Bug#596175: iceweasel: session not required and "When Iceweasel starts" preferences changes intermittently

[Mike Hommey]

On Wed, Sep 08, 2010 at 09:00:43PM -0400, Allan Wind wrote:
> Package: iceweasel
> Version: 3.5.11-2
> Severity: normal
> 
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=594630
> 
> User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.11)
> Gecko/20100819 Iceweasel/3.5.11 (like Firefox/3.5.11)
> Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.11)
> Gecko/20100819 Iceweasel/3.5.11 (like Firefox/3.5.11)
> 
> I reviewed existing tickets along the lines of summary including
> <https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Firefox+does+not+ask+to+save+tabs+and+windows+on+exit>
> and not seeing anything that matches what I see.
> 
> Today I closed firefox with 60+ tabs of things that I wanted to read by closing
> the browser window (by pressing the X).  When I started my computer at open and
> opened up firefox the browser opened up with a blank window meaning that I once
> again lost my todo reading list.
> 
> The preference "When Iceweasel starts" changed to "Show my home page" which is
> "about:".  Privacy | History is set to "Use custom settings for history" and
> none of the options including "Clear history when Iceweasel closes" is checked.
> 
> My session is usually restored, say, 90% of the time using the same process,
> and it is really annoying when losing my session.
> 
> There is no crash dialog (ops, cannot restore your session or whatever the
> window is).
> 
> Reproducible: Didn't try
> 
> Actual Results:  
> "Preferences | Main | When Icewasel starts:" is reset to "Use my home page",
> and I lose all my tabs.
> 
> Expected Results:  
> The above preference remains as set "Show my windows and tabs from last time"
> and my tabs are restored.
> 
> I have seen this once or twice before where I lose my session when I start
> firefox at home, but then when I start firefox at work the following day my
> session is restored.

There is nothing in the iceweasel code that changes the value of the
browser.startup.page preference which corresponds to the setting you are
referring to.

The only places it's set are either setting it explicitely to
3 (which means "Show my windows and tabs from last time"), or setting it
to whatever the user chose in the UI. Note the former happens when the
never ask again checkbox is checked in the dialog you get when you close
Iceweasel.

I'm tempted to say you either did something wrong, or your window
manager did something wrong, or one of the numerous extensions you have
installed has done something wrong.

Cheers,

Mike