There are 73,662 Crash reports in the Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Crash reports\Pending file for a total of 904 MEGABYTES which I cannot delete ...HELP
I am running Firefox 6.0.1 on a Windows XP pro platform. I ran a system scan today using Symantec. It was taking an AWFULLY long time to scan the file C:\Documents and Settings\(MyName)\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Crash Reports\Pending file. After the scan had finished I looked at this file and was horrified to find that it contained 73,662 Crash reports awaiting submission in total 904 Megabytes, whereas the "Submitted" file was only a few Kb. I am sure that Firefox has not crashed in years!! I selected all of the Crash Reports and hit "delete" ...an hour down the track and I'm still waiting for it to finish!! First ...does anyone know where/how these files were generated? Second ..how do I get rid of them (and free up a sizable lump of my hard drive!!)
All Replies (8)
- click Firefox button and click Options -> Advanced panel -> General tab -> Remove Checkmark from Submit Crash Reports
- click OK on Options window -> Close Firefox (click Firefox button and click Exit)
-> open Window Start Menu -> click Run.. -> in the Windows Run Box, type "%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Crash Reports\pending" (with quotation marks) and hit Enter
- When the pending folder is opened, select All files -> press SHIFT + DEL and click Yes
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Modified by Hasan
Hi. I've tried that ...no success. The "Pending" folder takes about five minutes to open. When I hit SHIFT + DEL I don't get the usual Microsoft warning Box "Do you really want to delete etc". The mouse pointer changes to a "timer" and Explorer starts burning up 50% of my processor time (from "Task Manager") ...apparently forever ...(have waited for an hour without change). I can delete single files from the "Pending" folder ...I assume 73,000 is just waaay too many for Microsoft. Any other ideas? (Short of spending 150+ hours killing them one-by-one)
Restart Windows in Safe Mode using the first option which is Safe Mode. Now try the above suggestion again. I am sure you will be able to Delete the files from there.
See these articles for help on Windows Safe Mode
-> To start the computer in safe mode
-> A description of the Safe Mode Boot options in Windows XP
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Modified by Hasan
Nope. Tried that (I have been playing with computers since MS-DOS, so I am aware of all the usual alternatives). Get exactly the same problem. Interestingly, I have just tried removing the check mark from "Submit Crash Reports", hit the ok button, closed Firefox, then reopen ...check mark is back again!! Have also tried removing it, hit ok, close, then immediately reopen ...check mark back again!! So Firefox is not saving the Options selected. I think the Non-Deleting is a Windows operating system problem (probably some limit on the number of files that can be deleted at once - typical Microsoft rubbish), but the Firefox problem (Not storing Options selected) is another glitch. Also all these Crash Dump files were dated from May thru Today (random selection) so where are they coming from (Firefox is NOT crashing)
Preferences are not saved
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For Westsider - I still have the same problem. I upgraded to Firefox version 9.0.1 ...still does the same. I deleted the whole file through Windows. It then got re-created automatically. Now I just clear out the crash report pending file daily.
-> Firefox Preferences problem not being retained, have you tried to perform the suggestions mentioned in the article How to fix preferences that won't save also provided in my previous reply ??
-> File problem
-> Do a MALWARE check with these Malware Scanning programs. You need to scan with all programs because each program detects different malware. Make sure that you UPDATE each program to get the latest version of their Databases before doing a Scan. Also, Close All other Applications (softwares) before Starting to Run Scans.
- Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware - http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
- SuperAntispyware - http://www.superantispyware.com/
- Spybot Search & Destroy - http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
- Ad-Aware Free Internet Security - http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php
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You can do a disk check with the chkdsk.exe program.
If you run the chkdsk.exe program from a cmd.exe Command window then you can read the response from the chkdsk.exe program.
Open a cmd.exe window:
Start > Run: cmd.exe <press Enter>
At the command prompt (>) type or Copy&Paste: chkdsk.exe /f /r <press Enter> (put a space before /f and /r)
If you get something like: Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? y/n then answer the question with "Y" and close all programs and reboot the computer.