Hi muffyshome, how you are closing Firefox? For example:

• close the last tab using the tiny x on the tab
• close the last window using the standard "red x" button at the upper right
• "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > power button
• (menu bar) File > Exit

There is an optional feature to show a "new tab" when you close the last tab in a window to prevent you from accidentally exiting Firefox if you didn't intend to. You can check whether that is set here:

(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.

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

(3) If the browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab preference is bolded and "user set" to false, double-click it to restore the default value of true

Regarding opening Firefox and getting a new tab, how do you have Firefox set to start up?

• show your preferred home page
• show your windows and tabs from last session
• show a blank page

This is set on the Options page as described in this article: Startup, home page, tabs, and download settings.

There are a couple possible reasons Firefox might restore your previous session even if you don't have that as your preference. To see whether that might be what is happening, take a peek at the History menu. If "Restore Previous Session" is grayed out/unavailable, Firefox may already have restored your previous session. Does that seem to be the problem?

Sorry, I just noticed you have the New Tab Override extension. Which page are you seeing:

• Firefox's built-in new tab page
• the new tab page you selected using New Tab Override
• the extension's settings page -- there are pictures of it on https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/ad.../new-tab-override/

First, thank you so much for your help jscher2000! 1) When I went to about:config and entered tabs. The "browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab" was 'True'; however I noticed there was a "browser.tabs.loadInBackground" that was set to 'False' and in bold. I tried changing that to 'True' but it didn't help so I set it back to 'False'. 2) When I close out of Firefox sometimes there may be more than one tab open and I will use the X up in the right top corner to close all of them at once. Sometimes I only have one tab open so I do the same. Sometimes I have closed individual tabs by clicking that tabs X. When Firefox starts I have it going to a defined url which is my home page. I have had this set for as long as I have used Firefox and had no trouble before with that. 3) I tried the "New Tab Override extension" but it didn't work so I removed it, at least I thought I did. When I tried it I selected custom URL and put in Bing.com since Bing is my replacement of Google. Maybe I didn't set that right. I can try that again if you think it will help!

As a test, could you try exiting out of Firefox using the menu for the next 24 hours? That gives Firefox the best shot at a normal shutdown. The two methods are:

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > power button
• (menu bar) File > Exit
  • if you do not normally display the menu bar, you can tap the Alt key or F10 to activate it temporarily

After that:

• If you get previous session tabs instead of your home page, there are a couple things I'll have you investigate.

• If you get some other page that is neither from your previous session nor your home page, could you post the address of it? Either copy/paste from the address bar or, if that's blank, call up the Page Info dialog and copy paste from there. Page Info is either:
  • right-click a blank area of the page and choose View Page Info
  • (menu bar) Tools menu > Page Info
  • click the padlock or "i" icon to the left of the site address, then the ">" icon, then More Information

To jscher2000! I notice that I seem to get the extra tab more often when I open Firefox by a shortcut on my desktop, i.e. Facebook shortcut. When I close out of that I get the New Tab which is a blank page.

muffyshome said

I notice that I seem to get the extra tab more often when I open Firefox by a shortcut on my desktop, i.e. Facebook shortcut. When I close out of that I get the New Tab which is a blank page.

Are these in separate windows? That is, they do not appear on the tab bar of the same window, and you can minimize/maximize them independently?

When Firefox starts I get Facebook.com only. When I close it by selecting the X up in the right had corner Facebook.com goes away but Firefox stays on and gives me the New Tab which is a blank white page.

I will try exiting via the menu and get back with you.

Hi jscher2000! Just to let you know that the problem with getting an extra "New Tab" upon exiting Firefox only happens when I go to Firefox from a shortcut on my desktop, i.e Facebook.url. Using the menu to close out of Firefox works great and doesn't leave me with a "New Tab" but I have to remember to go to menu before exiting. I will get back with you if anything new comes up.