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andyboeh

Member

Registered: 2017-06-30

Posts: 15

Firefox: Disable window position restore in 119+

Hi,

I'm a long-term firefox user and since upgrading to 119 (and also on 120), Firefox seems to remember its window position between launches. The window appears for an instant on the default position but is then moved to where it was on the previous session. Session restore is disabled. New profile created, shows the same behavior with default settings.

This is very annoying, as it often pops up on my secondary screen while I would like the window to be placed on the screen with the mouse cursor - as is with all other programs.

Affected: Firefox 119, Firefox 120
Not affected: Firefox 118

Environment: Xfce 4.18 with Xfwm4

What can I do? Or is this better asked in a Firefox forum?

Thanks

xerxes_

Member

Registered: 2018-04-29

Posts: 1,065

Re: Firefox: Disable window position restore in 119+

If Firefox remember its position then move it wherever you want it ti be, close it and reopen. Does it stay in that position?

andyboeh

Member

Registered: 2017-06-30

Posts: 15

Re: Firefox: Disable window position restore in 119+

Yes, and it absolutely shouldn't do that! I don't want it to appear on screen 2 just because I last used it there.

Example: I give lectures, open Firefox and it appears - on the projector.

Edit: Finding https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1484378 makes me believe it is due to an update of my desktop rather than the browser. I'll try to downgrade.

Edit 2: No, it's not xfwm4. Downgrading to 4.18.0-1 from December 2022 didn't make any difference. It's Firefox.

Last edited by andyboeh (2023-11-21 18:32:35)

andyboeh

Member

Registered: 2017-06-30

Posts: 15

Re: Firefox: Disable window position restore in 119+

In the meantime I created a shell script that is started on login to fix this "issue":

#!/bin/bash

MOZPROFILE="$HOME/.mozilla/firefox/lhqn1q8v.default-release"

inotifywait -m "${MOZPROFILE}" -e moved_to --format "%f" |
    while read file; do
        if [ "${file}" = "sessionstore.jsonlz4" ]; then
            mozlz4 "${MOZPROFILE}/sessionstore.jsonlz4" /tmp/sessionstore.json
            echo $(cat /tmp/sessionstore.json | jq 'del(.windows[0].height, .windows[0].width, .windows[0].screenX, .windows[0].screenY)') > /tmp/sessionstore.json
            mozlz4 -z /tmp/sessionstore.json "${MOZPROFILE}/sessionstore.jsonlz4"
            rm /tmp/sessionstore.json
        fi
        # do something with the file
    done

The script watches the profile folder for writes to "sessionstore.jsonlz4" and then uses mozlz4 and jq to remove a few variables from the session store. This makes Firefox forget the position.

You need a few packages:

  * inotify-tools for inotifywait
  * mozlz4 or mozlz4-bin from AUR for mozlz4
  * jq for jq

Last edited by andyboeh (2023-11-26 11:03:55)