My firefox HANGS or just quits working. I have to shut down and restart the computer to get it going again.
When the computer has been left on and unattended , Firefox doesn't respond. sometimes turning firefox off and immediately restarting it, it hangs or won't respond. The only way I can get it to work is to shut down the computer and restart it. When shutting it down a messaage will appear "firefox not responding. I have to end program firefox.exe to shut computer down. I am fearful of "reset firefox" I'm asfraid of losing many things. bft
All Replies (2)
Hello billftimmons,
if Firefox doesn´t start you already tried to close it via Task Manager and open it again? Sometimes a problem with Firefox may be a result of malware installed on your computer, that you may not be aware of.
You can try these free programs to scan for malware, which work with your existing antivirus software:
- Microsoft Safety Scanner
- MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware
- TDSSKiller - AntiRootkit Utility
- Hitman Pro
- ESET Online Scanner
Microsoft Security Essentials is a good permanent antivirus for Windows 7/Vista/XP if you don't already have one.
Further information can be found in this > https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-caused-malware < article.
First time you open Firefox please follow those steps:
In order to uninstall a possibly unwanted extension, please do the following:
- From the Firefox window click the Firefox button at the top left and select Add-ons, or, if the Firefox button is not shown, click the Tools menu and click Add-ons.
- Once the Add-on Manager has opened in a new tab, click the Extensions button on the left side of the window.
- You should now see a list of your installed extensions on the right side together with buttons on the right side of each extension.
- To remove an extension from Firefox, simply click the Remove button. You should see a message that informs you about the successful removal of the add-on.
- Note that some add-ons require a Firefox restart to be removed completely. To perform a Firefox restart after the add-on removal, click the Restart now link in the message.
You can find further information about uninstalling extensions in the following articles:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/disable-or-remove-add-ons
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-caused-malware
Which security software (firewall, anti-virus) do you have?
Boot the computer in Windows Safe Mode with network support (press F8 on the boot screen) as a test to see if that helps.