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Firefox "crashes" to all-white screen

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  • 274 have this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

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So this has been happening starting just recently, only a few days ago. When doing random tasks or just browsing, with either 1 tab open or 8 tabs open, Firefox will sometimes freeze indefinitely, though the cursor still changes to an I-beam over inputs and a pointer over buttons and link elements. I can minimize the window using the minimize button, but when I open the window again from the taskbar the window is now completely white. If I have two instances of Firefox running when this happens, the other freezes in the same way.

I'm not getting any crash reports and when I close the window or end the task from the task manager it acts as if I had normally closed a window, not restoring the previous session as Firefox would do if it actually crashed and the crash report handled it.

So this has been happening starting just recently, only a few days ago. When doing random tasks or just browsing, with either 1 tab open or 8 tabs open, Firefox will sometimes freeze indefinitely, though the cursor still changes to an I-beam over inputs and a pointer over buttons and link elements. I can minimize the window using the minimize button, but when I open the window again from the taskbar the window is now completely white. If I have two instances of Firefox running when this happens, the other freezes in the same way. I'm not getting any crash reports and when I close the window or end the task from the task manager it acts as if I had normally closed a window, not restoring the previous session as Firefox would do if it actually crashed and the crash report handled it.

Chosen solution

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem.

  • Switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance
  • Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe Mode start window
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Chosen Solution

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem.

  • Switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance
  • Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe Mode start window