Re: Firefox 104 on Sid unusable because it blanks open tabs after a few minutes
On Wed 07 Sep 2022 at 17:52:09 (-0400), Eike Lantzsch KY4PZ wrote:
> On Mittwoch, 7. September 2022 16:23:28 -04 Alex King wrote:
> > On 8/09/22 04:16, Eike Lantzsch KY4PZ wrote:
> > >
> > > I admit that I usually have ~ 70 tabs open.
> > > FF does not blank all, just most of them.
> > > Then I have to reload the pages and enter all information again if
> > > the pages contain forms like snail-mail tracking, tracking of
> > > packages, tracking of processes with the local communications state
> > > agency, following geomagnetic storms, RF-Propagation, blogs etc
> > > etc.
So are we to understand that an even greater majority of your tabs
have information entered by you?
> > > My time is too valuable to waste it reloading and reloading web
> > > pages
> > > again and again.
> > > It happens with dynamic pages and with static pages. There is no
> > > consistency at all.
> > >
> > > I looked into the FF settings for a setup - but no - there is
> > > nothing
> > > about this behaviour.
> > >
> > > OK, so which browser will I now use instead of Firefox?
> > >
> > A couple of FF Extensions you might benefit from:
> >
> > Auto Tab Discard: although it does the opposite of what you want,
> > (I.e. the purpose is to discard or "unload" tabs,) it gives a UI into
> > the settings for when tabs are discarded. (Although I'm on FF
> > 91.13.0esr, and I don't know if it works on FF 104.)
> >
> > Textarea Cache: Allows to save automatically the content in a text
> > input field. Great for retrieving text you wrote into a website, e.g.
> > if the submission failed for some reason. Not sure if it stores text
> > from text input fields on discarded pages or not...
Does it know the distinguish fields that might contain sensitive
information (like a password)?
> Opera has a setup option "Snooze inactive tabs to save memory" which can be disabled. I
> didn't find anything similar in the settings of FF but
> there is in about:config
> browser.tabs.min_inactive_duration_before_unload
> I am testing this right now with a higer number of seconds (I believe that it is set in
> seconds).
I just rotated through all ~150 of my FF tabs, and at the end of that,
there are about a dozen FF processes running (top calls them Web
Content). I noticed some of the tabs date from back in March.
I suspect many of the pages redisplayed themselves from cached files
rather than downloading the content again, but I'm just guessing.
> Weird thing is that FF tends to unload the tabs agressively when starting to use the
> browser but later when I've gone through the process of reloading the pages and filling in
> requested data, adjusting the focus of maps and whatnot *several times* then it seems to
> succumb to the will of the user and maintain the pages loaded.
> Absolutely weird behaviour ...
If "unloading tabs" means that they have to be repainted, rather than
instantly appearing again when you switch to them, then my experience
might tie up with that. I never close my main browser: it gets killed
when I either kill X or shutdown (by command or power button).
I'm happy with the ?unusual situation that when I start FF with the
URL of our weather forecast, I get two tabs. The second contains the
forecast itself, which I close, and FF displays the following in
the remaining tab:
--✄✄--------
Sorry. We’re having trouble getting your pages back.
We are having trouble restoring your last browsing session.
Select Restore Session to try again.
Still not able to restore your session? Sometimes a tab is causing the issue.
View previous tabs, remove the checkmark from the tabs you don’t need to recover,
and then restore.
[View Previous Tabs ↓] [Start New Session] [Restore Session]
--✄✄--------
I press Return (or click on the highlighted [Restore Session]
button, and the rightmost old tab is painted. If I now click on
some other tab at random, FF will restore it to the same contents
as when I left it, eg scrolling down to a particular point in
the text, google map, street view, etc. Each tab will take a moment
or two. Some definitely reload from the web every time, like my
grocery coupons, which I guess is a dynamic page. (I will typically
have no tabs left open with forms on them.)
Does this mean that "FF tends to unload the tabs agressively when
starting" is just a consequence that a new instance of FF only
loads tabs if and when you switch to them? (I think my computer
would be very unresposive for quite a while if FF were to try to
open ~150 tabs at once each morning, and I know people here for whom
150 is not that many.)
> Textarea Cache is a fine extension for what it's worth and for what it's intended but
> unfortunately does not help in my usecase (entering package codes, adjusting maps for
> size and focus, filling forms of state agencies. It does not even cache the text entered on
> WhatsApp or Google Translate. Answer is "No cache here".
> Anyway I leave it installed because the possibility to save text comes in handy when e.g.
> answering to blog posts.
Sorry not to have answers, but I was trying to replicate (or really
just follow) your narrative and didn't understand all the terms.
Cheers,
David.
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