Thegreatsuspender: Suspended tabs closed after automatic upgrade

[usmonster]

Hi, and thanks for the extension. I just noticed a few minutes ago that the new version was applied to my browser, and all my suspended tabs were closed without warning as a result.

Maybe it's because I have lots of tabs open (400+ before the upgrade, 100+ after... please don't ask 😅), and perhaps there was some kind of silent memory-related crash during whatever post-install activities are launched, but I can only guess.

Luckily/smartly, I see the plugin seems to have auto-saved my session as "Automatic save point for v6.30" before the upgrade, so I can restore just the missing tabs & windows, but it remains a pain. Please just be aware that this might happen to more folks as the upgrade rolls out, so I'll leave it up to you to decide whether or not to pause the rollout to investigate and maybe fix this behavior.

Thanks again for your great work!

• Extension version: v7.1.0
• Browser name & version: Google Chrome Version 76.0.3809.100 (Official Build) (64-bit)
• Operating system & version: macOS Mojave 10.14.6 (18G87)

[usmonster]

Please note that though #987 (filed while I was typing this one) seems closely related, but the side-effects sound slightly different, e.g. irrecoverable session on theirs though the backup session appears on mine, different OS might also be relevant, etc.

Still, if the root cause is the same, feel free to close one.

[usmonster]

Also just noticed #526, and I strongly recommend the same solution as was suggested in @uecasm's comment.

@deanoemcke, did you ever get a change to look into this? It seems it would close the number one issue for users of this plugin. I'd love to follow the issue for this feature if one exists. Thanks again!

[usmonster]

New development—when I attempt a "Restore and suspend" of the backup session, I see a message saying klbibkeccnjlkjkiokjodocebajanakg is blocked:

Looking at the extensions page, I now see that the extension is, suddenly, possibly corrupted (it wasn't just before I attempted the restore):

Never seen this before, but I will attempt a "repair" and update this comment.

[usmonster]

(Sorry for monologuing...)

So I clicked "Repair", and it seems Chrome just reinstalled the plugin. As opposed to current upgrade behavior, my previously-suspended tabs remained open and in the suspended state, and they now seem to work as expected—_however_, the plug-in's options page now seems to display no content:

I'll just restart the browser and pray everything's back to "normal" after that. Will hopefully be able to report back. Wish me luck.

[usmonster]

Dear diary,

I just restarted my browser. What a mistake! Now, I don't even see the suspended tabs that I'd just restored from the backup session—I'm in the same boat as those in #526! 😭 I guess when I clicked "Repair" Chrome also completely cleared my plugin settings, including session history. What's worse, diary, is that, even though I had previously selected "Sync settings with your Chrome profile"—these settings were not restored.

Luckily, I'd expected something catastrophic like this to happen. This is not my first rodeo, diary. 😎 (🤠?) Before doing anything I'd exported the backup session, so now all I have to do is "Import session" from the backup text file, and everything should be fine... right?? We'll see! Until next episode... 🤞

Update: Nope, didn't work. After importing & restoring again, it seems the windows are being restored, but after a few windows appear to open, one gives the same error as the one from the first screenshot. At this point the loading stops, all supposedly-restored tabs are gone again (except the last window), and the extension appear as "possibly corrupted" again. Maybe a memory issue or Chrome blocking the extension from opening more than a certain number of windows or tabs in such a short time span. 🤷‍♂ I'm now trying to restore one window at a time... 😩

[maxxyme]

I just encountered the same problem, lost almost ALL my suspended tabs from my ~10 windows.

Although I saved the "current session" to a text file as suggested by The Great Suspender just before it would upgrade, in fact it only save the current WINDOWS tabs...

Seriously WHAT A MESS.
I'm really disappointed because I couldn't rely on this single extension in the future.

[retrospec13]

This is exactly why forced updates should never happen.

The dev needs to never again force an update, there's a reason why all major developers don't do this.

[usmonster]

Although I saved the "current session" to a text file as suggested by The Great Suspender just before it would upgrade, in fact it only save the current WINDOWS tabs...

I had noticed that behavior previously, even before the update. I never reported it, since I thought "I guess I haven't needed that feature in a while"—and thank goodness it worked for me this time. Sorry you weren't as lucky, but maybe this method can help?

[hamakei]

I lost all my tabs too, thanks to an update I didn't ask for. TGS "helpfully" says "you can recover lost tabs from the session management page", but going to the session management page....there is no previous session to restore. It's all gone.

So, thanks a lot!

[maxxyme]

Although I saved the "current session" to a text file as suggested by The Great Suspender just before it would upgrade, in fact it only save the current WINDOWS tabs...

I had noticed that behavior previously, even before the update. I never reported it, since I thought "I guess I haven't needed that feature in a while"—and thank goodness it worked for me this time. Sorry you weren't as lucky, but maybe this method can help?

Won't work unfortunately, because I had the wonderful idea to subsequently update Google Chrome too as it had a pending update. 🙄
Well after all this is also a good sign to me that keeping so much tabs open/suspended is a really really bad thing. I just noticed I can somehow find all (or at least lots of) my closed suspended tabs in the Chrome history because apparently they were all kind of re-opened at the same time. 😅
Will browse through this whole list and try to clean this tab stack as I just should had done it for a long time now... 😁

[jvschiavo]

@usmonster I think the "This extension may have been corrupted" message could be something with Chrome. Specifically v76. I got the exact same message with another extension, Video Speed Controller (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed-controller/nffaoalbilbmmfgbnbgppjihopabppdk).

I've just noticed it wasn't working and then I checked Chrome's extensions page and saw the corrupted message. It happened more than one time, but never happened before Chrome v76. I'm gonna check their github too to see if more people got the same problem.

[jvschiavo]

@usmonster Bingo. https://github.com/igrigorik/videospeed/issues/492

[usmonster]

Thanks, @jvschiavo! I Just starred the upstream bug as well, https://crbug.com/977805. It sounds like the fix isn't quite ready for primetime, but hopefully I'll at least be able to restore all my tabs without the plugin crashing in the next major release of Chrome.

And just to clarify for folks who don't read every single comment: the main issue—"auto-upgrades close tabs and sometimes don't successfully restore them"—is still _likely_ an ongoing problem with the extension. The solution here could be to only apply upgrades on browser restart (via onUpdateAvailable).

The secondary issue—"attempting to restore tabs results in a plugin crash"—is definitely a Chrome v76 issue that "should" be fixed by Google folks soon. It affects several other plugins, and plugin author has no way to fix this—it's up to Google.

In the meantime, I will try this temporary workaround to allow myself to use a local copy of the extension without worrying about hitting the Chrome bug.

[SirJorb]

Had this happen to me too, the last automatic backup was a month ago D:

[RobertAb1]

https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/issues/987

[RobertAb1]

Problems seems to be present with the large number of suspended tabs (+200); I am using Session Buddy. I do not have problems if less tabs are present.
Apply Chrome's built-in memory-saving when suspending is new option in The Great Suspender v7.1 and problem exists both with this option marked and unmarked.

[liamjohnston]

For anyone experiencing issues importing sessions - there is a bug preventing this from working in the great suspender :(
BUT you should be able to import a Great Suspender session directly into Session Buddy. Tested and working for me :)

[RobertAb1]

For anyone experiencing issues importing sessions - there is a bug preventing this from working in the great suspender :(
BUT you should be able to import a Great Suspender session directly into Session Buddy. Tested and working for me :)

I am using Session Buddy as session manager, and I have issues.

[usmonster]

As mentioned above, this is a known recent problem in Chrome v76 that affects several extensions. It _should_ be fixed in an upcoming version of Chrome.

[RobertAb1]

As mentioned above, this is a known recent problem in Chrome v76 that affects several extensions. It _should_ be fixed in an upcoming version of Chrome.

Chrome 76 / The Great Suspender 7.0 = no problem
Chrome 76 / The Great Suspender 7.1 = problem with suspended tabs

[usmonster]

Not to doubt your experience, but it may be a bit trickier than that. There are lots of versions of "Chrome v76", and the bug is only present after one of them. The extension upgrade could have coincided with a Chrome upgrade, which could explain the behavior you saw. Unfortunately, it's hard to prove either way, since "downgrading" to 7.0 requires installing the package manually without the Chrome Web Store, and that won't trigger the problem on any version of the plugin due to the nature of the Chrome bug.

[RobertAb1]

It was exactly the same Chrome version. I have checked version before update and after I got problems after update.

[RobertAb1]

https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/issues/990
https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/issues/1000
https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/issues/1005
https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/issues/1007
https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/issues/1011
https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/issues/1013
https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/issues/1014

[cschiu1]

Also lost 200+ suspended tabs with no auto-save upon upgrade. Super frustrating. Spent a few hours combing over history to find lost tabs. What a huge waste of time. Can I note that Great Suspender auto-saves only upon quitting Chrome? With 200+ tabs open, I rarely quit Chrome, which means, auto-save is pretty much useless.

[RobertAb1]

@deanoemcke
Any progress?

[usmonster]

Has anyone retested in Chrome 77? Is it fixed?

I've been successfully using a workaround (i.e. installed a local clone of the plugin to avoid the mechanism that triggers the crash), and I'm not brave enough/too lazy to try it myself. 😅

[1024mb]

I have updated just now on Vivaldi and apparently it didn't delete any of the backed up sessions, I mean I have 2 sessions form July and 2 from August so I guess it didn't delete any sessions on my end. Although I have to say that I don't use this extension as a session manager so I don't know if I had any more sessions saved and TGS deleted all of them and just leave 4, so there is that. Can't say anything about closing suspended tabs and failing to restore them as I didn't have any before updating.
I guess you guys should start using more than just one extension to backup your sessions. I use 2, Tab Session Manager and Session Buddy and Tab Session Manager has an auto backup option that exports a json file to wherever you set. I always thought TGS was a little fragile regarding session management, I don't know why, never trust it to manage my sessions. I've been using this extension for years and never use it to backup anything.

Sorry for your loss guys, I've been there once and is a pain in the ass to try to recreate at least the last session.

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had any new activity for 180 days. It will be closed in 30 days if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.