Safari cannot recover pages from past session - how to recover?

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Level 1

57 points

Safari cannot recover pages from past session - how to recover?

I usually have lots of windows and tabs open in safari, all very important work stuff. Usually if I quit Safari, or restart, or even if the computer crashes, Safari recovers the pages.

Today I noticed that private browsing would not work. The error shown in safari was:

the operation couldn't be completed no such file or directory nsposixerrordomain: 2

But regular browsing worked fine. Then some time later, regular browsing would produce the error, but private browsing would work fine. I quit Safari and restarted, but it still did not work properly. But then I switched my Safari profile and then both regular and private browsing worked, even when switching back to the original profile.

But I also realized that every window's active tab is blank instead of the recovered website that it used to be at. The error window in all these blank tabs says: Safari cannot open the page because the address is invalid.

If I click ok, then close the tab, but try command+shift+T, it does not open the blank tab.

How do I recover the tabs that have been lost? There are 30 of them all with the same error message.

MacBook Air 15″, macOS 14.5

Posted on Jul 24, 2024 1:10 PM

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Answer 1

Alias7 Author

Level 1

57 points

Jul 24, 2024 1:54 PM in response to Alias7

By the way, it is only the active tab in each window that is missing. If a window has 10 tabs, just the 1 tab has the error.

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Answer 2

Jul 25, 2024 12:00 PM in response to Alias7

I'm having the same issue. Safari gives the error "The operation couldn't be completed. No such file or directory" (NSPOSIXErrorDomain:2). Firefox is also not connecting, but Chrome can. Something weird going on.

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Answer 3

Alias7 Author

Level 1

57 points

Jul 25, 2024 6:31 PM in response to stateofthej

In the middle of the day today, I got a notification on my mac saying that Private Relay was active again (or something like this). Then Safari would act weird again - I could search for something in the top bar, but nothing would happen. That would be in private window and in regular window.

So then I turned private relay off (Settings > Apple ID > iCloud > Private Relay). Then Safari would work.

Then later today I realized that for those windows that seemed like they had been lost forever, showing the error: "Safari cannot open the page because the address is invalid" suddenly had the "back" button in the top left showing. Previously it did not have the back button. So I clicked it and could see a page. If I click "forward" arrow, then I get the same error as before: "Safari cannot open the page because the address is invalid."

So I think the pages I had open are still lost, but at least some of them I can hit the back button to see what I was browsing beforehand. But sadly I had already closed most windows that had the error.

I am gonna turn off Private Relay for now to prevent further issues. Or maybe I will just use a different browser until there is a fix.

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Answer 4

Alias7 Author

Level 1

57 points

Jul 25, 2024 6:43 PM in response to Alias7

Well, with Private Relay off, private browsing does not work. So how will I ever know the issue will be fixed without having to test it myself and risk losing browsing data?

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Answer 5

Alias7 Author

Level 1

57 points

Jul 26, 2024 4:05 PM in response to Alias7

Strangely, private browsing works now. It did not earlier today and yesterday. Private Relay is still off. I am worried if I turn it on again, I will lose lots of open tabs randomly some day.

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Safari cannot recover pages from past session - how to recover?

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