Firefox keeps freezing unexpectedly
I recently updated to Firefox 15.0.1, and I'm having a lot of trouble with it constantly freezing. This doesn't happen on any one website and is very random in occurrence. I have already tried running in safe mode and updated flash, and I'm still having the problem. After a few seconds, it may start responding again however, most of the time it continues to hang. In order to close Firefox when this happens, I have to open task manager and end the process because nothing in the browser responds. This has become very annoying, and I would appreciate any help I can get to solve the issue. Thanks!
UPDATE: I've noticed that the freezing seems to happen every time I check my email (Yahoo & Gmail), and when I'm on Pandora. It still occurs randomly at other times, but I noticed it's very consistent with these sites.
Modified by MattR658
Chosen solution
Well, after getting no more replies I decided to say what the heck and see what restarting my computer would do since that always seems to fix everything, and what do you know, it did! So if anyone else has this problem, try restarting your computer before you make yourself crazy searching the internet and editing registry files and whatnot, it can never hurt :)
Read this answer in context 👍 2All Replies (17)
FF is not freezing anymore... For some reason. I've manually(!) updated bloody annoying Flash player and disabled hardware acceleration. There is no way to update FF flash plugin automatically.
It's not YouTube vs FF, it's more like Adobe vs FF. Probably because FF is not displaying annoying tv adverts on YouTube.
Modified by Alexei Pavlov
I believe my Flash player is up to date. How does one disable hardware acceleration? I have not idea what that is.
See this about how to "disable the hardware acceleration" in the Flash Player.
Flash "Display settings" window:
Modified by cor-el
I am getting a little iffy when I hear those workarounds from the Mozilla team rather than fixing the problem with something so basic as a Flash Player. It cannot be that common users are forced to fiddle with their settings.
This has been such an ongoing problem since x many FF versions back. How can this be re-occurring???
Here's my dump:
52539797-5269-443d-9de9-282dabe5ea7a 02/01/2013 16:57
4e17e412-d5c5-4477-a5df-e82298cb5866 02/01/2013 16:57
c4cffcf2-f854-4bba-b5d7-71fd8bad52d9 02/01/2013 16:55
f3662207-5edd-4607-a22c-1a0d76d883ff 02/01/2013 16:44
bd78a571-1ee4-4a3d-9c38-4be6e37f6115 02/01/2013 16:28
Modified by nadworks
Do you have any crash reports with a "bp-" prefix?
The IDs that you posted above do not seem to have been submitted.
No Problem:
bp-f7f68af8-60f3-4223-bb73-adf092130102 02/01/2013 17:30
bp-234311b9-c11c-48c5-b7b3-8f1442130102 02/01/2013 17:23
bp-1e35333c-b516-4959-9fdd-e87cb2130102 02/01/2013 17:19
bp-2593affa-d1ae-4c2a-8e9c-12c602130102 02/01/2013 17:04
bp-f54c5bbd-b329-426a-a997-5e19f2130102 02/01/2013 17:04
Those are all crash reports about the Flash plugin (plugin Version: Filename: NPSWF32_11_5_502_135.dll)
You can check for problems caused by recent Flash updates and try these:
- disable a possible RealPlayer Browser Record Plugin extension for Firefox and update the RealPlayer if installed
- disable protected mode in Flash 11.3 and later
- disable hardware acceleration in the Flash plugin
Ok... I found a temporarily fix... go to facebook.com, then click the (X) button in the bar to make the page stop loading. it should only be half loaded... if firefox locks up, you waited too long. Click on your name in the corner. Then when that loads, click home, next to your name!!!!! There is your news feed! Hope this works... It worked for me. Enjoy!!!
Backup all your bookmarks to the Desktop..
Use revo uninstaller & uninstall Firefox including extensions & add-ons, Flash & real player... use the advanced mode & uninstall everything in the registry also
Be sure to uninstall each app independently..
normal add & remove programs leaves so much behind...
now go to ninite & get a fresh clean copy of Flash & firefox & install... restore your bookmarks & your back to normal again..
I have a feeling that the real player is the culprit.. not sure though...
Modified by thnkbg
I have Firefox version 18.0.1. and have been having the same problem, although it usually freezes for me when I have too many tabs open, or when I download a photo. I find usually it just slightly freezes, so I learned a trick - I minimize the window and leave it there for a couple seconds, then re-open it, it usually helps. If it completely freezes then I have to restart Firefox. I also noticed that If I close the window when I have multiple tabs open, it doesn't let me open a new browser, I have to click on it repeatedly until it works. I really hope they fix this problem in a new version or I might switch browsers, which is sad because I really love and have used Firefox for years.
I'm using Firefox 18.0.1 and have to wait 20 - 30 seconds for yahoo mail to load. I followed the advice on this thread and many others (ie, disabled flash, clear cache, etc.) and even deleted 6000+ emails. But nothing worked until I disabled the Roboform addon. After that, yahoo mail loads instantaneously.
But the best part was discovering a free alternative called Dashlane. I wanted a program that only stored my passwords on my hard drive so I didn't use LastPass. KeePass + KeeFox was excellent, but I found Dashlane to be more powerful than the other programs. Read about it in PC Mags overview of pasword managers.
I fixed my script freezing problem - I found three plugins for Realplayer. Once I disabled those, Firefox sprang back to life. Those plugins were left over from when I had Realplayer installed - I removed RealPlayer but the plugins were left behind.
To make the solution permanent, I went in manually to locate and remove the plugin files from Windows. The instructions for manually removing plugins here on this website worked great and are easy to follow.
I just performed you helpful instructions. Now let's see if it works. Thanks
It was a good try but my laptop is still freezing up. I wonder if it's cause I'm still using YAHOO Mail Classic? I wonder if I need to switch to the "All new att.net Mail"?
mine freezes ALL THE TIME.
bp-3db168d7-72eb-4601-bb7d-5e3aa2130216 2/15/2013 10:45 PM 5c6cae5f-c007-4f3c-a3ec-0a67ef3d5176-flash 22/14/2013 8:14 PM 5c6cae5f-c007-4f3c-a3ec-0a67ef3d5176-flash 12/14/2013 8:14 PM 5c6cae5f-c007-4f3c-a3ec-0a67ef3d5176-browser 2/14/2013 8:14 PM 5c6cae5f-c007-4f3c-a3ec-0a67ef3d5176 2/14/2013 8:14 PM e7cb349e-ecf9-4a67-849d-7bb72683e2c6-flash 21/31/2013 9:19 PM e7cb349e-ecf9-4a67-849d-7bb72683e2c6-flash 11/31/2013 9:19 PM
Modified by cor-el
Argggh, this is not encouraging. I just started having this problem a few weeks ago and it's REALLY annoying. I was just thinking about switching browsers as well. Too bad, really. And I also had it freeze on me when I try to reply to this thread.
That suggestion of sending in the crash reports seems to be a dead end for me.... When I bring them up, the most recent report is from over two weeks ago, despite FF freezing (requiring forced quitting), or crashing at least two or three times a day. I've tried resetting, re-installing, etc, but nothing seems to stop it from running up the RAM usage, then when it gets to just about 2GB, it will freeze, or sometimes crash....