I noticed the same behavior in the live demo http://livedemo.exadel.com/richfaces-demo/richfaces/filteringFeature.jsf?tab=ex-usage&cid=26569

When you filter by timezone (for example to -8), click any link on the left pane (foe example Column) then click browser's back button. Now you see unfiltered table even though -8 is shown in the filter field.

Thanks for reply, but I already have filter values stored in session bean. The problem is that rich:dataTable needs to be rerendered after retruning from another page. Anyone know how?

I think I found a sollution. I created a jsFunction which only rerenders a table. On the page I simply call this function.

                   <h:form>
                    <rich:dataTable value="#{indexBean.cityList}" var="city" id="table">
                        <f:facet name="header">
                            <rich:columnGroup>
                                <rich:column>
                                    <h:outputText value="City"/>
                                </rich:column>
                            </rich:columnGroup>
                        </f:facet>       
                        <rich:column filterBy="#{city}" filterEvent="onkeyup" filterValue="#{richFacesBean.filterValue}">
                            <h:outputText value="#{city}"/>
                        </rich:column>
                    </rich:dataTable>
                    <a4j:jsFunction name="tableReload" reRender="table" />
                </h:form>
                <script type="text/javascript">
                   tableReload();
                </script>