Description of the issue:
There are two major issues that started occurring with recent Brave updates:
- Brave window always stays on top after updates
Whenever Brave needs to restart to complete an update, the main browser window becomes forced “always on top.” Any application I open (File Explorer, Discord, Chrome, etc.) appears behind Brave until I manually minimize Brave. After minimizing once, the problem goes away after updating brave. - Major data loss after the most recent update
After last night’s update, a large portion of my local browser data was wiped. This includes:
- All site logins (I was logged out everywhere)
- Most site settings / site info
- All of my saved tab groups that were closed at the time
Only the tab groups that were currently open during the update could be partially recovered using Ctrl+Shift+T, but all of my saved (but not open) tab groups are gone.
I checked the following:
- Sessions folder → the oldest session file is timestamped after the update, so all earlier session files appear to have been replaced or cleared. One session file shows 0 KB immediately after the update.
- Bookmarks file → contains no trace of the saved tab groups.
- Session files → none contain URLs or metadata from my missing groups.
It appears the update may have cleared old session files or failed to migrate saved tab group data.
I would like to know if there is any way to recover the missing tab groups.
How can this issue be reproduced?
Not fully sure, but this is the pattern that triggered it:
- Have multiple saved tab groups (closed, not currently open).
- Allow Brave to auto-update aka restart.
- After restarting:
Saved tab groups and other profile/session data are missing.
For the “always on top window issue”:
it only occurs when updates are pushed to brave but not installed.
Expected result:
- Brave should not force its main window to stay above all other windows before an update.
- All user session data, saved tab groups, and stored site information should remain intact after an update.
- Session files should not be wiped or overwritten unless intended.
Brave Version (check About Brave):
Brave 1.84.141
Chromium: 142.0.7444.176
(Desktop, Windows)
Additional Information:
The update occurred around 10:20 PM (local time).
The Bookmarks.bak file is from before the update, but contains no saved tab group data.
The oldest session file timestamps begin exactly at the update time, which suggests older session data was overwritten.
One session file became 0 KB immediately after the update.
I attempted to recover data manually but found no recoverable tab group metadata.
I also created a backup of the default profile folder a few hours after the update just incase.