Firefox browser has now become practically unusable
I generally have loads of tabs open, and until recently this wasn’t an issue (perhaps until last upgrade?), but now, I can hardly move between tabs, the drop down list showing tab selection doesn’t work, nor does the left/right arrows. When I delete a tab, it leaves a ‘space’ where the tab was, only ‘back filling’ after I’ve opened up another tab to full screen mode and then minimised it again, at which point it goes to the very left-most tab and the only way I can get to tabs further down the list, is by deleting them in the manner described. I’ve actually got 2 laptops (Win 7 & 8.1), and it’s now happening on both of them. This might have something to do with memory management/the computer’s page file, but as things stand, I’m SERIOUSLY going to be switching to another browser - despite sticking with Firefox for many-a-year. BTW, I’m actually writing this on my phone, as I couldn’t now do it on either of my laptops (hence I’m currently unable to attach anything/provide screen grabs etc. I guess the only way to ‘clear’ this issue, would be to either close/restart Firefox or my laptop - neither of which I really want to do. Is there a way that I can use an earlier version of the browser and prevent it automatically updating? Yours, a now very frustrated longtime user,
Francis Beardsell
All Replies (8)
francis.beardsell said
I guess the only way to ‘clear’ this issue, would be to either close/restart Firefox or my laptop - neither of which I really want to do.
Hi Francis, how long did Firefox run normally in the current session before the problem started -- several hours? several days?
One possible way to clean up memory usage without restarting Firefox would be to use the "Minimize memory usage" button on the about:memory page. I'm not familiar with the details on how/when that works.
The leaving of a blank space reminds me of an issue with some older userChrome.css modifications, but if the problem were there, it would occur earlier in the your session.
Thanks for the prompt reply JSCHER,
On my Win 8.1 machine, it started playing up after ~8 days of ‘up time’ (previous to this, it’d go 3-4 weeks before I restarted my machine). On my trusty old Win 7 machine, that could go for over 90 days without an issue (and before I had to shut it down/reboot it). Now, it started to cause issues within 7 days!!!
There must be a reason behind why this has started to happen, as I’ve been using Firefox not too much after Netscape was being obliterated by IE (i.e., a very long time) - and this is the first real issue I’ve had with the browser (hence my reluctance, if at all possible, to move away from it).
As to your suggestion, I think I’ll probably have to try that once I’ve restarted my browser/computer, as it’s not letting me get to that page...
Eight days seems like a good amount of uptime for a browser. I often need to restart after a few days because I've messed with settings and caused a problem that way. I seldom reach a point that Firefox has bogged down as severely as yours, and it sounds as though you almost never do either. I think the only way to know whether this is a new Firefox 92 problem versus a rare confluence of other events is to do a regular shutdown and restart of Firefox (or crash, if necessary), and see what happens by this time next week.
Again, thanks for the reply jscher. As things stand, I’ve got access and can use (of a sort - slow but ‘usable’) the first 15 tabs that are open, and if/when I want to access the rest, I’m going to have to close them down in the manner described previously (which is what I’m doing).
As to the things that have changed on my laptops, apart from Firefox having new versions and my Win 8.1 machine having the MS patches applied (my Win 7 machine hasn’t even had these - as Microsoft have stopped sending them), nothing else has changed. Thus, by simply rebooting/restarting my computers/browsers, I don’t think will make a lot of difference - after all, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. Thus, in due course, once I’ve either finished with/cleared down the tabs I’ve got open, or my computer/browser crashes, I’ll ‘put up with it’, and hopefully, in the meantime, someone else spots this issue or a new version of Firefox is released - at which time, I’ll try it out again.
One of the things I did like about Firefox, was it’s stability and ability to stay running for long periods, which is why I raised this issue - as the very short periods both my computers browsers have been running and for them both to suffer the same ‘fate’, certainly is strange. If my browser had only been lasting as long as you say yours does, I think I might have been tempted to switch much sooner - but there again, if you’re doing/trying things out in order to experiment/assist others (which is certainly appreciated - I’ll certainly be looking into your suggestion upon the next restart of Firefox), then that could well affect the longevity of your browser sessions.
Obviously, if you or someone else has any further suggestions/ideas, then I’m more than interested in hearing them.
Best Regards,
Francis.
Hey there!
Also see:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-uses-too-much-memory-or-cpu-resources
Hope I helped!
Kind regards,
Bithiah
Thanks Bithiah for that link - it looks a very useful one, and I’ll certainly make use of it over the coming days.
Best Regards, Francis
No problem! Glad to help!
Kind regards,
Bithiah
Hey there!
If your problem or question has been solved or answered, please mark an answer as the solution to let others know this thread has been solved. Thank you!
Kind regards,
Bithiah