When I click Tools, Options, Firefox hangs
I'm running Firefox 14.0.1 on XP SP3 machine with all updates. When I start Firefox and click on Tools, and then Options, the Options window doesn't appear and Firefox goes to "not responding". It does this in safemode (both XP safemode and Firefox safemode). I have created new profiles (both in XP and Firefox) and completely removed Firefox and all folders/registry entries.
All Replies (5)
To add to this, Firefox also locks up if I click on a link to download something. (Normal surfing works fine). IE8 and Chrome work fine.
I have also disabled and uninstalled NOD32 v5 with no change.
Try to do a clean reinstall and delete the Firefox program folder (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\) before reinstalling a fresh copy of Firefox.
Download a fresh Firefox copy and save the file to the desktop.
- Firefox 14.0.x: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all.html
Uninstall your current Firefox version, if possible.
- Do NOT remove personal data when you uninstall your current Firefox version, because all profile folders will be removed and you will also lose your personal data like bookmarks and passwords from profiles of other Firefox versions.
Remove the Firefox program folder before installing that newly downloaded copy of the Firefox installer.
- It is important to delete the Firefox program folder to remove all the files and make sure that there are no problems with files that were leftover after uninstalling.
- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Uninstalling_Firefox
Your bookmarks and other profile data are stored in the Firefox Profile Folder and won't be affected by an uninstall and (re)install, but make sure that "remove personal data" is NOT selected when you uninstall Firefox.
I've done a clean install. I backed up my personal data and deleted the personal data as well. No change, unfortunately.
Do a malware check with some malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.
You need to scan with all programs because each program detects different malware.
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.
- http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
- http://www.superantispyware.com/ - SuperAntispyware
- http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx - Microsoft Safety Scanner
- http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx - Windows Defender: Home Page
- http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Spybot Search & Destroy
You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.
See also:
- "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked