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firefox causes windows xp sp3 to reboot?

  • 7 replies
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by James

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Firefox is causing my HP 7350N Media Center, Windows XP SP3, to Reboot. Using the latest version of Firefox. Have reinstalled Firefox, ran without add-ons, safe mode, rebuilt Firefox with on-board option, etc.; did not help the problem. Nothing else is causing the reboots; IE8 works ok, no other programs is causing the reboots. I've used Firefox for several years and do not want to give up on it. Is there anything I can change on my XP SP3 settings that will stop the reboots? Does Firefox have a bug in it that would cause this particular machine to reboot?

Really appreciate your help. Thanks, Danny.

Firefox is causing my HP 7350N Media Center, Windows XP SP3, to Reboot. Using the latest version of Firefox. Have reinstalled Firefox, ran without add-ons, safe mode, rebuilt Firefox with on-board option, etc.; did not help the problem. Nothing else is causing the reboots; IE8 works ok, no other programs is causing the reboots. I've used Firefox for several years and do not want to give up on it. Is there anything I can change on my XP SP3 settings that will stop the reboots? Does Firefox have a bug in it that would cause this particular machine to reboot? Really appreciate your help. Thanks, Danny.

All Replies (7)

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An application like Firefox itself does not cause blue screens or reboots.

Something is triggering it like a driver, hardware or a run level software. under the right conditions.

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James,

I tend to agree with you that it may be in the machine; but it only reboots when using Firefox, not with IE8 or any other program.

Do you have any thoughts as to why it only reboots when using Firefox?

I have installed a new graphics card and supposedly have all the right drivers.

Thanks, Danny.

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If you think that the problem is graphics related, try disabling Hardware Acceleration in Firefox.

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This note is for Mozilla Support: I used to use Firefox as my main browser until my PC started randomly rebooting. I switched to Chrome and the problem went away. I've used Chrome successfully for a couple years now but since Google has decided that Chrome will soon no longer support Java, I thought I'd try using Firefox again.

As Firefox is several releases newer than when I used it last, I hoped it would work. Shortly after making Firefox my default browser and using it for just under a week, my machine has randomly rebooted 4 times. Each time seems to correspond to Shockwave issues.

I went to options and turned off 'Harware acceleration' to no avail. I'm back to using Chrome and there are no more random reboots. I'm only sending this to you so you can fix this issue for others. I will not be using Firefox again...ever.

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plaidman67 well you said each time it correspond to Shockwave issues, I assume you mean Shockwave Flash Player and not the little used Shockwave for Director player.

So maybe when playing Flash it is trigger the right case of load on the computer with the power supply or even with a driver a hardware issue.

Just because you may not get this using Chrome while doing the same things does not automatically mean Firefox is the cause. Also Chrome uses a Pepper based Flash.

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Hi James, I appreciate your response, however, I have the exact same tabs open in both browsers and I do exactly the same things at each site and Chrome doesn't cause my machine to reboot where Firefox does. If that means Firefox isn't the cause, I don't know what is. I frankly don't care. I was just pointing out this issue so that Mozilla could look into it to help others and maybe make Firefox work in the same stable way Chrome does so they won't have to switch to Chrome.

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An application like Firefox itself cannot do this.

It is due to load with PSU, a driver like with say graphics card, a runlevel software like antivirus, firewall or say a Windows update like KB3033929 with Win7 that can do this.

You just happen to get under the right conditions for it to happen when you are using Shockwave Flash plugin in Firefox as you said.

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000605.htm

People have claimed a insert version of Firefox was the cause of reboots or blue screens on Windows over the years yet it was something else when the OP actually took time to find the cause and reported back.

Modified by James