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Tabs suspend in background and refresh upon opening

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I have been having this problem since I upgraded to 29 on Firefox for Mac. Whenever a tab is open in the background for a while, it sort of suspends itself. The tab that is open in the foreground never has this problem, so I guess this has something to do with background tabs. Now I use Firefox Sync across all my devices and am using the latest version on every device, and no other device has this problem. I sync everything, including addons, so if an addon caused this, it should have caused this on my other devices. Now when one of those tabs gets suspended and I click on it, I see a blank page and then the tab starts refreshing. It is pretty annoying. I do not even have many tabs open these days. Any ideas what could be causing this?

I have been having this problem since I upgraded to 29 on Firefox for Mac. Whenever a tab is open in the background for a while, it sort of suspends itself. The tab that is open in the foreground never has this problem, so I guess this has something to do with background tabs. Now I use Firefox Sync across all my devices and am using the latest version on every device, and no other device has this problem. I sync everything, including addons, so if an addon caused this, it should have caused this on my other devices. Now when one of those tabs gets suspended and I click on it, I see a blank page and then the tab starts refreshing. It is pretty annoying. I do not even have many tabs open these days. Any ideas what could be causing this?

Chosen solution

Yeah, one of my extensions. I have been so stupid. I had an extension called Suspend Tab installed. Don't remember installing it, but yeah, had one installed, and it suspended background tabs. So, yeah. Just disabled it and the problem is solved.

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All Replies (5)

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Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox (The image "new fx menu" does not exist. for v29+)/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox (The image "new fx menu" does not exist. for v29+)/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance).

  • Do not click the Reset button on the Safe mode start window or otherwise make changes.
  • Windows/Mac: Go to Help > Restart with add-ons disabled
  • Linux: Run firefox -safe-mode in the Terminal/Konsole
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Ok, I do not have this problem while using Safe Mode. What could it be?

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If it works in Safe Mode and in normal mode with all extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) disabled then try to find which extension is causing it by enabling one extension at a time until the problem reappears.

Close and restart Firefox after each change via "Firefox > Exit" (Windows: Firefox/File > Exit; Mac: Firefox > Quit Firefox; Linux: Firefox/File > Quit)

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If you don't have the problem in Safe Mode, it's probably one of your extensions. Whilst in Safe Mode, enable your add-ons one by one to see which ones causes the problem.

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Chosen Solution

Yeah, one of my extensions. I have been so stupid. I had an extension called Suspend Tab installed. Don't remember installing it, but yeah, had one installed, and it suspended background tabs. So, yeah. Just disabled it and the problem is solved.