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Firefox closes seconds after opening it.

  • 6 replies
  • 5 have this problem
  • 144 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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Every time I open firefox, it closes just seconds after opening it. I am running windows 7 and firefox 19.0 on a brand new computer with no add-ons.

Safe mode also closes 3-4 seconds after opening it.

Also, Google Chrome does the same thing, but IE does not.

It does not come up with a crash report. When multiple tabs are open, I click cancel when it prompts to close multiple tabs, and the warning comes back immediately. After clicking cancel 4-5 times, it closes regardless.

Every time I open firefox, it closes just seconds after opening it. I am running windows 7 and firefox 19.0 on a brand new computer with no add-ons. Safe mode also closes 3-4 seconds after opening it. Also, Google Chrome does the same thing, but IE does not. It does not come up with a crash report. When multiple tabs are open, I click cancel when it prompts to close multiple tabs, and the warning comes back immediately. After clicking cancel 4-5 times, it closes regardless.

All Replies (6)

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Certain Firefox problems can be solved by performing a Clean reinstall. This means you remove Firefox and any leftover program files and then reinstall Firefox. Please follow these steps one by one:

  1. Download the latest Desktop version of Firefox from http://www.mozilla.org and save the setup file to your computer.
  2. After the download finishes, close all Firefox windows (click Exit from the Firefox or File menu) and confirm all upcoming messages.
  3. Now, uninstall Firefox by following the steps mentioned in the Uninstall Firefox article.

IMPORTANT: On Windows, the uninstaller has the option to remove your personal data and settings. Make sure that you do not check this option; otherwise all of your bookmarks, passwords, extensions, user customizations and other Firefox user profile data will be removed from your computer.

After uninstalling Firefox on Windows, delete the "Mozilla Firefox" program folder, located by default in one of these locations:

  • (On 32-bit Windows) C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox
  • (On 64-bit Windows) C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox
  1. Go to the Windows Start menu and click on "Computer".
  2. In the Explorer window that opens, double click Local Disk (C:) to open the C:\ drive.
  3. Find the "Program Files (x86)" folder or "Program Files" folder.
    • On 32-bit Windows, double-click the Program Files folder to open it.
    • On 64-bit Windows, you will see a "Program Files (x86)" folder AND a "Program Files" folder. Open the Program Files (x86) folder.
  4. Look for a Mozilla Firefox folder. If you find one, right-click it and select Delete and confirm that you want to move the folder to the Recycle Bin.

Now, go ahead and reinstall Firefox:

  1. Double-click the downloaded installation file and go through the steps of the installation wizard.
  2. Once the wizard is finished, choose to directly open Firefox after clicking the Finish button.

Please report back to see if this helped you!

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A possible cause is security software (firewall,anti-virus) that blocks or restricts Firefox or the plugin-container process without informing you, possibly after detecting changes (update) to the Firefox program.

Remove all rules for Firefox and the plugin-container from the permissions list in the firewall and let your firewall ask again for permission to get full unrestricted access to internet for Firefox and the plugin-container process and the updater process.

See:


Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance).

  • Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe mode start window or otherwise make changes.

You can use one of these to start Firefox in Safe mode:

  • On Windows, hold down the Shift key while starting Firefox with a double-click on the Firefox desktop shortcut
  • On Mac, hold down the Options key while starting Firefox
  • Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled
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Reinstalling Firefox did not solve the problem. I didnt think it would, because it is a brand new computer and it was a fresh install.

The firewall was already set to "allow" and going through those steps didnt work. I then disabled the firewall, and that didnt work either.

Its odd to me that the closing multiple tabs window comes up. Does that mean that it isnt a "crash"?

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Did you try to reboot the computer?

You can also try to boot the computer in Windows Safe mode with network support (press F8 on the boot screen) as a test to see if that helps.

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Safe mode with networking works! but when i reboot normally, it goes back to closing quickly. What's the next step?

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If it works in Windows Safe mode then you have a problem with other software, likely security software or a system driver or maybe malware, that is running on your computer. Make sure that you have the latest updates of your security software.

You can use the MSConfig program or the Autoruns utility to see which software and services get started.


Do a malware check with some malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.
You need to scan with all programs because each program detects different malware.

Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.

You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.

See also: