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There used to be a cross at top left to cancel download from a site that seemed to be struggling or corrupt. Where has that gone?

  • 3 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 7 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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Just switched to 9.0.1. The old version had a cross near the search box at top left and if a download seemed to be taking too long, or a large PDF download froze part-way through, you could click the cross to cancel the download. I can't see an equivalent now, and the only escape is to close Firefox.

In some cases a new tab box appears (with a cross to the right of the tab name) when the site starts loading, and you can click that to close, but other times that doesn't happen.

Have I missed something? Thanks

Just switched to 9.0.1. The old version had a cross near the search box at top left and if a download seemed to be taking too long, or a large PDF download froze part-way through, you could click the cross to cancel the download. I can't see an equivalent now, and the only escape is to close Firefox. In some cases a new tab box appears (with a cross to the right of the tab name) when the site starts loading, and you can click that to close, but other times that doesn't happen. Have I missed something? Thanks

Chosen solution

Firefox 4 and later use a combined Stop/Reload/Go button that is positioned at the right end of the location bar.
During the page load process it shows as a Stop button and after the loading has finished the button is changed to a Reload button.
If you type in the location bar then that button becomes a Go button.
Middle-click the Reload button to duplicate the current tab to a new tab.

See also:

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Chosen Solution

Firefox 4 and later use a combined Stop/Reload/Go button that is positioned at the right end of the location bar.
During the page load process it shows as a Stop button and after the loading has finished the button is changed to a Reload button.
If you type in the location bar then that button becomes a Go button.
Middle-click the Reload button to duplicate the current tab to a new tab.

See also:

Modified by cor-el

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OK. I tried loading a new page and I see the circular arrow "reload" symbol changes to a cross, which presumably can be used to cancel downloading of a bad page. Not sure I understand why it should then change to a "reload" button. Why do you need to reload a successfully-downloaded page? (No need to answer that, my immediate problem is solved!). Thanks.

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There no longer need for a Stop button as soon as the page has finished loading, so they've decided to combine the Stop and Reload button to save space and also place them in the location bar container.
You can click the reload (circle) button to reload the page or first stop the loading (or press ESC) to get a fresh key if you want to start a reload while the page is still loading. You can also press F5 to reload a page.


To move the Stop and Reload buttons to their position to the left of the location bar you can use these steps:

  • Open the Customize window via "View > Toolbars > Customize"
  • If the menu bar is hidden on Windows or Linux use "Firefox > Options > Toolbar Layout"
  • Drag the Reload and Stop buttons to their previous position to the left of the location bar.
  • Set the order to "Reload - Stop" to get a combined "Reload/Stop" button.
  • Set the order to "Stop - Reload" or separate them otherwise (Space or Separator) to get two distinct buttons.

See also: