Hi Rich, Obviously it is hardly going to be useable if you get constant crashes.

I wonder if you have tried to rule out hardware faults as appears to have been the problem you had a few months ago ?

• One of your previous threads:
  what's going on here ? /questions/109392
• Do you use other software on the computer is that, or the computer itself crashing ?
• You appear to use Windows 8. You no doubt have an Internet Explorer browser.
  Does that work ok ? OR does that also crash ?
• Are most of the crashes occurring when you have at least one tab open that includes Flashplayer content  ?

May I ask you to take the following troubleshooting steps to help us look into your problem

1. Create a new additional Firefox profile for test purposes. You may wish to give it simple short name like test-001-2016
   • This is easy to do using the built-in profile manager.
   • See Profile Manager - Create, remove or switch Firefox profiles
   • This will not prevent you using your ordinary Firefox profile, but it will be simplest and best not trying to use both profiles at once. (That is possible, but is a more advanced topic, more resource hungry and complicates matters. )
2. Now using the profile manager start Firefox opting to use the new test profile.
3. Disable all plugins including Flash Player.
   • See Disable or remove Add-ons
4. Restart from that test profile in Firefox's Safe Mode.
   • See: Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode
   • Use: Menu -> Help -> Start with Add-ons disabled. (aka Safe Mode)
5. Please report back:
   • Is Firefox crash free when used like this ?
   • If Firefox crashes like this please paste in to your next reply 2 or 3 Crash IDs from crashes in that configuration.

That are crashes with the Shockwave Flash plugin.

You can check for problems with current Shockwave Flash plugin versions and hardware acceleration in Firefox and try this:

• make sure you have the latest Flash version:
  http://www.adobe.com/special/products/flashplayer/fp_distribution3.html
• check for updates for your graphics drive drivers
  https://support.mozilla.org/kb/upgrade-graphics-drivers-use-hardware-acceleration
• disable protected mode in the Flash plugin (Windows Vista and later)
  https://support.mozilla.org/kb/adobe-flash-protected-mode-firefox
• disable hardware acceleration in the Flash plugin
  https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/video-playback-issues.html
• disable hardware acceleration in Firefox
  https://support.mozilla.org/kb/upgrade-graphics-drivers-use-hardware-acceleration

See also:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Flash#Troubleshooting

Some of your crash reports weren’t sent to the Mozilla Servers.

In the address bar, type about:crashes<enter>. Note: If any reports do not have BP in front of the numbers/letters, click it to submit them.

The crash report is several pages of data. We need the report numbers to see the whole report.

The reports all look the same.

Signature F1398665248

Process Type plugin Shockwave Flash Version: 20.0.0.306

Attention Sumo's there are 20 related crash reports

If you have problems with current Shockwave Flash plugin versions then check this:

• see if there are updates for your graphics drivers

https://support.mozilla.org/kb/upgrade-graphics-drivers-use-hardware-acceleration

• disable protected mode in the Flash plugin (Flash 11.3+ on Windows Vista and later)

https://forums.adobe.com/message/4468493#TemporaryWorkaround

• disable hardware acceleration in the Flash plugin

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/891337 See also:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Flash#Troubleshooting

Hey folks; The notebook works fine....however, on simulation programs requiring Flash player, there come problems. Disabled firefox and applictaion then works on IExplorer. This is a very old unresolved FF issue; I've done every logical thing, disab hard accel etc, refreshed Adobeflash X times even 64 to 32bit; downloaded previous version of FF; all to no avail. Active X filtering ? I'm in the dark. I will clear out the bilge reports and see what happens.

If you answer my questions try the steps I suggest and confirm it is then crash free you can then follow the suggestions in cor-el's post aimed at resolving Flash Player problems.

If you just try the Flash Player related suggestions we may be unsure whether you are actually testing on stable hardware.

Thanks for replies.....but NONE of the suggestions work. Re downloading drivers doesn't improve, one thing is obvious; the more tampering the hangs and slowness get worse. dxdiag.exe comes up everything working normally. Doesn't recognize typing firefox.exe-p . The health report /pretty useless interpreting which way top or lower dots resembles the actual state of the browser. Should one just see dots piled on top of another ? Should there be a graphics line ? The program I want to use works with IExplorer. It takes a while but it gets there. With FF no, just a toilet crash report. This is an ACER notebook; using an Intel HD 5500 graphics driver, re uploaded via the device driver page, it and works without any reports.. I am boggled as the program DID previous work on FF and even selecting an earlier refresh date on recovery doesn't do the trick. What I am not sure is FF 42.0.2 is ahead of itself. Who else is suffering flash issues with this ?

Did you get a chance to try following my suggestions then and if so please as requested paste in the last three Crash IDs from crashes in that configuration i.e in a new profile Firefox safe mode and all plugins disabled.

You may have failed to do that because

.... Doesn't recognize typing firefox.exe-p .  .... 

You may have left out a space between the .exe and -p Also I know the current article says -P or -p will work but on Windows I sometimes have only got the lowercase -p to work

The health report /pretty useless interpreting which way top or lower dots resembles the actual state of the browser. Should one just see dots piled on top of another ? Should there be a graphics line ?

Not sure what the correct term would be but it is a scatter diagram. The points are not connected by lines. If you start up many times a day and have widely different start times you will get a vertical stack of dots for a single day. If you start up once a day and have similar start times you will get a row of dots. In your case with frequent crashes you probably will see a scatter of dots probably not close to the bottom of the graph.

You always need to leave a space before command line switches: firefox.exe -p

You may have to use the full path to the Firefox program.

• "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\" -P

• https://developer.mozilla.org/Command_Line_Options

Thanks to all; I've lost all my bookmarks and now overwhelmed with issues. Is there a simple way of getting old bookmarks back from old firefox data which saved before the previous crash ? The front panel is pretty non informative in recovering that the import doesn't function.

I'm in real trouble...Heaven's help me in Win 10.

Sorry you have more problems

It is usually pretty easy to recover bookmarks. Firefox itself handles that pretty well itself.

Any idea how or why you lost the bookmarks ? That may make a difference as to what the best advice is. For instance:

• Were you trying to restore and over wrote the current ones with a wrong set.
• The bookmarks icons have disappeared.
• You have changed to different profile.
  Including if you accidentally ?? created and used a new clean profile

It is usually possible to recover bookmarks from the existing profile or previous profile. Some notes

• Normally you go for the most recent one from the menu options. Just use: bookmarks library -> Import and Backup -> Restore
• places.sqlite is the file with the bookmarks and History
• There is a bookmarks backup folder, those backups are bookmarks only and will have a date, and they include the number of bookmarks within the name. From the menu options you see the size, date and item count.

Help articles

• Recover lost or missing Bookmarks <- Suddenly disappeared
• Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer <- Library menu options, or manual backups
• Recover important data from an old profile <- places.sqlite
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Bypassing_the_Profile_Manager#Background <- for if you are in the wrong profile, and profile manager is not helping, because for instance a profile exists but is not listed in the profilemager.

richwalters said

I'm in real trouble...Heaven's help me in Win 10.

I do not use Windows much. I did take the free upgrade on one machine. Windows 10 seems easy enough to use. Nearly as good as the old, trusted & well liked XP.

(I still run an XP, although thats a bit risky on the Internet even with Firefox. I even had a Windows 3 machine running last year - thats totally obsolete but I may put it on a VM sometime. )

John99...Recovered bookmarks; ok flap when it happened but that I've done.....There seem to be too many bombs falling. The flashplayer issue is solved using IE but NOT Firefox. ..and the toilet roll of adobeflash 57 crashes accumulates, all the same topic. As you probably realise I'm not keen to upset more than need be, except the Adobe section of firefox help is useless and far from being up to date. It is often better getting info on-line.

I've checked dxdiag.exe and no system problems found. There has to be a sneak file .. in the windows registry....I've fiddled by setting up a fresh profile manager ..that's how I lost the bookmarks. All to no avail. The graphics drivers update...I dispute what Co-rel mentions because it works with IExplorer, anyway messing with these conflicts with ACER' inbuilt drivers. Do I want more problems ?

edit - removed leading space so text displays without scrolling J99

If you are busy bookmark this thread and come back to it in a few days or a few weeks. Meanwhile maybe just use Flashplayer in IE

Using a Clean Profile

If you use a clean profile that will have no bookmarks. That is ok as it is only being used for test purposes. Just use the ordinary profile with the bookmarks for day to day browsing.

All I am suggesting you do is try the new profile, in Firefox's safemode and with all plugins installed. Lets see if that crashes.

• If it does not Crash
  Then we know your Firefox is basically ok and we should be able to stop it crashing.
• If it does Crash
  Maybe we at least get a more useful Crash signature and it will help us in determine what is going wrong.

The profile manager by default gives you the option to choose the profile each time you start Firefox.

I do not want to over complicate things. It is actually possible to run multiple instances of Firefox at the same time. Or to run different versions of Firefox side by side for comparison. I do that sort of thing all the time. Of course I then forget how hard it is the first time you try an unfamiliar task

Flash Player

Adobe section of firefox help is useless 
and far from being up to date. 
It is often better getting info on-line.

Not too sure what you have been looking at. Adobe's own support is probably fairly good, but probably they do not make Firefox+FlashPlayer problems a priority.

There is up to date information in Cor-el's post higher up #answer-846619

To tell you the truth I think a lot of us will be glad when people stop using FlashPlayer all together.

• What is it that you need and use FlashPlayer for ?

edit typos & P.S If it is YouTube for instance no need to use FlashPlayer for that these days.

There are many nice and easy simulation programs still around that aren't overly complex that still need flash. I agree many programs have it already incorporated. Mozilla does have an irritable history with it, but it SHOULD work. BTW I tried FF safe mode and same result = crash. The issue is it DID work before the huge crash that required a refresh Win 8.1; and highly likely a bug string left an imprint. I 'm wondering what is left in my armory to find it, short of messing with root files which is dangerous. I've immobilised other protection software to no effect.

Did you get round to testing with all of this at the same time

• New Profile
• Firefox's SafeMode
• All plugins disabled

That should not Crash IF all your Crashes are Flash related. Sure no good for some of your simulation programs but it should at provide a method of using Firefox crash free.

How much RAM is on your system ? You may be able to split your use over different Firefox instances and segregate the crashy tabs so that only one Firefox instance crashes. That will not be a solution, but it may be a workround that makes Firefox a lot more useable.

I also wonder if it is all FlashPlayer use that crashes the computer, almost certainly it is not. I suppose it may only for instance be one or two particular simulation games that cause problems.

Another thought for a workaround. Fx 46.0a.x is multi process. It may not yet work with all addons but it has the great advantage of allowing crashing of individual tabs while the browser and other tabs carry on as normal. I just tested this

• bp-95a5b6c6-b85a-441d-80cd-406fb2160222

About 5 windows probably something like100 tabs open. One tab crashed (deliberately), I submitted the Crash report, restored the crashed tab and carried on with this post, all with no need to restart the browser or close any of the Firefox windows.

Pretty impressive. I look forward to it being made compatible with more addons and making it through to Release.

Pigeons amongst the Foxes......changed the standard HD to a solid state one; copied programs....Now works fine with flash. I did a chkdsk on the origonal drive with full scan; no faulty sectors found, . That leads me to believe there must a sneak registry file in the Windows sys with a bug that isn't getting washed out.

Great, glad its working again.

Most Firefox users will not have a spare HDD never mind a SS HDD so it is a good job this is not a standard solution to Firefox crashes.

Firefox cannot treat my solution as being solved: the sneak bug in the system registry files has to be cleared out. Correct, and thank heavens:- The solution of using another drive is NOT the solution !!. There again; I am only a half-expert; given my tired eyesight, would immediately be looking at the complex c:windows, system, registry files and many more; the back bone of the system one dares tamper. Inherent faults within the programming code.

You may not have got to the bottom of the problem and identified the exact cause, but if I understand you correctly, your Firefox problem is solved.

Or Are you saying that although FlashPlayer now works ok you are still getting your toilet roll of crashes? - or some other problem ? In which case it may be a good idea to start a fresh cross linked question on the new specific problem. Maybe you just intend investigating the original problem further with the old hdd.