How can I stop terminal and firefox from launching on startup?

Question

Hi everyone and first of all, thanks for your attention - I appreciate it!

Here my problem. I'm new to linux, although I'm a web programmer so command line doesn't look weird to me, and I'm now running Xubuntu. I have made several configurations and installations and it's now working fine, except for this weird thing: terminal window and firefox browser are launching as soon as I log into my account. Does anybody know how such thing could be happening?

I have rebooted several times, logged in/off as well, but both terminal and firefox window come up automatically every time I start a session.

Has anybody run into this before? How can i find a solution to make those apps NOT start on startup?

Thanks again! Hope someone can help me hehe

Solution 1

There are two possible reasons why the application is started: It is saved in the last session or it is listed in the auto started applications. Follow 1 of the two steps below to get rid of the applications.

• Start the xfce4-autostart-editor and remove the application(s). You can also manually delete those files in ~/Desktop/Autostart and ~/.config/autostart.

• Most of the time closing all the applications and save your session when you logout is sufficient. If this doesn't work, remove the content of the ~/.cache/sessions/ directory when you're not logged in. And if you don't want xfce remember every session you should turn off (uncheck) “Automatically save session on logout” in Settings Manager → Sessions and Startup (tab General)

Reference: 1.

Solution 2

The first step is to open startup apps and see what is there, might be as easy as that, if those apps are in startup, you can just remove them

Another option to consider is ubuntu tweak, it can help you regulate how things start

Comments

[prubini87]

Thanks a lot for your comment @Matthew but that wasn't really the case this time. I'll keep an eye on those settings though for a possible similar event in the future!

[prubini87]

Thanks a lot @desgua! You helped me find the solution: I just had to remove all files in ~/.cache/sessions/ and that's it - no unwanted apps loading on session startup anymore.

[prubini87]

Thanks @dewb! I've checked which apps were opening at startup but neither Firefox or xterminal (xfce terminal) were in the list (I have posted what worked out for me under @desgua's answer).

[prubini87]

About xubuntu, well, xfce runs much faster than gnome for me (I'm running linux in a notebook) and since xubuntu comes with it by default, I picked it up :)

[desgua]

I'm glad it worked :-)

[Mike Gledhill]

There is another checkbox to save the session in the logout dialog. In my case I had to uncheck that one. I then had to delete ~/.cache/sessions to get rid of the last session that was saved.

[Peter Flynn]

What is this xfce4-autostart-editor? It's not installed in 13.04 and it's not in the repos. Has it another name?

[desgua]

You should ask it as a new question.

[EsmaeelE]

Thanks, cd ~/.cache/sessions/ and rm -r * solved it.

[Bruce]

"remove ... directory when you're not logged in" SADLY, I only have one user and I pretty much can't do that. Perhaps "sudo init 1", tho that seems extreme. And there's no reference to Firefox under either ~/Desktop or ~/.cache/autostart. Oh, no "sessions" dir anyway. Did someone think this autostart stuff was a good idea?