "restore session" button. The "Recently closed windows" history item is also empty, so there's basically no good way to get back the tabs that where in the window previously.

Comment 4

[Alastor Wu [:alwu]]

Any progress here?

I can also reproduce this issue on my Nightly57.0a1 and Release55.0.1. It's super annoying that previous tabs didn't be restored after restart.

Especially when I have both pinned and normal tabs, firefox only restores the pinned tab after restart. If I want to restore other normal tabs, they would be restored at other different window. It's totally no sense, because I want all of them being restored in the same window. Restoring in other window helps nothing.

I can easily restore all my tabs using Chrome, and we should put more attention on that. In this point, our UX experience is super awful.

Thanks!

Comment 5

[Albert Scheiner [:alberts]]

Just played around with this to see what this two browsers are doing here.

In Chrome, if you have "On start-up > Continue where you left off" (Session restore) turned on, closing the last window before quitting the browser seems to be seen as "previous session". Restarting the browser will reopen the last window including those tabs. If you have set to "On start-up > Open a new tab page", it will just do that and not restore these tabs.

Currently in Firefox when closing the last window with 2+ tabs open, quitting the browser and reopening it, will bring back a about:newtab either way, with "Restore previous session" ticked or not.

On the contrary to Chrome Firefox will still warn the user by default if she/he wants to close X tabs. Having two windows with two tabs each open, will result in a warning for quitting either window in Firefox and no warning in Chrome. 
(Note: The window the user closed first will not be restored in Chrome after restarting the browser.)

Maybe Firefox could be a bit more sophisticated and do:
1) No "Session Restore" => always show the "X tabs" closing warning
2) "Session Restore" => only show the "X tabs" closing warning for <= 2 windows, but not for the last window

This will complicate the logic around that behaviour, so others have to say if it is worth it.

On a side note: As I just mentioned in this comment: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1392762#c6 - "Restore previous session" is currently still off by default on macOS

Comment 6

[Andrei Purice]

Following the reporter's steps I am able to confirm that the issues doesn't happen anymore on Windows 10 and MacOs 10.15 on any of the current versions of Firefox Nightly 87.0a1 (2021-02-16), beta 86.0 and release 85.0.2. The tabs from step 1 were restored without issues or loses.

Closing this issue as Resolved > Worksforme.
Feel free to re-open or file a new bug if this issue reoccurs again.

Comment 7

[Kartikaya Gupta (email:[e-mail])]

This still happens.

Comment 8

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

In the process of migrating remaining bugs to the new severity system, the severity for this bug cannot be automatically determined. Please retriage this bug using the new severity system.

Comment 9

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:dao, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 10

[Sam Foster [:sfoster] (he/him)]

:Nikki can you see if the steps to reproduce still work here?

Comment 11

[Nikki Sharpley (:nikkis) (she/her)]

I can reproduce following the steps from the first comment. I know on a reboot or crash we restore tabs, but I think it was intentional that closing via the window close button (red for mac or X for other systems), as suggested in STR, closes all tabs. Correct me if I'm wrong!