Custom tab names not restored when loading session within Neovim

[FelixLisczyk]

Hi! First of all, thanks for this amazing plugin - it's been a game-changer for my workflow! 😊

I've run into a small issue that I thought I should report. When restoring sessions, the custom tab names behave differently depending on how the session is loaded:

• When I load a session from the terminal (nvim -S <path-to-session-file>), everything works perfectly! The tab names are restored just as I left them.
• However, when I load the same session from within Neovim using :lua vim.cmd.source("<path-to-session-file>"), the custom tab names don't come back.

This caught my attention because I'm using the nvim-possession session manager, which uses the second method to load sessions.

How to reproduce

1. Create a few tabs and give them custom names
2. Save the session
3. Try both loading methods:

   # Terminal (works fine):
   nvim -S <path-to-session-file>
   
   # Within Neovim (tab names don't restore):
   :lua vim.cmd.source("<path-to-session-file>")
   

My setup

• Neovim: 0.10.3
• Tabby.nvim: 2.7.4
• OS: macOS 15.2

My config

{
  "nanozuki/tabby.nvim",
  dependencies = "nvim-tree/nvim-web-devicons",
  config = function()
    require("tabby").setup({
      preset = "active_wins_at_tail",
      options = {
        theme = {
          fill = "TabLineFill", -- tabline background
          head = "TabLine", -- head element highlight
          current_tab = "TabLineSel", -- current tab label highlight
          tab = "TabLine", -- other tab label highlight
          win = "TabLine", -- window highlight
          tail = "TabLine", -- tail element highlight
        },
        nerdfont = true, -- whether use nerdfont
        lualine_theme = nil, -- lualine theme name
        buf_name = {
          mode = "unique",
        },
      },
    })

    vim.o.showtabline = 2 -- always show tabline
    vim.opt.sessionoptions = "curdir,folds,globals,help,tabpages,terminal,winsize" -- Save tab names in the session

    vim.api.nvim_set_keymap(
      "n",
      "<leader>tr",
      ":lua require('tabby').tab_rename(vim.fn.input('New tab name: '))<CR>",
      { noremap = true, silent = true, desc = "Rename current tab" }
    )
  end,
}

Let me know if you need any additional information! Happy to help track this down. 🙂

Thanks again for maintaining this plugin!

[nanozuki]

Does the nvim-possession setup after tabby? tabby.nvim load tabs' name from globals only once.

[FelixLisczyk]

Thanks for the quick reply!

I've done some additional testing based on your suggestion:

1. I tried loading the plugins in different orders (both tabby.nvim before nvim-possession and vice versa), but the behavior remains the same.
2. To isolate the issue further, I tested without nvim-possession at all - just using :lua vim.cmd.source("<path-to-session-file>") directly in Neovim. The tab names still don't restore in this case.

Since the issue occurs even without nvim-possession, I don't think it's a plugin conflict. Given that tab names restore correctly when loading from the terminal but not when sourcing the session file within Neovim, perhaps there's a different hook or event that Tabby could use when Neovim is loading the session file internally?

(I'm fairly new to Neovim's internals, so I apologize if I'm missing something obvious here!)