I saw your screen shot here: https://support.cdn.mozilla.net/media/uploads/images/2016-03-30-19-57-07-716f2f.png

That's very odd.

So you said Firefox 45.0.1 works normally in a new profile, is that correct? Can you create a new profile where you only restore parts of your backup at a time? For example:

• Restore bookmarks and history (places.sqlite), and saved passwords (if relevant) -- that should not cause any problems
• Try restoring prefs.js and see whether that causes any problems
• Try restoring mimeTypes.rdf and see whether that causes any problems
• Try restoring all extensions and see whether that causes any problems

I'm actually not sure what else FEBE backs up...

jscher2000 said

So you said Firefox 45.0.1 works normally in a new profile, is that correct?

Yes it is. But it worked just once only. Thereafter this hat trick has failed as the other ones. I've uninstalled everything touching the problem and made a clear installation. No add-on was added. The problem is in plugin-container.exe. I've uninstalled Adobe Flash and then ran Firefox. Even with no Adobe Flash installed plugin-container spawns its copies in memory.

Firefox uses plugin-container.exe when a page wants to use a plugin, so this implies that Flash is not the problem.

In your Question Details > More System Details, 18 plugins were listed as being enabled (either "Always Activate" or "Ask to Activate"). Assuming that most of those are not essential, could you go ahead and set all of them to "Never Activate" and then re-enable Flash to see what difference that makes?

Note: Some plugins do not actually change status in the same window, so please test in a new window or after exiting and starting Firefox up again.

I can't log into my account, so I was forced to create new one because I didn't receive any letter with promised passowrd cnage link. Though it doesn't matter much. You did not understand and I am not very apt to describe. So let's start it again. stirner said

Hello, my Adobe Flash Player plugin stopped working recently. Any flash content just stays black and I get the loading symbol next to my cursor when I hover over the content area. Both Firefox and the plugin, as well as my GPU drivers, are up to date. I already tried reinstalling Firefox and Adobe Flash, both without success. A fresh profile folder didn't do the trick either. Any help is appreciated.

I marked with bold the words in that question that matters very much. When that loadin symbol blinks and rounds firefox begins to produce copies of plugin-container.exe in a memory. This sick behavior lasts few seconds and stops. All plugin-container.exe copies suddely disappear short after as if there wasn't any at all. OLd versions of Firefox I mean 43 and 39 became lame too. Their plugin-container.exe does the same thing as 45's one i.e. nothing good. It seems that something was severly damaged when this nightmare was statrted a day or two ago.

In my previous reply, I was reacting to this part:

LiXiQing said

The problem is in plugin-container.exe. I've uninstalled Adobe Flash and then ran Firefox. Even with no Adobe Flash installed plugin-container spawns its copies in memory.

That is why I suggested disabling all the other plugins. Did you try that? If that does not help, I guess any and every plugin has the same problem.

Questions:

• Do you use any security software that might object to plugin-container.exe running?

• Are you starting Firefox in any unusual way, such as sandboxing it or modifying its privileges?

I disabled all plugins except adobe flash and nothing has changed. when no plugin is activated plugin-container.exe doesn't appear, thus spoke captain obvious. all plugins not using plugin-container.exe work well, I'm able to see any video on youtube or ace torrent streams, these plugins work themselves with no plugin-container.exe recquired. And for example on http://www.bbc.com/russian/media/video there is the other case: no video is playing and stirner's symptom manifests :) No sandboxing or similar, no HIPS, no viruscope, even with antivirus real time scanning disabled the problem persists. It seems to me that somwhere a certain file stays after Firefox uninstalling however thorough it was. Maybe preference file or prefetch I don't know, but somethin hidden is felt.

Ymmu said

all plugins not using plugin-container.exe works well, I'm able to see any video on youtube or ace torrent streams, these plugins work themselves with no plugin-container.exe recquired.

Many sites play videos without a plugin, using the built-in HTML5 video player. YouTube is an example of that.

Do you have the Flash protected mode feature disabled already? That feature has security benefits, but seems to have serious compatibility issues on some systems. You can disable it using the Add-ons page. Either:

• Ctrl+Shift+a
• "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons

In the left column, click Plugins. On the right side, find "Shockwave Flash" and click the More link. Then uncheck the box for "Enable Adobe Flash protected mode" and try that for a day to see whether it helps.

It seems to me that somwhere a certain file stays after Firefox uninstalling however thorough it was. Maybe preference file or prefetch I don't know, but somethin hidden is felt.

Since you said you used Revo to completely remove Firefox, I didn't mention the following possibility, but you could try it:

Clean Reinstall

We use this name, but it's not about removing your settings, it's about making sure the program files are clean (no inconsistent or alien code files). As described below, this process does not disturb your existing settings. Do NOT uninstall Firefox, that's not needed.

(A) Download a fresh installer for Firefox 45.0.1 from https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/ to a convenient location. (Scroll down to your preferred language.) For your system, choose the 32-bit version.

(B) Exit out of Firefox (if applicable).

(C) Rename the program folder as follows:

C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox

to

C:\Program Files\OldFirefox

(D) Run the installer you downloaded in step (A). It should automatically connect to your existing settings.

Any improvement?

Note: Some plugins may exist only in that OldFirefox folder. If something essential is missing, look in these folders, but to avoid creating new problems, please be selective in what you copy:

• \OldFirefox\Plugins
• \OldFirefox\browser\plugins

I'm not an expert on Windows event logs, but I wonder whether there might be any information accumulating there about plugin-container.exe that might explain why it is getting removed from memory.

Did it. No improvement. However I peeked in winows' logs and saw something interesting. The whole business began on 27 of March. And as I presume a certain system dll was damaged. Either ntdll.dll or KERNELBASE.dll or certain another file. I don't use windows update because it prevents PAE unblock form working so my system was never updated since Jan 2015. So my diagnosis is: the system "repaired" a certain crashed system file or maybe not than one with replacing it with the one of older version. I see that KERNELBASE.dll currently presented in windows\system32 folder has 6.1.7601.18409 version but there is KERBELBASE.dll of 6.1.7601.22177 among my backups. Maybe I'm totally wrong so few screen shots of winows log is attached. And of course I'm afraid to perform any "cure" action myself.

Have you been switching around between different versions of Firefox in the past week? The plugin-container.exe version should match closely with Firefox's and your screen shots show 38.3 and 46.0, which is odd if you have Firefox 45. You might do a global search of the C drive to make sure there aren't any extra plugin-container.exe files lying about.

I am attaching the last plugin-container.exe crash from my system. No external (Windows system) files were involved, so I don't know whether that is common or uncommon.

What do you think about using SFC? It should just use the existing files on your system and not force an update.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/929833

I was trying different verions of Firefox, istalling and uninstalling them thoroughly. Nothing is working. Even those that worked ok formerly. I executed sfc. Some damaged files in my system were found and repaired, but no success was attained hereupon plugin-container.exe behaviour. I was wrong, particularly saying that the file doesn't work at all. plugin-container.exe works good with Ace player (VLC player mod). So I gave it up and will be watchin video with IE. It's comfortless but inevitable as I can see.

Suddenly and unpredictably the problem disappears. I don't know why I don't know how. I didn't do anything, but now any video is accesible in Firefox. However there is new problem with Firefox now. I can't open 2 windows of different profiles simultameously with -p %prfilename% in commandline. It's Firehell.

Ymmu said

I can't open 2 windows of different profiles simultameously with -p %prfilename% in commandline.

What message do you get, or do you simply get a new window in the currently running instance of Firefox?

In the past, haven't you had to use the -no-remote switch to start a second separate instance of Firefox?

See: https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Mozilla/Command_Line_Options

jscher2000 said

you simply get a new window in the currently running instance of Firefox

Yes I do jscher2000 said

In the past, haven't you had to use the -no-remote switch to start a second separate instance of Firefox

Yes I have. It's the only way I'm able to start the profile I need now. I have 2 profiles. One for general purpose named "main" and one for watching tv. Usually I have them both running simultaneously. So I made two different shortcuts on desktop and the formula worked just as planned till quite recently. Now both shortcuts open the last used profile ignoring command line entirely and the issue appears not only with shortcut access but also with the run in start menu too. I've tried different forms of syntax, such as quoted different ways and with no quote marks at all but as you can guess with no success. You can watch it yourself there https://yadi.sk/i/K_ekeYBYquCpo By the way my Firefox can't show the video on this page ХD but IE 11 does well.

option -no-remote implemented in shortcuts solves the issue