Randomly Forgets my essentials tabs and removes all my previously opened tabs and workspaces become consolidated

[LitNightt]

Preliminary Checks

• I have read and understood the important section above.
• I have searched existing issues and avoided creating duplicates.
• I am not filing an enhancement request.
• I have checked that this issue cannot be reproduced on Mozilla Firefox.
• I have checked that this issue can be reproduced once I removed all my Mods and Custom CSS.

What happened?

Sometimes when I load up my Zen browser, it forgets my essential tabs, it's like they don't exist anymore (but all the tabs are open as separate tabs), strangely when I right click on a previous "essential" tab, it still shows up as "remove essential" so it does remember but it doesn't show up as the correct UI.

At the same time, I have 2 different workspaces, and my "previously opened tabs" instead of being on the separate workspaces, they consolidate on the last previously opened workspace, so I get a long list of all my previous essential tabs, and the 2 workspaces in a giant tab list.

Last but not least, when I close down Zen immediately after this issue, and re open up again, the essentials tabs fix themselves and go back into the correct UI, but ALL of my previously opened tabs DISAPPEAR, as if I had no active open tabs to begin with.

This doesn't happen all the time, but it is frustrating when trying to reload and pick up from where I left off and I lose all my tabs.

Expected behavior

As above

Actual behavior

As above

Steps to reproduce

Not sure, it's a bit random.

Screenshots and videos

No response

Version

1.13.2b (Firefox 139.0.4) (64-bit)

What platform are you seeing the problem on?

Windows - x64

What component is this issue related to?

Workspaces

Relevant log output if applicable

[91grayjay]

This just happened to me on two separate installs on two different devices; my desktop and laptop.

Steps I took and condition on desktop:
Last accessed Zen was around 24 hours ago I would guess before this bug. Today I accessed 3 hours ago.

On my desktop, I reopened all tabs using the usual keyboard shortcut. All my tabs accross 5 workspaces are consolidated in my main workspace. But when I clicked on tabs that I know are in different workspace, it jumps to that workspace but showing an empty page, as well as the tabs for that workspace is zero.

So I moved all tabs back to their workspace somehow and it worked and closed tabs. When I reopen Zen, everything is gone again. Tried the same reopen last tabs trick again, but this time I can't even move the tabs to their workspaces again. Closed the browser and the tabs are lost for good.

I tried to restore the past session following this support page https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-restore-browsing-session-backup but I suppose because I didn't save the good session, it's impossible to restore.

Knowing this, I checked on my laptop and it also happened. I manually restored the session on my laptop just to make sure I don't lose everything like on my desktop. When I last accessed Zen on the laptop it was 7 hours ago and everything was working as intended.

[dosubot]

Hi, @LitNightt. I'm Dosu, and I'm helping the desktop team manage their backlog and am marking this issue as stale.

Issue Summary:

• You reported that Zen browser intermittently loses essential tabs and merges tabs from multiple workspaces into one, causing session data loss.
• The problem occurs on version 1.13.2b (Firefox 139.0.4) on Windows x64.
• Another user, 91grayjay, confirmed the issue on two devices with similar symptoms, including empty pages in some workspaces and failure to restore sessions.
• Attempts to manually restore sessions have been only partially successful, indicating randomness and severity in workspace management.
• The issue remains unresolved with no recent updates or fixes.

Next Steps:

• Please let me know if this issue is still relevant with the latest version of the desktop repository by commenting here.
• If I do not hear back within 7 days, I will automatically close this issue.

Thank you for your understanding and contribution!

[Mnior]

The problem may still be relevant, but it is impossible to check until the problem with restoring the session in general is solved.

[Eeems]

I've also encountered this. Restoring session will just put all tabs into my current workspace, including all the essential and pinned tabs showing as normal tabs with extra decoration, as well as separated above. Closing and reopening a tab will have it go to where it is supposed to be, including the workspace. But it's all lost again when closing and reopening the browser. I'm probably going to have to start a new session to resolve this.

[1upbyte]

Just ran into something similar. The only organizational tools I use are multi account containers + essentials. Restored my session after accidentally Ctrl+Q'ing on Arch and now my essentials are gone.

[Eeems]

I just had this happen again on another machine. Looking at the startup settings, I noticed that "Open previous windows and tabs" has been unchecked, but "Continue where you left off" was still checked.

[dkmnx]

Just experienced it today. All of my pinned tabs and essentials are gone.

OS: EndeavourOS
Version: 1.16.3b

[wait-what]

Just happened to me on 1.17.12b