Update: Firefox 56.0 released

[HansV]

Mozilla has released Firefox 56.0; get it from Help > About Firefox or from Download Firefox in your language.

Among the new features is "Firefox Screenshots, a feature that lets users take, save, and share screenshots without leaving the browser". See the Release Notes.

[Argus]

I don't know about some of the changes mentioned (in the release notes for Fx 56). I saw Firefox Screenshots among the icons and in the right-click menu of v. 55.0.3, and now it's mentioned as "new" (that said, I've not tried to use it, and I understand that they improve things along the way; maybe it was a mock-up in Fx 55 ). Apparently they are going to hide the download button in Fx 57 ... until something is downloaded I guess (but it will be possible to "pin it", I think). I can't see that as an important change, and above all, the UI shouldn't change during and between sessions.

They mention a smaller update download, good, although the updates already were quite small I think; the setup file, on the other hand, for Fx 55 was already 20-25 % smaller than the previous one (if anything the setup file for Fx 56 is 1-2 MB bigger than the one for Fx 55).

Something that I do notice as a new "feature", however, for Fx 56 is that it always seems to start with a session restore failure, no matter what, almost; i.e. using CCleaner to remove/clean stored sessions (incl. cache & cookies). browser.startup.page is set to "0" since a long time ago (i.e. a blank page).

It seems like Firefox is trying to restore something it can't, since I've used CCleaner, and something it shouldn't since browser.startup.page is set 0; is there some other setting involved? I've thought about incompatibility with CCleaner v. 5.30. Every now and then I use Private Browsing to save History from clutter; if I close Fx and run CCleaner I get a session restore failure when I start Fx again. Never happened before.

[HansV]

I use CCleaner but I haven't experienced problems with session restore failing...

[Argus]

Thank you, Hans. No, neither had I, until now; or rather I don't use session restore. I don't know why it tries to restore something; I can understand why it fails, since I just used CCleaner, so there is nothing there, but I don't understand why it tries to restore.

Fx 56.PNG

[HansV]

I assume that you haven't selected "Show your windows and tabs from last time" in Tools > Options > When Firefox starts:

S0002.png

[Argus]

No, I have not. I have Show a blank page (browser.startup.page set to "0") in that section.

This is bonkers; as a test I changed to Show your home page, in this case the default Firefox Start page, and the first time I started Firefox the page flicked the image of the start page then returned to Session restore failed. The next time it worked, but there was a very short delay. One more test, cleaning cache & session; close Fx (obviously), run CCleaner (in the Fx section it cleans: cache, cookies and session, as well as compact data bases), start Fx and I get this:

20171002_A.PNG

It can't show its own start page if I have cleaned cache, cookies and session, it seems ...
I'll try the latest CCleaner, I assume the coast is clear with v. 5.35.

[viking33]

I think I may wait a bit to update, in order find out just what extensions will no longer work with this version.

[Rudi]

    
I cannot contribute much to a solution Argus, but what I get from your error message is that it's probably due to some mischievous cats.

Image 005.jpg

[BobH]

It might be my imagination - or another 404 on my part - but I think that Fx 56.0 runs faster than its predecessors.

[Argus]

Changed to CCleaner v. 5.35. Made no difference, as I thought, it's something with Fx and CCleaner.

This is really odd, and difficult to find a pattern.

1. Clean cache, cookies and session (whether there or not) with CCleaner.
2. Start Fx.
3. Get a Session restore failure.
4. Chose Close (see screenshot above, "stäng") to get a clean page.
5. Close Fx.
6. Clean cache, cookies and session (whether there or not) with CCleaner.
7. Start Fx, and there is no Session restore failure ...
8. Close Fx.
9. Clean cache, cookies and session (whether there or not) with CCleaner.
10. Start Fx, and there is a Session restore failure ...

If I choose Restore in step 4, or just close Fx, I get a Session restore failure in step 7.

I have also tried with extensions disabled.

Guess I'll have to change modus and stop using CCleaner for Fx (I'm already quite conservative, using it only for browsers, some PDF software, Flash player etc.).

I cannot contribute much to a solution Argus, but what I get from your error message is that it's probably due to some mischievous cats.

If only. This one is really stubborn.

[HansV]

It's probably best to set CCleaner not to clean Firefox...

[Argus]

Yes, I guess it is.

I tried a backup of prefs.js from before the upgrade to Fx 56, no change. And there is no user.js.

[HansV]

I got the same error for the first time today. That's weird, since I had been using both Firefox 56.0 and CCleaner v5.35 for several days without problems...

[Argus]

Welcome to the, eh, club; or what previously seemed like a one-man band.

I have cleared the Session checkbox in CCleaner, and it seems to work OK.

I understand that they do several things to Firefox not necessarily mentioned in the short release notes, and I know that they did something to session restore in version 55, but I have no idea what might cause this. (One scenario could perhaps be careless, sloppy, cleaning; the software (such as CCleaner) removes a file and replace it with what it thinks is the default, clean, file. But not in this case, since CCleaner removes the session file and backups in the subfolder. And it has been working for quite some time.)