Two ideas to try;

1) Start Firefox in Safe Mode

2) Scan for mal-ware. Use several of the programs listed below.

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Sometimes a problem with Firefox may be a result of malware installed on your computer, that you may not be aware of.

You can try these free programs to scan for malware, which work with your existing antivirus software:

• Microsoft Safety Scanner
• MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware
• TDSSKiller - AntiRootkit Utility
• Hitman Pro
• ESET Online Scanner

Microsoft Security Essentials is a good permanent antivirus for Windows 7/Vista/XP if you don't already have one.

Further information can be found in the Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware article.

Did this fix your problems? Please report back to us!

The "usual Firefox start page" is having some sort of Web Service related issues today. It's possible you may be having the same issue as many of the rest of us today.

See cor-el's response on my issue page (I had the same issue) for a solution which works:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/984223

See also "Firefox hangs on the default Start Page": [/questions/984193]

Hi and thanks to those who answered!

I ran Malwarebytes scan and no malware or virus issues.

The answer from GreenOracle and cor-el's fix has solved the start up hanging issue. Thanks!!

However I still have the other issue where Firefox hangs at random time during my session with the logo (in the blue title strip top of screen) turning to a white box. This happens randomly and usually after a few seconds then I get the "Not Responding" appear as well. Not always, as occasionally it reverts to normal after a few seconds.

By the way this happened twice while I'm typing this! I didn't get the Not responding message either time but had to wait a minute each time for the screen to stop hanging.

After about a minute Firefox usually just starts working fine again. I can't see anything that might trigger this, however I have noticed it happens sometimes when I'm in Yahoo Mail and viewing and deleting eBay emails, instead of just deleting and next email appearing I can get this hanging issue - maybe this is a clue?

It may be down to large memory useage as I get messages flagged up that Firefox is using too much memory (500Mb +) from my AVG protection during the day from time to time. This does NOT usually tie in with the exact time of hanging though, but may be relevant.

After other people's suggestions - Will the following sort it if I can make it work?

The other thing is that I should be able to click Properties on my Firefox Desktop icon and change Compatability to Windows XP SP3 but I just don't have that option from my Firefox desktop icon. It shows only Windows 95, Windows 98/Me, Windows NT 4 Sevice Pack 5, and Windows 2000 in the dropdown tab.

Any ideas how I can get Windows XP SP3 to show in this tab and try to see if that helps my hanging issues?

Thanks

Gaz

I have been having freezing issues in Firefox for sometime now after I upgraded my hard drive in my laptop. My main issue is I will be using Firefox and then everything freezes for 20 to 30 seconds. I have a Dell 6400 running Vista Ultimate 32bit (Yeah getting old now). The original hard drive was a 160GB with 512KB sector sizes. The new hard drive is a Western Digital 750GB with the new 4K Sector size. Most new hard drives use the 4K sector sizes. Only windows 8 supports 4K sector sizes natively. XP, Vista and Win7 have to use virtual 512 sector sizes and use read modify write to write to the hard drive. This means it is a bottleneck when software writes to the hard drive. If you want to see the issue in action open up the resource monitor and watch the disk activity (you have to open before you have a freeze). If you get the freeze then look at the disk activity and you will see it has to empty the list before the freeze stops. This is obviously the computer waiting for the disk queue to empty before asking the drive to read or write again. I've read that other people have this disk issue, but for me it always seems to be Firefox that causes it. So I think that for some reason Firefox has issues writing data between the OS and the 4K hard drive or Firefox writing to the pagefile which then has issues with the harddrive. My Work PC (Dell Latitude with Win7 64bit 750Ghard drive) also gets little freezes, but not as bad as my own laptop. Again this has a 4K sector sized hard drive.

Do other users who get freezes have 4K sector size hard drives? Do other users with Windows8 (native support for 4K sectors) get the freezing?

Hey ramjet.

Could you please copy/paste your info from your post to questions/new? That'll help us get specific details about your Firefox configuration so we can assist you one-on-one.

Thanks!

gazzie.

I'm going to try to answer your questions to the best of my ability.

However I still have the other issue where Firefox hangs at random time during my session with the logo (in the blue title strip top of screen) turning to a white box. This happens randomly and usually after a few seconds then I get the "Not Responding" appear as well. Not always, as occasionally it reverts to normal after a few seconds.

See Firefox hangs randomly and check if that resolves your issue. You may want to try a few solutions on that page.

It may be down to large memory useage as I get messages flagged up that Firefox is using too much memory (500Mb +) from my AVG protection during the day from time to time. This does NOT usually tie in with the exact time of hanging though, but may be relevant.

See Firefox uses too much RAM Also I see you have some extensions installed. Try disabling Java Quick Starter and AVG Toolbar to see if that makes a difference.

The other thing is that I should be able to click Properties on my Firefox Desktop icon and change Compatability to Windows XP SP3 but I just don't have that option from my Firefox desktop icon. It shows only Windows 95, Windows 98/Me, Windows NT 4 Sevice Pack 5, and Windows 2000 in the dropdown tab. Any ideas how I can get Windows XP SP3 to show in this tab and try to see if that helps my hanging issues?

Weird. I have Nightly, Aurora, and Firefox 26 installed, and they all show XP SP3 as an option. Can you try going into your Mozilla Firefox folder? (usually located at C:/Program Files (Program Files(x86) for 64-bit)/Mozilla Firefox) then right click firefox.exe > Properties > Compatibility and see if XP SP3 is listed as an option.

Hi Moses

I'm working though some of your suggestions right now. I already went to the Firefox hangs randomly post and tried a lot of the suggestions there. I haven't tried a couple so will do!

I have a couple of questions about your suggestions, as I am a bit of a dunce regarding computers so please be kind :O)

1. The Compatibility with Windows XP is definitely not showing. I went into the Program Files and the firefox.exe icon is the same as the one on my desktop, ie only goes up to Windows 2000 at the latest.

2. I have AVG Toolbar as it is part of my AVG Firewall/Anti Virus, but I never ever use it. It is always turned off - not sure if you still want me to disable" it, or did you mean just turn it off?

3. Will disabling Java Quickstarter mean certain things won't work? I don't know much about computers and how they operate so I have no idea what it is!

Thanks very much for your help

Regards

Gaz

Gaz,

Thanks for responding.

1. The Compatibility with Windows XP is definitely not showing. I went into the Program Files and the firefox.exe icon is the same as the one on my desktop, ie only goes up to Windows 2000 at the latest.

That's really unusual. Maybe cor-el can clear that up for you since I've got no clue.

2. I have AVG Toolbar as it is part of my AVG Firewall/Anti Virus, but I never ever use it. It is always turned off - not sure if you still want me to disable" it, or did you mean just turn it off?

I usually disable all my toolbars as they can lead to problems, in my experience. But every situation is unique. It may or may not help but just in case, disable it.

3. Will disabling Java Quickstarter mean certain things won't work? I don't know much about computers and how they operate so I have no idea what it is!

No. Java Quick Starter essentially just boots up Java during the start of Firefox so that certain Java apps and applets can load up faster. Actually, I don't have that in my Extensions so I don't know if you downloaded it or not. Nevertheless, it is safe to disable it as it won't affect anything.

You said:
I'm working though some of your suggestions right now. I already went to the Firefox hangs randomly post and tried a lot of the suggestions there. I haven't tried a couple so will do!

Let me know if the steps mentioned above work.

On the Compatibility issue, open the Firefox folder add try from there.

Hi Fred

Yep I already did that and posted that it didn't work unfortunately. It shows exactly the same information as my Desktop icon.

Hi gazzie, I think the shortcut compatibility setting advice was directed to users of Windows Vista and not to users of Windows XP. Windows "turns off" some newer features of Windows when you choose compatibility for an older version. I don't think it will help for you to try Windows 2000 compatibility, considering that Firefox was largely written after Windows XP was released.

Hi jscher2000

"I think the shortcut compatibility setting advice was directed to users of Windows Vista and not to users of Windows XP."

Not sure but I don't think it was directed at users of Vista as there are several specific suggestions of turning Compatibility on to Windows XP SP3 both here and on other Forums so that option must exist on some people's options under properties.

In fact someone said it was on their Compatibilty list on an earlier answer to this post.

I would certainly not change it to Windows 2000! That would be madness :O)

Thanks for your input!

Hopefully I'll get there in the end.

Hi gazzie, what I mean is, the Compatibility options drop-down only list versions of Windows older than the one you're running. So if you run Windows XP (Service Pack 3), that will not appear on the list as an older version because it is your current version. Only Windows Vista (or later) users will see Windows XP (Service Pack 3) as an older version of Windows.

Hi jscher2000

Aah! Sorry, I misunderstood. I'm not very computer savvy, so I may need things explaining in words of one syllable!

OK that does make sense and would explain what I'm seeing :O)

Thanks again

Gaz

The Java Quick Starter extension is only present on Windows XP and you can disable this extension to speed up the start of Firefox. You do not need this extension.

• http://www.java.com/en/download/help/quickstarter.xml - What is Java Quick Starter (JQS)? What is the benefit of running JQS? - 6.0

Make sure that your security software isn't causing this issue.

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