Support Forum

Firefox' about window shows "Restart to Update" every time an update is released, as many other users already reported. After restarting the same happens again. This issue is as old as Mozilla is providing the Mozilla Maintenance Service. Completely uninstalling, rebooting and reinstalling Firefox, as suggested in the KB, only works until a new update is released! This, unfortunately, already forced me to replace Firefox on all machines in my domain with Chrome half a year ago. Despite MSI deploy of Chrome, it keeps all Chrome installations up-to-date without any Admin intervention.

> This problem occurs Workgroup-PCs as well as Domain-joined-PCs on operating systems Windows XP SP3, Windows 7 and Windows 8 or the respective server equivalent.

> Sometimes, "Restart to Update" is shown when Firefox is already current, sometimes it is not current.

> The problem occurs only for ordinary Windows User Accounts (not Administrators). When logging in as Admin it says "Hooray..." and in about window it says "up to date".

> When restarting and logging in as ordinary User, it again shows "Restart to Update".

> Possibly this is caused by a permissions problem for ordinary Users to query the Mozilla Maintenance Service!?

The problem is basically exactly like described here, only the solution presented there does not actually work for me: http://askubuntu.com/questions/59062/a-script-on-this-page-may-be-busy-or-it-may-have-stopped-responding-everytime

What happens is that every time I hibernate my laptop (with Windows 7 Pro, 64bit), when I resume from hibernation, FF is completely unresponsive (hangs) for minutes. Easily around 5 minutes. Eventually a dialog box pops up with the following:

"A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, or you can continue to see if the script will complete."

And the two buttons are: "stop script" or "continue". After I click "stop script" the unresponsiveness finally goes away, and FF starts working normally again.

I think possibly even clicking "continue" also makes it go back to normal, but I'm not sure anymore since I have recently just switched to sleep mode out of frustration in order to not deal with it anymore, and I don't remember exactly if I get the same result from clicking either option.

This is extremely frustrating.

Someone else reported an extremely similar symptom here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/935110?esab=a&as=aaq It might even be the exact same symptom. Maybe that person simply never waited long enough for the dialog box to appear, but otherwise the unusability symptoms are the same.

I am running on Windows 7 x64, and whenever I try to use a version of Firefox newer than 17.0.1, I get the "couldn't load XPCOM" error, followed by two instances of "FlashPlayerPlugin11_5_502_149.exe - Bad Image: C:\Windows\system32\msdmo.dll is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error. Try installing the program again using the original installation media or contact your system administrator or the software vendor for support."

Then Firefox closes. Every time I try to open it, this happens; it is unusable until I uninstall Firefox, delete the folder in Program Files, and reinstall 17.0.1.

The MSDMO.dll error shows up even in 17.0.1; I'm not sure whether they're related, but in 17.0.1 only one instance of it shows up shortly after I open FF, and then FF works normally.

The MSDMO error has been showing up since sometime last summer, but doesn't seem to interfere with much.

Update won't install. If I check for updates manually, it searches and searches and searches some more, and eventually I have to close it down. If I wait for the popup asking me to download and install, then this proceeds automatically and presents a large popup with a Finish button; if I press this nothing happens and eventually I have to close the window manually. 18.0.2 has not downloaded or installed. Very tedious! [PS I note that the troubleshooter installer is also hanging now. Everything else installs OK on my laptop, but not apparently Firefox stuff...]

I don't like how firefox treats sessions in the new versions. I mean in 3.6 I could easily restore a session, I could pick what pages/windows I don't like to be restored. And most importantly, I could keep more sessions. Example, lets say I have 10 tabs and I terminate firefox, next if I don't restore the tabs, I can keep that restoresession tab, and by following this I can have unlimited restore sessions so I can backup everything I need. So my question is: how can I change back to the old way firefox treated sessions. plus, I liked the 3.6 design better, though I managed to get a look that is very similar to 3.6, I just might go back to 3.6 just because of the restoresession thing.

I have activated 'click to play' for plugins at the moment (by about:config). Whenever i click on a flash area in a website, my browser hangs up.

My browser is Firefox 17.0.1 (don't know, if the problem existed even with version 17.0). Firefox 16.0.2 is working properly with the same Flash plugin (current release by 26th, December, 2012).

My browser version is the official version, which is downloadable from the Firefox website at any time (and not the repository version from Ubuntu 12.04) and the flash plugin is saved in the 'plugins' subdirectory, as usual. (Firefox also hangs up with deactivated add-ons in safe mode, as plugins aren't deactivated in this mode)

Hi, I cannot open a pdf on mac - am running 17.0.1 on mac os 10.6.8.

I followed the instructions here: http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/pdf-files-are-blank-and-cant-be-downloaded-mac?esab=a&s=pdf+mac&r=0&as=s but the problem is not fixed - I just get left with a blank screen in a new tab when trying to open pdfs (the downloads folder is also empty).

For example here: http://unetealfuturodeltrabajo.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/esthetic-world-dic-2012.pdf

QuickTime bug? My website uses simple HMTL with HREF="./whatever.wav". Firefox 17.0.1 just updated, but problem also with previous version. QuickTime reinstalled. WIndows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, but same problem on a MacBook. The QuickTime plugin used to play .wav files OK. Now though, at best you get just a few seconds of music, but it does not crash. New router, but the wav files play OK with Windows Media Player. OK, I could use Windows Media Player, but I want users of my website to have no problems with QuickTime.

I have installed FT Graphite Glow 5.11 Classic Compact 16.0.2 Foxdie (Graphite)15 FT DeepDark 5.4 Silvermel

After about 20 or so startup or opening of Firefox, Firefox reverts back to the default appearance. Why??? This has never happened before version 17. What has changed????

I had to disable Flash-block to view videos in Facebook following recent updates of Firefox to 17.0.1 and Flash Player 11.5 on Mac Snow-Leopard OS X.6.8.

With the Flash Block extension enabled, I can view videos on all other sites, like news and u-tube and other blogs, and on Facebook with other browsers such as Safari.

I prefer Firefox, but I prefer it best with Flash Block enabled, because I have slow internet and most sites load more slowly without Flash Block. And Flash Block is a great add-on that eliminates a lot of annoying characteristics of Flash Player.

Is there anyway to use my updated Firefox for watching Facebook videos (and everything else I do) and to have Flash Block enabled? Are there Flash Block or Firefox updates to make this workable?

I really don't want to switch to another browser. I love Firefox.

Prior to the recent Flash Player updates from V 10 to V 11, and Firefox update to 17.0.1, I could watch videos on Facebook with no problem with Flash Block enabled.

First of all I really hate the middle mouse button click to to open new tab. How to disable that? Next how to bring the menu (shown on the picture) when right clicking on tab bar, currently it gives the menu to choose toolbars. http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/8908/tabsa.png

And how to disable the context menu (when right clicking) in status bar (status-4-evar)?

When working on with private on I close the program then open it back up and I can go right back into my email. It should make you have to log back in again. Also I can not change the settings in the privacy tab under options. Any time I change them and hit apply. I can go right back and they are exactly the way they were before I changed them. I need some help with cause it is starting to get annoying.

this started to happen about two months ago, have done two or three Firefox updated in that time period. About 20-30 minutes into web browsing (most days, not all), the mouse stops working, and two seconds later, Firefox is minimized. For the next 20 seconds, the computer doesn't respond to keyboard or mouse input, even ctrl-alt-del doesn't effect computer. After 20 seconds, Firefox comes back up as if nothing happened,. If I had hit ctrl-alt-del, then that screen appears. I've done a full scan with Norton and it didn't find anything. I have a Toshiba Portege R705, running Windows 7. I have IE installed, but can't remember the last time I used it. I may tried web surfing with IE, and see if it also goes into a "forced minimize". I didn't see anything on your web page about this type of failure. Have you ever heard of this before? Do you have any suggestions? rgstevens123@comcast.net

Brand new FF 17.0.1 install. Apparently over the best FF: 3.5.

Steps to reproduce:

1. going to web page with recaptcha on it. 2. Does not appear. 3. Inspect it with "firebug" and between the script tags it says "Reload the page to see the source of https://www.google.com/....." 4. Refreshing the page does nothing. 5. Take the google URL and put it into new tab 6. the new tab says the (domain/cert?) isn't allowed, but allows me to add an exception for it. 7. I click "Add Exception" and it spits back the Javascript. 8. Go back to the original tab 9. F5 10. recaptcha now works.

This page works in FF3.5, and all versions of IE and Chrome attempted. Has the same non-working behaviour in FF14. Both FF's are on Win7.

[Profanity removed by moderator. Please read Forum rules and guidelines, thanks.]

I installed 17.0.1 soon after it was released. Worked fine; worked fine yesterday.

Today when I start 17.0.1 a window pops up "Abine initialization error Please close Internet Explorer (sic!) to complete initialization. Cancel to continue initialization later. [Cancel] [OK]"

OK button closes window and pops up another: "Abine initialization cancelled Restart FireFox (sic) to complete initialization and use Abine."

Cancel button pops up first window again. After a few of these, the second window is popped up instead.

.......

Tools Add-ons Taco Disable, followed by Remove gets the grey bar with the text saying that Taco has been removed. Exiting and restarting Firefox repeats the behavior above.

Against your advice, I tried installing 16.0.2 over 17.01. 16.0.2 now crashes every time. I have reinstalled 17.0.1 Behavior is as above.

........

I suggest that, once this problem is solved, Mozilla reexamine the approval of add-ons from Abine. This is not the first time that Abine has arranged to have a Firefox add-in that can not be removed.

Cordially, Joaquin

After viewing imbedded videos for a time, the video ends up going away, but I still have sound. (So I know it's playing the video.) Doesn't seem to matter what site I'm on, the video ends up as a half screen or less, or black screen. I can shut down Firefox and restart it, and all is well again for a time. I get no error message since the video is playing even if I can't see the video part of it, and I can't seem to find any problems anywhere on the system that would be causing this. Since all comes back to normal with a restart of Firefox, I thought this would be a good place to start looking for a fix.

In the new firefox once clicked a link (middle mouse button) to open it in a new tab, there isn't a small border around the link like there was in 3.6. The border appears when switching to another tab then back. I want it to always show after click a link.

Have https://www.google.com/ set as home page.

What I get: Go to a website

What I do: click Bookmarks>Google url link

Result: https://www.google.com

Go to a website does result in Google home page loading, but it appears to be loaded locally, not via an internet connection. Have Flagfox installed as an add-on, but this does not load until I do step 2, and only then is any activity seen in the lower left hand corner of the browser as the Google page loads.

Odd thing is, without an active internet connection, FF reports page not found error and Google is not displayed.

Note that step 3 is missing a backslash at the end of the url, even tho it is set and entered properly in Options for General>Startup.  ???

A https connection should also be green if valid, and I am not seeing that on most https sites. GRC.com does show this green color, but that is the only one that seems to work for me. Clicking the lock icon does give me vendor ownership information; the others state 'unknown'. Example: "You are connected to mozilla.org which is run by (unknown) Verified by GeoTrust, Inc. Your connection to this website is encrypted to prevent eavesdropping.

I'm currently encountering issues with ellipse rendering (SVG) in Firefox 17.0.1 under Windows.

As a specific example, I am using the sample HTML representing the two ellipses here:

http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/shapes.html#EllipseElement

I have noticed that the right-hand ellipse appears collapsed, as a single dot in this environment. However, when rendering in Chrome under Windows, or in Firefox 15.0.1 under Ubuntu, the right-hand ellipse appears as expected, as a blue outline.

Thank you.