Firefox Freezes (For a few seconds to several minutes) when Opening new tabs or Loading/Refreshing tabs
I've been experiencing this problem since Firefox 18 and now that I have Firefox 20, it's still happening. I've done all the recommended things on the forum and checked around the net for possible fixes, nothings worked.
I've done the create new profile, malware check, check add-on's for updates and updated them to the latest updates, enabled/disabled add-on's/themes, etc. Nothings worked. Is there anyone out there with a fix? Not the stuff I have already mentioned or other stuff that's on the forum or already asked questions, those don't work. If not, I guess it'll be time to switch to chrome or something, cause this is a pain and to be frank, it just isn't worth that stress. I've had Firefox since Firefox 1, it'll be a shame to have to switch, but if no one knows how to fix it, then I will.
All Replies (20)
Hi there,
Sorry about those issues you're having with Firefox! It does look like you've tried all troubleshooting steps, so my suggestion here is to give Firefox Reset a try: Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings . It will restore a lot of the Firefox settings to factory defaults while attempting to keep your personal settings like bookmarks, passwords, etc.
Give this a try and see if that takes care of it. Good luck!
Cheers, David
Do you keep a large history?
Did Safe Mode had any effect?
- https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Safe+Mode
- https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes
You can check for problems with the sessionstore.js and sessionstore.bak files in the Firefox Profile Folder that store session data.
Delete the sessionstore.js file and possible sessionstore-##.js files with a number and sessionstore.bak in the Firefox Profile Folder.
- Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Open Containing Folder
- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox
Deleting sessionstore.js will cause App Tabs and Tab Groups and open and closed (undo) tabs to get lost, so you will have to create them again (make a note or bookmark them).
This is crazy I've been using firefox as my default browser since it was first released, but the thing has become useless to me now cause it freezes up right when I'm in the middle of something & need it not to.
I've deleted history, dispensed with add-ons, reset the thing to b.....y & it still happens. Quite frankly I'm disappointed with the way mozilla tries to blame the victim by making us jump thru alla these hoops when blind freddy can see the fault lies with them and the changes they introduced on some alleged 'upgrade'. What gets me most is that mozilla won't revert to the v17 iteration that worked fine without freezing or ever locking up. Surely they know what they did to screw the pooch.
Hello,
Try disabling graphics hardware acceleration. Since this feature was added to Firefox, it has gradually improved, but there still are a few glitches.
You might need to restart Firefox in order for this to take effect, so save all work first (e.g., mail you are composing, online documents you're editing, etc.).
Then perform these steps:
- Click the orange Firefox button at the top left, then select the "Options" button, or, if there is no Firefox button at the top, go to Tools > Options.
- In the Firefox options window click the Advanced tab, then select "General".
- In the settings list, you should find the Use hardware acceleration when available checkbox. Uncheck this checkbox.
- Now, restart Firefox and see if the problems persist.
Additionally, please check for updates for your graphics driver by following the steps mentioned in the following Knowledge base articles:
Did this fix your problems? Please report back to us!
Thank you.
Delete...
Modified by Jman502005
Yeah, I tried, but no success.
On a side note, some friends of mine are having the same problem as me. We've all be Firefox users for years, and this problem hit us roughly the same time. Most of them have moved to Chrome now, because we couldn't figure out a solution, and it seems that updating Firefox keeps making it worse. Clean installs seem to work for a few days to a month, but it'll go back to freezing and lagging after that period of time, even if you delete every Mozilla file on the laptop or pc.
Have you tried a Firefox reset as djst said?
The hardware acceleration has been tried as well, it doesn't do the trick.
This isn't a setting or computer thing. As I've stated before, this is a Mozilla software problem. It wouldn't keep recurring after a clean reinstall if it wasn't. It started with Version 17-18 and it persists to the most recent of updates.
I actually had an old computer I built back in 2006, I plugged it in and fired it up after a few years of retirement, it had Firefox version 3 on it, I tried it out for a few days just like I'm using the the current version to see if it was just the tabs and the way I was using Firefox was causing the problem, after over a week, no problem at all, it works just fine, I'll keep using it to see if something happens and report back after a month.
You should also try clearing cache etc.
To clear cache and cookies do the following:
- Go to Firefox > History > Clear recent history or (if no Firefox button is shown) go to Tools > Clear recent history.
- Under "Time range to clear", select "Everything".
- Now, click the arrow next to Details to toggle the Details list active.
- From the details list, check Cache and Cookies and uncheck everything else.
- Now click the Clear now button.
Further information can be found in the Clear your cache, history and other personal information in Firefox article.
(sigh) Yes, I've already said I did, a software reset won't work.
have you checked how much memory or cpu Firefox.exe is using?
Look, instead of doing the software on the computer pointers (That don't work, they don't, go back to reread my first post), this needs Mozilla engineering attention. This is a software glitch on their end of the spectrum, nothing I'm doing is going to fix this problem.
I will reiterate for the the last time. I've done a complete wipe of mozilla files from my system, cache, history, every file and folder that mozilla put on my computer, this included Thunderbird and Seamonkey (I haven't used them in a while and won't be reinstalling them anyway.), then oven Internet Explorer 10 with the latest updates to it, I downloaded Firefox Setup Stub 22.0.exe from mozilla's website, not a third party download. Reinstalled Firefox from the latest update, and like I said, it only lasted a few days before it started lagging and freezing again. The time I did this before that, it last less than a day.
Modified by Jman502005
Yes, it never redlines either the memory or the CPU. That is fine. Even on a 15 Mbps connection, it's like each web pages is a 4 Gb movie being downloaded on a 56K dial-up connection.
The pages freeze, you can (though sometimes you can't because it says that firefox isn't responding) click on the tabs, you can't click on the page itself, and if you do click a new tab, the whole thing freezes and you can't click anything at all cause it'll tell you that the program isn't responding.
Modified by Jman502005
Just all I need is how much RAM or CPU firefox is using, right click the taskbar and select task manager, just record or post here how much CPU and RAM firefox is using.
refer to these articles for more.
The CPU will depend on what is happening, when it is working, it'll depend if I'm watching a video, it'd be around 10-20% when in HD. It hovers around 0-2% when doing nothing but surfing.
When it's lagging or freezing, on the taskbar, it will sometimes say the program isn't responding. The CPU read between 0-50%, it'll jump around then just crash and sit at 0 for a while. I'm running a 2.4 Ghz Core 2 Duo.
Memory is usually around 200 Mb - 1 Gb of Ram, working or not. I've got 6 Gb of ram on my computer.
So you have a 64bit system I'm guessing, trying to help all I can
- Try Firefox portable and see if that works without freezing
And also the CPU and RAM being used by Firefox doesnt seem to be troublesome as I would guess Chrome uses near the same amount.
I use to use it on my phone, but it all I really ever used it for was to back-up my favorite's. I deleted it because it keep using data even when it was supposed to be closed.
Yeah, Chrome and Firefox a nearly identical in that regard.
To answer your earlier question, yes, I'm running a Windows 7 Professional 64-bit system.