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 keeps freezing up when on the web, my usaul safe sites like rr.com etc. i keep having to restart my computer

  • 28 replies
  • 2024 have this problem
  • 21 views
  • Last reply by Silichip

more options

I have Windows Vista w/service pack 2/Windows Media Player 11/Adobe Flash Player PlugIn etc all updated. When trying to play Roadrunner video my Internet connection freezes up: also when browsing safe web sites etc. Also, cannot play Roadrunner Radio in Firefox, only works on Internet Explorer. Time Warner Cable cannot solve this issue. Please tell me what I can do. i really prefer Mozilla Firefos for my Roadrunner service overall, but need to work out these issues.

I have Windows Vista w/service pack 2/Windows Media Player 11/Adobe Flash Player PlugIn etc all updated. When trying to play Roadrunner video my Internet connection freezes up: also when browsing safe web sites etc. Also, cannot play Roadrunner Radio in Firefox, only works on Internet Explorer. Time Warner Cable cannot solve this issue. Please tell me what I can do. i really prefer Mozilla Firefos for my Roadrunner service overall, but need to work out these issues.

Chosen solution

I have tried the solutions on here, including clearing download history, disabling add-ons, resinstalling FF, etc. but without success. I have, however, found a solution with which I am completely happy. Switch to Chrome - I have not had a single problem since! Sorted! (And you can import all your FF bookmarks!).

Read this answer in context 👍 46

All Replies (20)

more options

It's possible that you are having a problem with some Firefox add-on that is hindering your Firefox's normal behavior. Have you tried disabling all add-ons (just to check), to see if Firefox goes back to normal?

Whenever you have a problem with Firefox, whatever it is, you should make sure it's not caused by one (or more than one) of your installed add-ons, be it an extension, a theme or a plugin. To do that easily and cleanly, run Firefox in safe mode (don't forget to select Disable all add-ons when you start safe mode). If the problem disappears, you know it's from an add-on. Disable them all in normal mode, and enable them one at a time until you find the source of the problem. See this article for information about troubleshooting extensions and themes and this one for plugins.

If you need support for one of your add-ons, you'll have to contact its author.

If the problem does not disappear when all add-ons are disabled, please tell me, so we can work from there. Please have no fear of following my instructions to the line, as all can be easily undone.

more options

Hello Morbus. I have registered for the exclusive purpose of finding an answer to the RoadRunner Radio/Firefox problem. I will go into excruciating detail on the entire story. I will now refer to RoadRunner Radio as 'RRR' for the duration of this post.

The link to RRR is http://www.rr.com/radio/index.cfm . In Firefox, the page never fails to render thus:

"You're missing the following required plugins to play this radio:" and then a Windows Media Player 9 Series icon/link to http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/downloads/windows-media-player and to its right, "Windows Media Player" in text that links to the same site. The rendering of the page, in my opinion, is relatively crude and appears to be outdated.

The 'funny' thing about that is here we are in the age of WMP 12, and the icon is for WMP 9 Series. Again, I feel it is outdated.

I have had this problem continuously since early in the Firefox 2 series (when I started with FF), and early in the life of Microsoft Vista. Now on 7 Premium and Firefox 4. The exact same thing has happened throughout.

YES I have WMP Firefox Plugin 1.0.0.8 and have tried with it both enabled and disabled. YES I have tried all plugins and addons disabled. YES I have tried safe mode. YES I have tried with the combination of the previous 2 lines. YES I have tried installing the Roadrunner toolbar. YES I have installed something called "WMP 9 SDK", which is the WMP 9 Series application that came up when I Googled it.

Same result every time for all of these scenarios.

http://help.rr.com/hmsfaqs/e_rrradio_faq.aspx asks for Firefox 1.0.2 or better and only says it will support FF on a "best effort" basis. It also asks for WMP 7 or higher. Remember the RRR re-direct has the WMP 9 icon, so I suspect it's been quite a long time since this page has been updated as well.

RRR has worked perfectly since IE7, to include this recent IE9, and works perfectly with the most recent WMP 12 plug in. Simply put, I don't want to use IE, let alone simultaneously with

I am shocked that with the number of affected people in the overlapping subset of FF users and RRR users, there is no solution anywhere on the Internet. Every other 'help' page simply says "Install WMP Plugin 1.0.0.8". THIS DOES NOT WORK.

I hope this gives you something to work with. Thank you.

---

Dell XPS 410

Core 2 Duo E6600

4x1 Gb

Windows 7 Home Premium

FF 4


Adblock Plus 1.3.3

Better Privacy 1.49

Cool Previews 3.2

Dict 0.6.81

Download Helper 4.84

Fireshot 0.88

Java Console 6.0.24

No Script 2.0.9.9


Adobe Acrobat 10.0.1.434

Canon Image Gateway Album Plugin Utility 3.0.5.0

Foxit Reader Plugin for Mozilla 2.0.0.1102

Google Earth Plugin 1.0.0.1

Google Update 1.2.183.39

Java Deployment Toolkit 6.0.240.7

Java Platform SE6 U24 6.0.240.7

Microsoft WMP FF Plugin 1.0.0.8

NPCIG.DLL 1.0.0.5

Picasa 3.0.0.0

Quicktime Plugin 7.6.9.0

Shockwave Flash 10.2.152.32

Shockwave for Director 11.5.9.620

Silverlight Plugin 4.0.60129.0

Virtual Earth 3D 4.0.903.16005

Windows Genuine Advantage 1.9.42.0

more options

Morbus, I downloaded Firefox 4.0 yesterday. It worked fine then, but it keeps freezing today, from the moment I open it and on.

I tried using it in SafeMode, and it was doing the same thing there. So this isn't an add-on problem.

This is very frustrating, and obviously a problem on Firefox's end, as Internet Explorer and everything else works perfectly fine for me.

This happens on Firefox for me no matter what site I'm visiting (AOL Mail, Google, just normal websites I visit, etc., etc.)

Firefox is unusable right now, and I have to use Internet Explorer.

There's obviously some sort of bug happening on Firefox 4.0 for some users, as I'm seeing a lot of users with this issue.

What can be done? Others have tried reinstalling, and that doesn't work. Plus, it's a pain as it took me hours to navigate and set up Firefox 4.0 the way I like it yesterday (including coding things the way I like...like having "open link in new tab" be underneath "open link in new window" like it was on the old Firefox). I do NOT want to do that again, especially since that remedy does not seem to be working for most.

Like I said, it worked fine yesterday, so this seems to be a recent issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

By the way, I am using Windows Vista. Just trying to include all info that may be helpful.

Modified by HereWeGo2

more options

@ timm9

I may be wrong, but it sounds like the site uses some non-standard way of accessing the plugins in the browser. As you may know, Firefox has recently (since 3.6.4) changed the way it handles plugins to prevent them from crashing Firefox, when they crashed. This has causes problems in pages that did things the wrong way, which may or may not be the case with RRR. I suspect it is, but, again, I may be wrong. I suggest you contact RRR support directly (email or something of the sort) for additional help.

@ HereWeGo2

Thank you for trying it in safe mode with add-ons disabled to rule out a possible add-on related issue. Can you please try creating a new, temporary profile to rule out any problems with the profile itself? See this to know how to: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Profiles

I know it's a hassle, but such are the hassles of internet support. I'll try to help you out as much as I can.

Although I must say I very much doubt it's a problem with your profile, if add-ons aren't causing this. I suspect it's something related to your system, but let's rule out a profile problem first and we'll take it as it comes. As you can probably understand, there is software that is susceptible of conflicting with other software, not just with Firefox. A badly setup firewall may cause problems, same goes for spyware scanners, antivirus, even viruses or spyware that you may unknowingly have installed on your system are capable of causing such issues. And, as you have probably guessed, this is not an issue that the 400 million or so Firefox users around the world are experiencing often, if at all. The fact that it's present in both Firefox 3.6 and 4.0 on your end is, alone, an indicator that it's probably not a problem with Firefox.

Also, please make sure you are following my advice correctly. When I say safe mode with add-ons disabled, I do mean with add-ons disabled, not just safe mode. For instances.

more options

I had the same problem and I just solved it (but I don't know exactly what I did new...). I started in safe mode and I check all the box (mine is in french, so I don't what it says in english, but basically, I choosed to start it back from scratch). Then I upgraded it to 4 (I had return to 3.6, but it was still freezing) and download my profile with MozBackup (http://sourceforge.net/projects/mozbackup/files/MozBackup/1.4.10/MozBackup-1.4.10-EN.exe/download).

Firefox is still a bit slow, but it doesn't freeze (Yay !)

So in resume : 1-Save your profile with MozBackup 2-Restore Firefox 3-If it is not done, install Firefox 4 4-Load your profile with MozBackup.

Maybe it will work like it did with me !

more options

Morbus, I was NOT having problems on Firefox 3.6.

Anyway, it seems to be working for me now. I posted this elsewhere: "A few hours later it was working fine again. I don't know if it has anything to do with the fact that I redownloaded Firefox 4.0 (without me deleting the 4.0 version that was already on my computer), or if it has anything to do with the fact that my Windows explorer crashed and rebooted itself. I doubt it's the latter, as I'd rebooted my computer several times in an effort to get Firefox to work, and one would presume your Windows explorer automatically reboots when you do that.

I think it might just have randomly started working again, just like it randomly stopped working. I am hoping that this doesn't happen again. I know there are still many users who need help, and to me it seems quite obvious that there are still bugs and problems causing Firefox 4.0 not to work properly for some.

Anyway, thanks. I'll be back if it stops working again."


Like I said, there are many people who are having this problem with Firefox 4.0 only, even though everything else works fine. You can see by the number of people who press "I have this problem too."

Hopefully it continues working ok for me now.

more options

POSSIBLE SOLUTION (it worked for me!)

From what I've read on different forums there may be several different causes for the hanging/not responding problem but here's the one that was guilty in my case:

ADOBE READER 9 ... which I downloaded (and soon found out I didn't have any use for) right before my Firefox prob started.

There's no uninstall program built into ADOBE READER 9, so I downloaded and used Myuninstaller and it did the trick! ADOBE READER 9 is all gone and I have had no further hanging/not responding messages when using Firefox.

Here's a link to Myuninstaller. You may want to download it for future use if nothing else. It's really smooth and easy!

http://download.cnet.com/MyUninstaller/3000-2248_4-10549224.html

I hope something in this post helps someone. Good luck!

more options

Firefox 4 is freezing up, plain and simple. The only add-on I have is AdBlock, and if it's causing so much of a problem, that's on Firefox, not us having to jump through hoops to get a browser that doesn't freeze. There are plenty of other browser options. I love Firefox, but I don't use it right now for this reason alone.

more options

First off, phishnin, don't expect us to fix YOUR problems with Firefox for you. Such is the way of internet support. You ask for help, we tell you how to help yourself.

Secondly, if your only add-on is AdBlock, then you don't have Flash, or a PDF reader, or any theme installed, right? I really hope that's the case, because if it's not, you're lying (probably because you're confused).

Thirdly, Firefox cannot be held accountable for third party software. It doesn't matter what you think of it, really.

Fourthly, I suggest you use Adblock Plus instead of AdBlock. AdBlock is kind of really old...

Fifthly, it's great that you love Firefox. What's not so great is that you are unwilling to anything about a problem you are having. If you don't want to be helped, there's really ABSOLUTELY NOTHING anyone can do for you.

Sixthly, nobody is making us jump through hoops to get a stable Firefox. You, on the other hand, will need to if you want to have a stable Firefox. It's unfortunate, no doubt, but that's how it is: you have a problem. That's why you are here (I think).

Please follow my suggestions above and reply in a polite manner, and I'll try to find time to help you out.

more options

I had this problem since FF4 was released. I cut down the amount of crashing/freezing by first upgrading to FF5, then installing the WMP FF plugin as described above, this need a fix urgently, FF is becoming unusable, defo FF issue because it's same on 2 pc's and a laptop with FF4/5 I have laptop with ff 3.6 which is fine.

more options

I'm having this problem, too. I'm running XP and Firefox 5.0.1 I have noticed this with other versions of Firefox too, but at the moment the computer is freezing every few minutes.

I have cleared the cache, reinstalled firefox, got it in safe mode AND with add-ons disabled. I run CCleaner after every internet session. I have cleared my cookies. I have inactivated all unnecessary processes on boot-up of the computer. And it's still happening.

Here's what happens: I try to load a page (or sometimes I am just scrolling down a page) and nothing happens. I try to scroll again, or I click on the link again and I get "Firefox not responding" on the top left of the screen.

At the same time, the internal fan of the computer speeds up. Calling up the task manager there are no processes running other than Firefox. Firefox normally runs about 124K but when the fan is really working firefox will go up to 240k, and uses about about 50% of the CPU before dropping back to some 2 to 3%. PF usage ranges from 790 to 970 at the peak.

I'm using the latest flash and the latest adobe reader.

Please can you help? Thanks.

Update: A few moments ago Firefox 6.0 came out. It checked compatibility of all my add-ons and found them all tickety-boo, but alas the problem still happens.

Modified by Manchesterboy

more options

Hi,

To fix the problem with the add-on, you need to disable the add-ons installed in your Mozilla Firefox web browser.

You could also fix the problem due to Switch Proxy Tool by disabling it.

You need to click the Tools menu and then select Add-ons, Select the Extensions panel, SwitchProxy Tool and then click disable.

Your Mozilla Firefox may freeze or hang when you attempt to download or try to save images in your computer, this is caused due to the conflicts from the older files. You can easily fix this issue by clearing your download history.

more options

Ever since I downloaded Firefox, it keeps freezing every 10-11 minutes. I notice that this keeps happening as long as long as I am currently using firefox. I have downloaded firefox before, but it never froze. The freezing last for up to two minutes before the screen continues/ reloads itself. The screen simply freezes, with it stating that it is unresponsive. After two minutes it continues. Even when I am in my homepage it does this

more options

It is not the add on ( I pressume with 99.99%) . I have downloaded the same add on before. Never receiving this result

more options

I think I have found the problem (and solution). I think this is all related to Google+. I uses Google as my primary e-mail provider. A few weeks ago, I tried Google+. I didn't notice anything at first. May be it has to do with some recent upgrades (either Firefox or Google), I started to get the freezing up. It got really bad last week. This morning I deleted my Google+ account (not my Gmail or Google Calendar, just Google+) and I don't remember seeing a single freeze after that! Unfortunately, deleting Google+ profile is "permanent". So, if you use Google+ a lot, it would be very difficult to give this solution a try. Anyway, if I start seeing the freezing up again, I'll update this post.

more options

The freezing of firefox every 10-11 minutes is my symptoms as well. This happened after 4.x installation, and continues into 5.x as well. I will try the Acrobat 9 installation, and other various things, but this happens in Firefox and Thunderbird in the exact same way, so I know for a fact its something in thie new code the Mozilla people cross-use between the projects.

Please someone at Mozilla comb through new shared code after 4.x and take a look. I am using 32 bit OS windows xp. thanks.

more options

I have this problem rarely with FF7, it seems to happen most when using the back button on certain pages of sites like youtube (this has happened on different pages of youtube, sometimes when a page for a video was loading, or when I was in the message inbox thing and used my back button), and possibly forums that use vBulletin.

It used to happen on hulu.com as well, when watching a video, if I used the back button Firefox would completely freeze.

These freezes I get on youtube and other sites sometimes, they freeze it up so bad, ctrl-alt-del doesn't work. These do happen quite rarely, so I am not sure how to duplicate. I don't really want to tho, when it happens, I have to hard-reset.

However, I can still manage with Firefox, still infinitely better than using IE or Chrome.

Modified by Mole26

more options

ME TOO!!! BUT - I have two laptops (kids) and a desktop running Vista, and a laptop running XP. Only one of the Vista laptops has this problem (with both Firefox and Internet Explorer). I ran IE in no plugin mode and have no problems, but since Youtube is a problem site it won't play videos with Adobe disabled. I disabled all plugins for Firefox with same results. Adobe seems to be the plugin causing my problems. But why only on this one laptop??? And by locking up, I mean the whole computer locks up. Cntl-Alt-Del doesn't even work. I have to hold the power button down to reset.

Modified by xlthim

more options

Chosen Solution

I have tried the solutions on here, including clearing download history, disabling add-ons, resinstalling FF, etc. but without success. I have, however, found a solution with which I am completely happy. Switch to Chrome - I have not had a single problem since! Sorted! (And you can import all your FF bookmarks!).

more options

did you find a solution, I have the exact same problem!

  1. 1
  2. 2