Hi Anne, are you using exclusively private windows? If not, check the History menu for either of these:

• Restore Previous Session
• Recently Closed Windows

to see whether you can get your tabs back.

If Firefox mentioned that it was resetting, refreshing, or performing a tune-up, do you see an Old Firefox Data folder on your Mac desktop?

If Firefox mentioned creating a new profile, let us know and we can suggest where to check for the old one.

For future updates: on the Settings/Preferences page, you can set your Firefox to alert you to new updates but let you control when to install them. In the tiny search box on the page, slowly type updat to bring those settings into view.

Hi,

Thanks for telling me how to change the updates setting; I've done do. I haven't thought that I'm using private as a browser setting. It didn't work because under the History menu, "restore closed session" is greyed out (I can't choose it). Can you please tell me how to fix this so that I can always restore a closed session? Checking my settings again now.. infuriating.

Hi Anne, does your Firefox generally retain browsing history after quit/startup? If so, you're not in automatic private browsing mode. If it loses all history, check your History setting on the Settings/Preferences page, Privacy & Security panel. "Firefox will Remember History" should keep everything, but you can double-check "Firefox will Use custom settings for history" to make sure no problematic boxes are checked.