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Using the Search box in Preferences causes program to freeze

  • 1 reply
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el
  • Archived

I went to change a few parameters within Firefox (running on Linux) and clicked on the Search Preferences box. When I tried to type the whole program froze. Would not close when the close window button was clicked. Had to use a Kill App program to kill -9 the bugger. Any fixes/work arounds?

I went to change a few parameters within Firefox (running on Linux) and clicked on the Search Preferences box. When I tried to type the whole program froze. Would not close when the close window button was clicked. Had to use a Kill App program to kill -9 the bugger. Any fixes/work arounds?

All Replies (1)

Did you already made changes or did you merely open about:preferences and tried to use its search bar ?

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 or userChrome.css is causing the problem.

  • switch to the DEFAULT theme: "3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Themes
  • do NOT click the "Refresh Firefox" button on the Safe Mode start window

Try the Firefox version from the official Mozilla server if you currently use a version from the repositories of your Linux distribution.