Firefox problems

[Eloel]

I know this is probably not the place to ask such questions - and I'll be linked to the mozilla forums, but people here tend to be both quicker in responding and friendlier.

Anyway, for a week or so now, firefox started freezing (getting tagged "not responding" and going gray-ish) 15-20 seconds every 5 to 10 minutes. I've read many suggestions, including disabling addons (disabled all), plugins (disabled all but java and flash, updated those), themes, reinstalling firefox (I tried with normal version, beta version AND aurora), yet none has managed to solve the problem. Anyone have/had the same problem? Also, any suggestions on how to fix it?

And no, I don't want any other browsers. No, not even then.

[Erloas]

Have you tried another browser to see if the probably happens there too? I know you said you don't want another browser, but you *need* at least 2 different ones installed on a computer at any given time even if you only use 1 of them 99.9% of the time. To do stuff like this; test for problems.

It could be something like your wireless card (or less likely but still possible, non wireless network) going out or having problems. So FF might be hanging up waiting for the network to give it information. It could be your hard drive starting to fail, and when FF tries to write to the drive it hangs up. Could just be that you have 1000 processes running in the back ground slowing stuff down. Could be your anti-virus doing something, or potentially a virus doing something.
Knowing if it happens with other programs, especially other browsers will help reduce the number of possible problems to check out.

[danzibr]

And no, I don't want any other browsers. No, not even then.
Uninstall and reinstall it? Or Google Chrome?

[Eloel]

Uninstall and reinstall it? Or Google Chrome?

I'm not sure if you're trying to be funny or something, but seriously :smallmad:

And Erloas, I'll try with internet explorer (ewww) to see whether I get the same problems with it. Will report back.

[Feytalist]

Hmm. My Firefox does it on startup occasionally. I'd always thought it was something to do with my connection. It also happens when I have many tabs refreshing at the same time.

I've seen the same thing happen with Chrome too, so no luck there. Nothing I can help you with, but it doesn't seem malevolent.

[Eloel]

I've been on ie8 for over a couple hours now with the freeze not happening. So, it's firefox specific :smallfrown:

[Phishfood]

Hm, if IE works rules out what I was going to say - check your antivirus isn't going nuts.

You could try uninstalling, manually checking that all files and registry keys have been deleted, rebooting then reinstalling.

Also, if you updated recently see if you can get hold of an older version. www.filehippo.com has an archive.

Is there any pattern at all to the freezes? particular websites?

[danzibr]

I'm not sure if you're trying to be funny or something, but seriously :smallmad:

And Erloas, I'll try with internet explorer (ewww) to see whether I get the same problems with it. Will report back.
I was being somewhat serious. Why is it that you don't want to switch? I was hardcore firefox until I tried google chrome.

[Eloel]

You could try uninstalling, manually checking that all files and registry keys have been deleted, rebooting then reinstalling.

This is next in line


Is there any pattern at all to the freezes? particular websites?
Nope, I had it happen on alot of sites, ranging from these very forums to Facebook to gmail.

I was being somewhat serious. Why is it that you don't want to switch? I was hardcore firefox until I tried google chrome.
Most addons available to firefox are not available for chrome, firefox tends to be faster, and is quite easier to manage. Also, chrome is not open source (chromium, the base project for chrome, is), and as far as I'm aware, collects user data, however anonymous they might claim it to be.
Then there's the fact that chrome is very annoying, in that it now has TV ads.

[Erloas]

Most addons available to firefox are not available for chrome, firefox tends to be faster, and is quite easier to manage. Also, chrome is not open source (chromium, the base project for chrome, is), and as far as I'm aware, collects user data, however anonymous they might claim it to be.
Then there's the fact that chrome is very annoying, in that it now has TV ads.

Not sure on the add-ons, but in terms of speed, most benchmarks show Chrome coming out on top most of the time, though FF, Opera and IE take wins in certain situations. It terms of speed, they are all usually pretty close with some sites greatly favoring one over the other. FF has been falling behind lately and doesn't have the relative speed advantage it did a year or two ago.

But the first step would be to completely remove every last piece of Firefox, there should be some utilities out there to clean up files it leaves with a normal uninstall, and then reinstall and see what that does.

[Kallisto]

I have had the exact same problem as you described, ever since I reformated my computer. I would open firefox, and every 5 or 6th page I would open, it would crash (as though it used more and more memory every time I opened a new page, up to a point where it would crash). I tried uninstalling it and reinstalling it and it didn't work.

I'm now stuck using Internet Explorer. I have no clue on how to fix this, and I miss Firefox terribly as well.

[Arminius]

If you are looking for a replacment for Firefox, Seamonkey is pretty good. If you are sticking with FF, I would recomned reinstalling FF on the lines of what Phishfood suggested. Be sure to backup your bookmarks before you delete everything though.

EDIT: This does assume that antivirus, spyware sweeps have ruled out any problems in those areas.

[Mando Knight]

Might it be website related? Is the Flash player for Firefox completely up to date?

[danzibr]

Then there's the fact that chrome is very annoying, in that it now has TV ads.
Ooohh... I was not aware. I haven't used it for some time now. Disappointing.

[Phishfood]

RE Chrome Vs FF
We use FF at work because we can get FFCE which ties in with group policies and so can be branded and configured remotely.

I'm not aware of any such thing for chrome, and since we have a proxy server that alone is an issue never mind enforcing homepage.

Personally, I use FF because I don't see any gain switching to chrome. I'm not saying its bad, its just that I'm used to FF and the switch is not worth the effort to me :P

(yes, I can be a right lazy git at times)

[Zherog]

I experience this problem in Firefox on occasion - nowhere near the frequency you report. For me, it seems to happen when:

I'm playing Farmville in one tab. (Yeah, I know... sue me.)
I have Pandora open in another tab
I have at least a half-dozen other tabs open, and actively jumping around refreshing them regularly.


I just bite the bullet and restart the program. My hunch is that it's something to do with Flash, but I'm too lazy to delve into it...