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Why is Firefox 51 32-bit on WinXP opening over 1,000 instances of conathst.exe?

  • 11 replies
  • 33 have this problem
  • 25 views
  • Last reply by ddbob

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Seems to have started with the 51 update

Seems to have started with the 51 update

Chosen solution

The workaround is...Disable Norton Security Toolbar (one of the Extensions in the Firefox Add-ons Manager) until a proper fix is provided.

Thanks for the input.

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All Replies (11)

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conathst.exe is part of Norton Identity Safe

How do you mean; opening over 1,000 instances?

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Looking at Task Manager, you can see the number of processes increase, and when checking the list they are all conathst.exe.

In one case, it went up to 1700 processes, only 39 were not conathst.exe

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Is the Norton Identity Safe add-on for Firefox up-to-date? https://support.norton.com/sp/en/us/home/current/solutions/v115161915_EndUserProfile_en_us Try running the Norton LiveUpdate (as mentioned in that Nortom support page) manually. And from what other Norton users have mentioned in this forum, you may need to manually run the LiveUpdate repeatedly to get all the updates; sometimes once doesn't do it.

Beyond that, please see Norton support for help with that issue.

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I have the same issue. Massive system instability, Task Manager fails & eventually the blue screen of death.

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Do you have any Norton extensions installed like Norton Identity Safe?

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions ("3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem.

  • Switch to the DEFAULT theme: "3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Appearance
  • Do NOT click the "Refresh Firefox" button on the Safe Mode start window
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This is a loop creating conathst.exe task control blocks endlessly, looks like due to Norton defending itself, and blocking some Firefox 51.0.1 function on XP systems. Shut down Firefox and reboot XP to clean up the control blocks. Tasmkanager will use mush CPU, and shutdown can take MINUTES, cleaning up the tasks unless your system already crashed...

This a problem caused by upgrade to Firefox 51.0.1 on XP systems using Norton security, that I know of. Search for firefox previous versions, scroll down, and download 50.1.0 and install it. If using the 51.0.1 Firefox, better reboot (restart) first, then move fast after you launch Firefox, download and shut down firefox quickly! Install older release such as 50.1.0 if you can find it. Then we wait until Firefox fixes the retry of the Norton protection blocking in 51.0.1 or whatever the problem is.

Wow! Last night I found Firefox 50.1.0 there and reinstalled quickly, then reboot to clean up the tasks, but now Firefox has dropped the

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-older-version-of-firefox

web page entry to 49.0.2 ! Why did they lower that? My 50.1.0 was and is now working fine on XP! What a mess!

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moz101mo said

Wow! Last night I found Firefox 50.1.0 there and reinstalled quickly, then reboot to clean up the tasks, but now Firefox has dropped the https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-older-version-of-firefox web page entry to 49.0.2 ! Why did they lower that? My 50.1.0 was and is now working fine on XP! What a mess!

The previous version linked to download (above the Directory of other versions and languages url) is based on Firefox version you have when viewing the article with Firefox.

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Chosen Solution

The workaround is...Disable Norton Security Toolbar (one of the Extensions in the Firefox Add-ons Manager) until a proper fix is provided.

Thanks for the input.

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Quote: The previous version linked to download (above the Directory of other versions and languages url) is based on Firefox version you have when viewing the article with Firefox

Apparently they do not know about Firefox 45 ESR as that redirects to Firefox 44.

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Disabling the Norton Security Tool Bar appears to be the fast temporary solution. I would've done that but didn't read about this fix until today so had already done the below to quickly roll back one version. I'll keep running the older version until a clear resolution is found.

A similar problem happened to my XP PC last year forcing me through the arduous uninstall / re-install routine. After thinking about it and examining things I realized the re-install only installs the "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox" folders & files, it doesn't effect the profile folder. I copied the new re-install (previous version) to an external hard drive. So, now several months later when this disastrous update occurred I copied the old version off the external drive & pasted it over the new version on the C: drive. It worked. Didn't even have to re-boot. I test ran it all night & today and FF did crash at some point but I think that was unrelated as no other occurrences.

DDBob.