Comment 379 for bug 191889

(In reply to comment #126)
> When I set the pref "toolkit.networkmanager.disable" to true in about:config,
> it actually works - no more offline at startup.
> Thanks!

I had done that some time ago, but when I upgraded from Fedora 9 to Fedora 10 (which installed Fedora/3.0.5-1.fc10 Firefox/3.0.5) I found Firefox had reverted to the old behaviour. I had completely forgotten how to fix this and it took me some time to rediscover it.

The facility to switch off the behaviour (going offline and preventing old web pages from being redisplayed) really should be one of the items in the preference menu which will be preserved in the user's files.

I use Firefox as a substantial extension of my working memory. I usually have several windows open (anything between 3 and about 20) each of which can have several tabs. I don't use networkmanager because my desktop PC is connected by cable to a router using a static address. If I have to restart firefox e.g. after booting, or after suspend/resume (I use tuxonice) it is a real pain to have to go through every tab in every window clicking 'try again', after deselecting 'work offline'. Who dreamed up that mechanism?

For people who have not learnt how to use "about:config", and who use multiple tabs as I do, it is essential either to make everything reconnect automatically when 'work offline' is deselected, or to have an adjacent button labelled 'retry all'. or 'reconnect all' which works only when offline is deslected.

(Ideally that should be in addition to a preference to turn off checking of network connectivity. It's a bit pointless anyway, because there can be a network failure at many locations, e.g. at the service provider, or beyond, and whether networkmanager does or does not think there is a successful connection can be irrelevant in that case.)

[Incidentally, I am finding that Firefox causes a much smaller load since I switched to Fedora 10.]