Hi notanotherhero, the order in which a restored session's windows are opened is determined by... I can't really tell. The first one remains first, but the others seem to vary depending on... ??

A complaint about this has been filed in the bug tracking system, but I haven't seen a lot of work on it.

I can only speculate that the revised order is somehow related to the order in which they were last focused/activated, but I haven't taken the time to look at the data in detail. (The session history file has a lot of different date/time entries that could be relevant, and someone could look at Firefox's session restore code to see what it is looking at.)

thanks, jscher - can i call you 'J' ?

"I can only speculate that the revised order is somehow related to the order in which they were last focused/activated, but I haven't taken the time to look at the data in detail. (The session history file has a lot of different date/time entries that could be relevant, and someone could look at Firefox's session restore code to see what it is looking at.)"

i suppose i could (someday when i'm no longer sweaty from driving in my summertime august touristy cape cod traffic) perform a "focus/activate" routine before each/any restart: that is, employ each FFwindow icon in order - if they ARE in the order i wish to keep.

do you have a "someone" who could look at the FFsession restore code after i do this (unless, upon restart, it seems to be possible cure?) because i'm even older and crankier than i was when i posted original question, and doubt i could ascertain useful information from that history file on my own. do you have a minion you can task with examining any history file which accompanied data with my question, or do i send that separately: both 1: before restart (showing FFwindow taskbar order) and 2: showing restarted FFwindow taskbar order ?

thank you for being there/here on a weekend.

I'm laughing at this part --

notanotherhero said

do you have a minion you can task with examining any history file which accompanied data with my question, or do i send that separately: both 1: before restart (showing FFwindow taskbar order) and 2: showing restarted FFwindow taskbar order ?

Support forum volunteers don't have minions! We are the minions!

But seriously, after making several 30-to-60-minute investigations of the issue over the past year, I'm hoping someone else will figure it out.

re minion: soothing pronounciation is 'meen-yawn' while noob sez 'minn-i-own' (thereby exposing that nasty truth we all discover eventually)

re history file v 30-60m expeditions: "do i send that separately: both 1: before restart (showing FFwindow taskbar order) and 2: showing restarted FFwindow taskbar order ?"

shall i assume a restart as described has not been examined before? shall we elect to perform a "last focused/activated"-in-user's-desired-order FFrestart, with user providing a yas/nah result/reply to this thread?

would that test provide a history file which 'Minnie Yon' could examine, to hope for practical-useful solution for others, going forward?

i'm east coast US: if i have "obtain history file" instructions i can email that to wherever you suggest, if there's no support location near this thread with a button or field.

regardless, based on your answer, i intend to perform this for my own edification. should it prove to be the solution, others might like to know that. i will name it 'Minnie.'

i may try more than once, using the reverse of whichever order wasn't productive: first 'focused/activated' to last FFwindow.

thanks for your help. We are the minions!

• snif *

it's a 'nah'

the first stayed first, at least. the others are random.

okay. onward. how do i "physically" rearrange those FFwindow icons on the taskbar so they are at least "in the order L to R" which i prefer ? i find "pin tabs" but that's different. it would seem the answer - if any - would be within FF, not a Win7 thang.

waiting patiently is fine, because there is no rush. the jury doesn't come back till Monday.

Sorry, I'm not aware of any way to re-order an application's windows on the Windows Taskbar. Maybe there is a Windows utility that can do it.

The "hard way" is to increase the number of windows that Firefox stores in session history --

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful or accepting the risk.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste sess and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the browser.sessionstore.max_windows_undo preference and edit the value from 3 to a large enough number, such as 10 and click OK

-- then close the windows that are out of order, and restore them using the History > Recently Closed Windows feature in the order you want them to appear.

thanks. it doesn't really appear "hard" and i will enjoy working with your tip. i rate your support as very good, since i don't know the categories. regards, minion. well done.

went fine EXCEPT that

• •  :: ".max_entries" or ".max_total_viewers" :: **

only two ".max" choices showed up, nothing to do, i guess.

Hi notanotherhero, there should be about 8 "max" preferences under sessionstore. You could try filtering the list in about:config using this:

sessionstore.max

Does that work any better?

Edit: That filter limits it to 6.

as returned:

• • results: sessionstore.max =

_resumed_crashes _serialize_back _serialize_forward _tabs_undo _windows_undo _write_failures

Okay, browser.sessionstore.max_windows_undo is the one you want to increase. How many windows do you usually keep open at a time? Choose a number larger than that.

sessionstore.max

dood it's a miracle thanks