Firefox crashes immediately after launch
Please help. Firefox crashes after launch after 5-10 seconds consistently every time. Things I have tried: Refreshing Firefox, Starting in FF safe mode (I don't have any extensions anyway), reinstalling a fresh copy of Firefox, regenerating profile, rebooting, scanned for malware using malwarebytes, scanned for viruses using Kaspersky, both found nothing, and done just about everything I can think of and still EVERY SINGLE time it crashes usually 5 seconds after launch occasionally something like 30 seconds if I am lucky.
Any help would be appreciated. This is driving me insane. I provided codes below. Thank you so much!
Chosen solution
Do a malware check with several malware scanning programs on the Windows computer. Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware. All these programs have free versions.
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.
- Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - AdwCleaner:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Removal-Tools/AdwCleaner.shtml - SuperAntispyware:
http://www.superantispyware.com/ - Microsoft Safety Scanner:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx - Windows Defender:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/using-defender - Spybot Search & Destroy:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Kasperky Free Security Scan:
http://www.kaspersky.com/security-scan
You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.
- Anti-rootkit utility TDSSKiller:
http://support.kaspersky.com/5350?el=88446
See also:
- "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked
- https://support.mozilla.org/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-caused-malware
All Replies (13)
Can you provide us the crash id ?
If you can open Firefox, at least in Safe Mode:
In the Firefox Location bar, type about:crashes and hit Enter. A page listing submitted crash reports will appear.
Right-click on the latest crash under Report ID and choose Open Link in New Tab. A tab will open to a page on crash-stats.mozilla.com, saying that "Your report is being processed". When it is finished processing, close the report tab.
If you can't open Firefox because it crashes at startup even in Safe Mode:
Click the Windows Start button, and press Windows Key + R. Type in "%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Crash Reports\submitted" (including the quotation marks) and click OK.
In the resulting folder will be a text file for each crash report you have submitted. Using the View menu, arrange them by date to find out which is the newest file; and double-click on it to open it.
Yes, here are a bunch of them!
bp-d26d5051-7f16-4aad-94c3-9939d2150320 bp-e785b5f6-f2fa-4d33-876c-aff3e2150623 bp-eb4e08aa-6df7-44e8-9fa8-3505d2150623 bp-eb50c0e2-0e73-45af-8ff9-6d7e82150623 bp-fd1440f1-78bb-4cbc-a947-8a8f82150623 bp-8b0e19b6-e411-49ed-b433-c99392150617 bp-9f29684c-a211-4308-93a3-f7ac22150617 bp-be0d3611-702f-40c8-9476-8eb1b2150617 bp-2d3bf035-bb56-491e-9c84-9319c2150623 bp-261789e9-0e18-454d-8e9e-aee892150324 bp-13f9fdc6-1e18-4961-b546-990692150623
I'm getting a lot of crashes too!
You can try to disable hardware acceleration in Firefox.
- Tools > Options > Advanced > General > Browsing: "Use hardware acceleration when available"
You need to close and restart Firefox after toggling this setting.
You can check if there is an update for your graphics display driver and check for hardware acceleration related issues.
You can check for problems with current Shockwave Flash plugin versions and try this:
- make sure you have the latest Flash version:
http://www.adobe.com/special/products/flashplayer/fp_distribution3.html - check for updates for your graphics drive drivers
https://support.mozilla.org/kb/upgrade-graphics-drivers-use-hardware-acceleration - disable protected mode in the Flash plugin (Flash 11.3+ on Windows Vista and later)
- disable hardware acceleration in the Flash plugin
See also:
cor-el said
You can try to disable hardware acceleration in Firefox.You need to close and restart Firefox after toggling this setting. You can check if there is an update for your graphics display driver and check for hardware acceleration related issues.
- Tools > Options > Advanced > General > Browsing: "Use hardware acceleration when available"
You can check for problems with current Shockwave Flash plugin versions and try this:
- make sure you have the latest Flash version:
http://www.adobe.com/special/products/flashplayer/fp_distribution3.html- check for updates for your graphics drive drivers
https://support.mozilla.org/kb/upgrade-graphics-drivers-use-hardware-acceleration- disable protected mode in the Flash plugin (Flash 11.3+ on Windows Vista and later)
- disable hardware acceleration in the Flash plugin
See also:
cor-el, I appreciate the response. I forgot to mention initially that I have tried disabling Hardware acceleration and it still crashes. I also have the latest driver for my integrated card. And I also have the latest version of Flash, but according to my crash IDs maybe I should look into It a little more? I haven't even tried re-installing Flash. I'll give that a go and get back to you guys.
Thank you for the reply.
Alright guys, it looks like I found the culprit. It appears to be a Trojan causing all of this mess.
I downloaded this wonderful program called Autoruns which allows one to look at a highly detailed list of all startup programs. I found a few suspicious entries and disabled them, and rebooted.
Firefox now works! Or at least, I have gone 10+ minutes without it crashing which is by far the longest in a few days.
However, It appears I am still infected. After reboot, it generated another additional randomly named entry on that list in the screenshot (though it does say file not found on that new one as well). I ran scans with MWB, Kaspersky, SuperAS. None of them found anything. According to them I am clean, however that does not appear to be the case. Any other suggestions for Trojans? Thanks!
Darnit! Firefox crashed again after like 30 minutes of browsing... Not sure if I really am infected or what. I also forgot to mention that I uninstalled Flash entirely as well.
This is so frustrating!
Hey fellas, any more ideas? I would love any suggestions, I feel like I've tried everything.
Gonna try Windows safe mode.
Chosen Solution
Do a malware check with several malware scanning programs on the Windows computer. Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware. All these programs have free versions.
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.
- Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - AdwCleaner:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Removal-Tools/AdwCleaner.shtml - SuperAntispyware:
http://www.superantispyware.com/ - Microsoft Safety Scanner:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx - Windows Defender:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/using-defender - Spybot Search & Destroy:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Kasperky Free Security Scan:
http://www.kaspersky.com/security-scan
You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.
- Anti-rootkit utility TDSSKiller:
http://support.kaspersky.com/5350?el=88446
See also:
cor-el, thank you for the response.
I scanned using all those products you mentioned and unfortunately none of them found anything, and Firefox still crashes right after launch. :(
Is there anything else you can think of that may be causing it? Thank you.
Can you post some recent crash report IDs with hardware acceleration disabled and possibly in Firefox Safe Mode?
Try to boot the computer in Windows Safe Mode with network support (press F8 on the boot screen) as a test.
Do a clean reinstall and delete the Firefox program folder before (re)installing a fresh copy of the current Firefox release.
- Download the Firefox installer and save the file to the desktop
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/
If possible uninstall your current Firefox version to cleanup the Windows registry and settings in security software.
- Do NOT remove "personal data" when you uninstall your current Firefox version, because this will remove all profile folders and you lose personal data like bookmarks and passwords including data in profiles created by other Firefox versions.
Remove the Firefox program folder before installing that newly downloaded copy of the Firefox installer.
- (32 bit Windows) "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\"
- (64 bit Windows) "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\"
- It is important to delete the Firefox program folder to remove all the files and make sure that there are no problems with files that were leftover after uninstalling.
- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Uninstalling_Firefox
Your bookmarks and other personal data are stored in the Firefox profile folder and won't be affected by an uninstall and (re)install, but make sure NOT to remove personal data when you uninstall Firefox as that will remove all Firefox profile folders and you lose your personal data.
If you keep having problems then also create a new profile.
In https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1175454 ...
"If not malware then this might also be coming from an allegedly "helpful" program. Programs like these often like to hook into Firefox: - Antivirus - Internet accelerators - Video downloaders - School content filters - Corporate intrusion protection - Banking security addons - Coupon finders etc.
It would be useful to know if the crashing machines have any programs similar to the above."
Sorry for the delayed post everyone.
Thank you Wayne Mery and cor-el, I very much appreciate the reponses. Firefox appeared to have randomly fixed myself. I booted up my computer one day, and tried out Firefox and hasn't crashed yet... That was about two weeks ago! I have no idea how it fixed itself, but I am going to attribute this to malware.