I often click on multiple images to load in tabs, and every once in a while, as expected I get the 'prove you are a human dialog' with the confirm button. The issue I'm having is the moment I click that button, it closes every tab I have open and shuts down the browser and I cannot figure out why, and I cannot resume the session. I do have Chrome installed and I absolutely refuse to use it as my daily driver browser, I've been using Firefox at least 12 years, and Chrome is only installed because a web portal I use for work absolutely requires Chrome. Any idea what may be going on, or is this an isolated problem? I'm almost considering doing a Windows reinstall.

Win11, Firefox 122.0 here-- no such issue. Might just be you unfortunately.

i'm also on Firefox 122.0 in Win11, and while i do get the bot check a lot, i haven't gotten this specific crash. will keep you posted if & when i do

That sounds a lot like a problem that comes from your setup, I've used both linux and windows and neither have that problem

demeterkitty said:
I often click on multiple images to load in tabs, and every once in a while, as expected I get the 'prove you are a human dialog' with the confirm button. The issue I'm having is the moment I click that button, it closes every tab I have open and shuts down the browser and I cannot figure out why, and I cannot resume the session. I do have Chrome installed and I absolutely refuse to use it as my daily driver browser, I've been using Firefox at least 12 years, and Chrome is only installed because a web portal I use for work absolutely requires Chrome. Any idea what may be going on, or is this an isolated problem? I'm almost considering doing a Windows reinstall.

Along same lines as what Donovan DMC said: You're absolutely dealing with some settings/cache problem. Tried creating a second profile? Cleared the browser cache entirely? If it's losing a (tab/window in) session, it sounds like it's in private mode. Pretty sure those are SUPPOSED to not come back.

They also changed Firefox recently so that most (all?) of the time, instead of giving you a way to restore your session, it just dumps all the tabs you had open before into the Recently Closed Tabs menu and makes you retrieve them one at a time. Sucks to be you if you had more than 25 tabs open I guess.

errorist said:
They also changed Firefox recently so that most (all?) of the time, instead of giving you a way to restore your session, it just dumps all the tabs you had open before into the Recently Closed Tabs menu and makes you retrieve them one at a time. Sucks to be you if you had more than 25 tabs open I guess.

Dafuq? Is? This? Shit? Seriously? I've never seen that so far.

errorist said:
They also changed Firefox recently so that most (all?) of the time, instead of giving you a way to restore your session, it just dumps all the tabs you had open before into the Recently Closed Tabs menu and makes you retrieve them one at a time. Sucks to be you if you had more than 25 tabs open I guess.

There is a "Restore Previous Session" option in the History menu for me, as well as a "Reopen All Tabs" option under Recently Closed Tabs.

I got the problem solved, unfortunately it required the purchase of a brand new Windows 11 Pro license, and the replacement of an 8TB SSD. It kept doing it until I replaced both. Expensive but it was starting to affect other sites as well, any sort of button interaction similar to the bot check would wipe out my tabs, shut down Firefox and even started causing bluescreens. I have no idea what caused it. I'm actually nervous that it could be a motherboard issue.

Sounds like a ram leak, maybe SIGSEGV error, but I ain't got any idea. Probably reinstalling windows 11 would have been enough, why buy it twice? In case, test your SSD with badblocks and fsck (they're linux commands, installing a distro or working from live boot should work)

wolfmanfur said:
Sounds like a ram leak, maybe SIGSEGV error, but I ain't got any idea. Probably reinstalling windows 11 would have been enough, why buy it twice? In case, test your SSD with badblocks and fsck (they're linux commands, installing a distro or working from live boot should work)

Changing the SSD invalidated the digital license. I even called Microsoft to try to get the old key to work, they refused to do so, curtly stating that I would be required to obtain a new license key.

demeterkitty said:
Changing the SSD invalidated the digital license. I even called Microsoft to try to get the old key to work, they refused to do so, curtly stating that I would be required to obtain a new license key.

That's uh... not how it works. This fixing things is not how any of this works! (Not actually joking)

alphamule said:
That's uh... not how it works. This fixing things is not how any of this works! (Not actually joking)

It is in Microsoft land. Changing hardware can invalidate the Windows key, as it essentially thinks it's on a different system, requiring a new key/license. I wouldn't have expected just an SSD change to trigger it (I thought it allowed for a couple hardware changes/upgrades before tripping), but I haven't touched Windows in almost 2 decades so I can't say how touchy that detection actually is these days.

watsit said:
It is in Microsoft land. Changing hardware can invalidate the Windows key, as it essentially thinks it's on a different system, requiring a new key/license. I wouldn't have expected just an SSD change to trigger it (I thought it allowed for a couple hardware changes/upgrades before tripping), but I haven't touched Windows in almost 2 decades so I can't say how touchy that detection actually is these days.

OEM keys are tied to your motherboard and allegedly shouldn't deactivate as long as you don't change the motherboard, but working in PC repair/wholesale has shown me otherwise. When you deal with tens of thousands of computers each year you pretty frequently experience Windows keys deactivating themselves, sometimes with no hardware changes at all. Argue with Microsoft enough and they'll reactivate it, but it actually ended up being cheaper to just buy new keys for those devices rather than pay an employee to spend absolutely hours arguing with Microsoft.

On the opposite end of the scale, we've built computers out of pallets of unwanted Amazon returns and a number of them have just activated Windows by themselves, presumably because the customer activated an OEM key on the motherboard before returning it to Amazon. I think the chance that we just happened to rebuild the computer with any of the same parts is astronomically low, which also suggests the motherboard is the only important factor.

Personal keys, however, are tied to your user account and should be transferrable.

faucet said:
OEM keys are tied to your motherboard and allegedly shouldn't deactivate as long as you don't change the motherboard, but working in PC repair/wholesale has shown me otherwise. When you deal with tens of thousands of computers each year you pretty frequently experience Windows keys deactivating themselves, sometimes with no hardware changes at all. Argue with Microsoft enough and they'll reactivate it, but it actually ended up being cheaper to just buy new keys for those devices rather than pay an employee to spend absolutely hours arguing with Microsoft.

On the opposite end of the scale, we've built computers out of pallets of unwanted Amazon returns and a number of them have just activated Windows by themselves, presumably because the customer activated an OEM key on the motherboard before returning it to Amazon. I think the chance that we just happened to rebuild the computer with any of the same parts is astronomically low, which also suggests the motherboard is the only important factor.

Personal keys, however, are tied to your user account and should be transferrable.

Yeah, was gonna say, the SSD isn't normally how those keys work. It's the motherboard with something along the lines of SLIP to BIOS-lock it, if say, a Dell with it preinstalled. Microsoft licensing is only slightly less confusing than Oracle's though. >:)

Common scenario: You had Windows 7 or 8, and upgraded to 10 for 'free'. That key is restricted to that specific board.
Installing to my non-ecosystem'd boards (Supermicro/Gigabyte/whoever) with any HDD/SDD and any video card? I'd be forced to use a Microsoft account to tie my key to, most likely.
Then you get into systems activated because part of some corporation. Those are an entirely different kettle of fish. Even the settings are locked down for domain-linked machines. They are the property of the company, and licenses follow them, not the machine.