Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Firefox freezes when memory use increases to about half of capacity?

  • 5 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

more options

I'm using different versions of Firefox to test this and even the newest version does it. As soon as the memory use escalates to a certain point Firefox freezes. I have to end the task and restart. This started about a week ago. Before that it was running smoothly. I don't think I made any changes to the system and didn't run Windows Update. Using Win7.

I'm using different versions of Firefox to test this and even the newest version does it. As soon as the memory use escalates to a certain point Firefox freezes. I have to end the task and restart. This started about a week ago. Before that it was running smoothly. I don't think I made any changes to the system and didn't run Windows Update. Using Win7.

All Replies (5)

more options

Start Firefox in Safe Mode by holding down the <Shift> (Mac=Options) key, and then starting Firefox. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-using-safe-mode

A small dialog should appear. Click Start In Safe Mode (not Refresh). Is the problem still there? ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-slow-how-make-it-faster

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-uses-too-many-cpu-resources-how-fix

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-hangs-or-not-responding

more options

How will this solve the problem? I can't use Firefox in Safe Mode.

more options

And Safe Mode isn't as demanding on Firefox so its not really much of a test, right?

more options

Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode that

temporarily turns off hardware acceleration,

resets some settings, and disables add-ons

(extensions and themes). If the problem goes

away, that tells us one thing. If it does not,

that tells us something else.

more options

How much memory is this about? Is that more of 1 GB? How much physical memory do you have and how much is free when you start Firefox?

Also make sure you have enough virtual memory set (page file).