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Firefox 90.0.2 on a Windows 7 PC

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I have been using Firefox for a number of years.

I primarily use a Sony Vaio PC using Windows 7.

I got an automatic update of Firefox Version 90.0.2 on 7/22/2021.

It is not working very well. Opening new tabs are hard. Will not close tabs very well, leaving unused space on top. Different sites show up on another sites tab. Worst of all, this new version is a memory hog, with me eventually having to reboot the PC to clear memory until the next time.

Can you please help?

Thanks in advance,

Joe Lisak

I have been using Firefox for a number of years. I primarily use a Sony Vaio PC using Windows 7. I got an automatic update of Firefox Version 90.0.2 on 7/22/2021. It is not working very well. Opening new tabs are hard. Will not close tabs very well, leaving unused space on top. Different sites show up on another sites tab. Worst of all, this new version is a memory hog, with me eventually having to reboot the PC to clear memory until the next time. Can you please help? Thanks in advance, Joe Lisak

All Replies (5)

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Hi Joe, You can try uninstalling firefox and start with a new installation of firefox . If the problem still persists you might want to check how your resources are being used up by the computer in the task manager . If your computer resources such as memory or drive is running higher than usual it might be a problem with your resources . If you can try you can upgrade your pc with some ram and some ssd or you can give the lite version of firefox a try

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Hi Joe, what version were you using previously to 90.0.2? There is an Update History button available on the Troubleshooting Information page. Either:

  • "3-bar" menu button > Help > More Troubleshooting Information
  • (menu bar) Help > More Troubleshooting Information
  • type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

In the first table on the page, click the "Show Update History" button.


What do you mean by these parts:

  • Opening new tabs are hard. => Do you mean that links/bookmarks do not open on the first click? Or the + button is not working well? Or Ctrl+T is not working?
  • Will not close tabs very well, leaving unused space on top. => Do you mean there is a gap left between tabs when the one in between is closed? Or the tabs do not expand to use more space after one is closed?
  • Different sites show up on another sites tab. => Do you mean you click the tab to switch to Site B, and Firefox still shows the content from Site A? Or content from one tab partially overwrites another tab?
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The 2 prior updates to Firefox were as follows

90.0 (20210705185941) 7/14/2021 7:56:50 AM

89.0.2 (20210622155641) 6/24/2021 9:24 AM

Both of these were working fine.

Opening new tabs are hard.- this is infrequent but irritating

Will not close tabs very well, leaving unused space on top.- you are correct as you said it

Different sites show up on another sites tab. - click the tab to switch to Site B, and Firefox still shows the content from Site A is what happens.

Thanks for understanding the problem.

Is it possible to roll back to a previous version or should I wait until the next update?

Joe

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Hi Joe, there might be an incompatibility with your graphics card. Could you try disabling Firefox from using hardware acceleration? This is a potential workaround for incompatibilities between Firefox and your graphics card/chipset driver software. This article describes where to make that change: Firefox's performance settings. This will take effect the next time you exit Firefox and start it up again. Any difference?

Since hardware acceleration improves the appearance of fonts and animations, you may want to check whether graphics card/chipset driver updates are available for your system. This article suggests safe ways to do that: Upgrade your graphics drivers to use hardware acceleration and WebGL.

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jscher2000--

Thanks for the suggestion of disabling the hardware acceleration.

It has helped pretty well by doing so. The memory usage is still somewhat high, but much better than before. I will monitor this closely and look into the graphics card/chip set driver updates.

Thank you for your help.