Release Notes page always loads on startup Topic is solved

[graveller39]

Since the latest update, every time I start Pale Moon, the Release Notes page loads along with my homepage. I have only one homepage selected and when I attempt to change the settings, Pale Moon does not save the changes.

I'm using 27.6.2 32bit with W10x64.

Any ideas? Has anyone else had this issue?

thanks in advance...

[Scribe]

Hi, you've made sure there is only your chosen home page in Options > General tab (Home page)? Because PM can open more than one home page with the URLs separated by a 'pipe' (|). Assuming that's the case, try clicking on Restore to Default.

You could also try Safe Mode, by holding down Shift when you start PM. (Just restart PM to exit Safe Mode). If it works in Safe Mode, disable any theme or add-ons you have - Add-ons Manager (Ctrl+Shift+A) > Appearance/Extensions, then if it's OK, re-enable them one by one until you find the culprit. You may need to restart PM after enabling some add-ons.

A few other possibilities are in https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/ho ... -wont-save

[graveller39]

thanks for the suggestions Scribe,

Unfortunatley I'm in a bigger mess now than before though...

I've tried most everything that seems applicable - I've started PM in Safe Mode, I deleted the prefs.js file, refreshed PM - all to no avail. So I decided to delete my profile; still same problem. Then I completely uninstalled PM & installed the 64bit version; same problem. So I uninstalled the 64bit & reinstalled the 32bit version; same problem. Lastly, I uninsalled & reinstalled a previous version (27.0.3) - still same problem...

Just to clarify: after reinstalling PM, I then had 4 tabs opening on the browswer startup; 2 'Pale Moon - Congratulations!' & 2 'Pale Moon - start.me' pages. After restarting, I get 3 tabs; a 'Restore Session' tab and the 'Pale Moon - Congratulations!' & 'Pale Moon - start.me' pages and that's where I am now - I can change my home page to Google or make changes in about:config, but they aren't saved when I close & restart PM.

Until now, Pale Moon has been a great browser, but I'm at a loss as to what to do to get this back to a usable state.

[tenseys]

With Pale moon closed (if open click menu/exit or file/exit to close), if you launch the profile manager and create a new profile and then start Pale Moon with the new profile, does the new profile do this?

You can launch the profile manager by entering palemoon.exe -p (or palemoon -profilemanager) in the run command. Then create new profile and Start Pale Moon with it.


You can also try a clean install of Pale Moon which involves deleting some folders in addition to uninstalling PM through control panel before reinstalling.
Here is one thread on that but there are a few:
viewtopic.php?t=662

Maybe check control panel/programs and make sure you don't have multiple pale moons listed there. I think that happened once to me somehow.

Maybe run Malwarebytes to be sure there is no malware at play though that's probably not the problem.

[graveller39]

After creating a new profile, the first time I launched Pale Moon, it opened with 2 tabs, http://www.palemoon.org/firstrun.shtml & https://palemoon.start.me/ca.

The 2nd time, Pale Moon opened with 4 tabs: 2 tabs are http://www.palemoon.org/firstrun.shtml, the other 2 are https://palemoon.start.me/ca.

For the 3rd and subseqent starts, Pale Moon opens with 3 tabs: a Restore Session tab (no url), http://www.palemoon.org/firstrun.shtml & https://palemoon.start.me/ca.

Any changes I make to my homepage, add-ons, or about:config settings are lost when I close & restart Pale Moon.

I've done a complete uninstall/reinstall with Revo Uninstaller at least 6 times; tried different Pale Moon versions, even did a system restore, and absolutely nothing seems to work.

I've checked and I do not have multiple Pale Moons listed there.

I'll scan with Malwarebytes just to be sure, but I'm not expecting to find anything as I'm sure I've done a fairly recent scan.

[tenseys]

Do you use ccleaner? Sometimes a quick clean of things can help.
What antivirus do you use? If beyond win defender, maybe turn off temp and see.
Any recent changes to win 10 or apps on it besides update of PM?
What was your normal homepage domain before this happened ?
Do you have FF installed or other variants? What version and how is it/they working?

I've never experienced anything like this ...wish I could be more helpful and I hope you get it solved.

[LAR Grizzly]

I remember something like this happening to someone with Firefox on the mozillaZine forum. Check your desktop shortcut for opening PM. The other fellow had entries in the shortcut that gave him fits. You can try launching PM by double clicking the palemoon.exe file (bypassing the desktop shortcut).

[tenseys]

Here is what mine looks like if it helps:

[LAR Grizzly]

Here is what mine looks like if it helps:

Looks normal to me. It was just a shot in the dark. Hang in there, it will get figured it out. We'll continue to brainstorm...

[tenseys]

Here is what mine looks like if it helps:

Looks normal to me. It was just a shot in the dark. Hang in there, it will get figured it out. We'll continue to brainstorm...

I was just posting it for the OP so he can check against it regarding your suggestion. An example of what it should look like.

[LAR Grizzly]

I was just posting it for the OP so he can check against it regarding your suggestion. An example of what it should look like.

My mistake. I failed to notice that you weren't the OP! I feel so silly!

[tenseys]

I was just posting it for the OP so he can check against it regarding your suggestion. An example of what it should look like.

My mistake. I failed to notice that you weren't the OP! I feel so silly!

No problem! I think it's a good suggestion.

[graveller39]

thanks for your ideas guys,

My PM shortcut is fine - I've also tried starting directly from the .exe file; still have same problems. I did a cleanup with CCleaner and I'm using ESET Smart Security.

I can't say for sure when the problem started, but I believe it began after the last PM update. I'm thinking PM usually starts with the Release Notes along with the homepage the first time after an update, but it continued that way every time it started. That was my original issue, but after creating a new profile, the other pages have been loading as mentioned above. I can no longer change the homepage back to Google.

I'm using Firefox 52.5.0 x64 with no issues.

I'm running a Malwarebytes scan now - so far, no problems found.

[Scribe]

What happens when you click on Restore to Default in Options?

Also make sure that 'When PM starts' isn't set to 'Show my windows and tabs from last time.' (Don't forget to click OK after any changes).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Have you manually deleted the installation folder? Download PM and save it to somewhere on your PC, then with PM closed, delete the folder -

On 32-bit windows or for Pale Moon x64: C:\Program Files\Pale Moon
On 64-bit windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\Pale Moon

Now run the previously downloaded installer.

[graveller39]

Not sure where to find Restore to Default - I've looked in Options, but I don't see it.

As explained in previous posts, I've uninstalled & reinstalled numerous times with the same result. Each time, I did a complete uninstall and deleted both the installation folder and my profile folder.

[Scribe]

For Restore to Default, go to Options > General tab, just under 'Home page.'

Since nothing seems to fix this, look closely at the security program on your PC. In particular, any parts of it that might hook into browsers; things such as Browser cleanup.(I don't think it will be Win Defender).

[LAR Grizzly]

As explained in previous posts, I've uninstalled & reinstalled numerous times with the same result. Each time, I did a complete uninstall and deleted both the installation folder and my profile folder.

Are you getting the installer from the official Pale Moon website?

http://www.palemoon.org/palemoon-win32.shtml

http://www.palemoon.org/palemoon-win64.shtml

ftp://ftp2.palemoon.org/Pale_Moon/

Some alternative download sites have modified installers.

[graveller39]

I tried Restore to Default - no change.

I momentarily disabled ESET antivirus & firewall while I made the changes to my PM homepage; after closing & restarting PM, I still have the same 3 tabs opening. Aside from everything else, its odd that a Restore Session page keeps opening on startup - as if there is a problem when PM closes. The message on that page says:

"There was a problem with your session.
Pale Moon is having trouble recovering your windows and tabs. This is usually caused by a recently opened web page."

Could this be a key as to what's going wrong? If the browser's not closing properly, perhaps it can't save any changes made during the session? But why would it not be closing properly?

And yes, I've downloaded the installer from the official Pale Moon website.

[tenseys]

Could it be related to the video card somehow? I saw a thread somewhere with same error message and it was suggested it might have something to do with graphics.. maybe a driver or something. But I think that did involve changing screen settings so maybe not.

Have you tried turning off hardware acceleration in tools/advanced/general? Safe mode disables it but maybe with a new profile there is difference?

I imagine this should have nothing to do with this, but... in Windows 10 go to settings/apps and search for hevcvideoextension.. is it (or mpeg2videoextension) found? If so, uninstall and check. I doubt that is it but just something to eliminate.

Also good to do some computer restarts when trying some of these things.. but it sounds like you're doing that already.

Does your Windows 10 task manager/startup look okay? Do you know the entries?

Have you run a scf /scannow from elevated command prompt to make sure Windows is okay?

(Maybe that canada start.me page has an issue somehow?)

[graveller39]

thanks again for the suggestions...

I checked everything tenseys mentioned and still no luck. Graphics drivers are up to date, turned off hardware acceleration, searched for hevcvideoextension & mpeg2videoextension) - not found, Task Manager has very few items set for startup - they're all legit, ran scf /scannow and it didn't find any integrity violations.

The canada start.me page loads on its own - nothing I've tried will stop it.

I'm starting to think recovering a system image from a month or so ago might be worth it - seems a bit much though.

Its possible the problem started with W10 Creator update - I'm really not sure...