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Firefox is locking up and the problem appears to be related to plug in container. Is there a fix for this?

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  • Last reply by Jon

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Using Windows XP, one tab open in Firefox, selected an item on the webpage, loading icon appeared and kept going, closed Firefox, tried to open Firefox, message that Firefox still running, closed firefox.exe using Task Manager, able to run Firefox again. This has been happening a lot lately and I don't remember it happening in previous versions of Firefox.

Using Windows XP, one tab open in Firefox, selected an item on the webpage, loading icon appeared and kept going, closed Firefox, tried to open Firefox, message that Firefox still running, closed firefox.exe using Task Manager, able to run Firefox again. This has been happening a lot lately and I don't remember it happening in previous versions of Firefox.

Chosen solution

Firefox uses plugin-container.exe to run Flash and other plugins. The theory is that if the plugin were to crash, it would not crash all your tabs, just any active plugins. Are you getting a message that a plugin crashed?


If I understand the problem correctly, Firefox is hanging or freezing when trying to open a link, and you are exiting Firefox, after which it won't start up again until you kill firefox.exe in the Task Manager.

Have you noticed any pattern to when Firefox freezes or stalls?

How are you exiting Firefox (for example, from the menu vs. red X button vs. Ctrl+Alt+Delete)?

In case you haven't seen it, this article might be useful: Firefox hangs or is not responding - How to fix.

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Seçilmiş Həll

Firefox uses plugin-container.exe to run Flash and other plugins. The theory is that if the plugin were to crash, it would not crash all your tabs, just any active plugins. Are you getting a message that a plugin crashed?


If I understand the problem correctly, Firefox is hanging or freezing when trying to open a link, and you are exiting Firefox, after which it won't start up again until you kill firefox.exe in the Task Manager.

Have you noticed any pattern to when Firefox freezes or stalls?

How are you exiting Firefox (for example, from the menu vs. red X button vs. Ctrl+Alt+Delete)?

In case you haven't seen it, this article might be useful: Firefox hangs or is not responding - How to fix.

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After updating Flash and resetting Firefox, I have not had the problem that I had reported.

Thanks for the help.