Firefox for Android will not load pages on Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)

Revision Information
  • Revision id: 41412
  • Created:
  • Creator: GaL
  • Comment: Explanation about android option
  • Reviewed: Yes
  • Reviewed:
  • Reviewed by: feer56
  • Is approved? No
  • Is current revision? No
  • Ready for localization: No
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Revision Content

If you have the Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) developer option - 'Don't keep activities' enabled, Firefox for Android won't load websites or make it dissapear some menuitems. Keeping this Android system setting enabled is not recommend as it may also result in undesireable behaviour in other Android applications.

When this option is checked activities will be killed. Eg: A Mainactivity calls a subactivity. The mainactivity is killed. Pressing back on the subactivity results in restarting the Mainactivity. This can be a problem: enabling it for no reason will probably lead to freezes, force closes, reboots and not working components.

Follow these steps to disable this setting:

  1. Open the Android settings app, scroll down and select and tap on Developer options
  2. Scroll down the list of Developer Options and uncheck the checkbox for 'Don't keep activities'
  3. If Firefox is running, quit it by returning to Firefox, tapping the menu on the upper right and choosing Quit.
  4. You can then relaunch Firefox and it should behave normally.

Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) Developer Options