Wow, that's incredibly inconvenient.

To be clear: Firefox is shutting down completely without displaying any error message? When you restart Firefox, does it work or do you get the error that Firefox is already running? Does Firefox suggest resuming your previous session or resume it automatically (i.e., Firefox recognizes that it crashed)?

Usually the first thing to try when printing misbehaves is to reset the various settings Firefox saves for your printer. You can do that in the about:config preferences editor with a lot of right-clicking.

A little more info here: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Problems_printing_web_pages#Reset_printer

Does that make any difference?

Thanks for the reply, j. I reset the printer through the about:config file, but it didn't help.

In answer to your questions, Firefox closes completely without any warning, except my printer status notice shows "Printer (Not Responding)." The document prints perfectly, though. When I restart Firebox, I have gotten the response that Firefox is already running and I can see it in the processes under the task manager. But that doesn't always happen and it hasn't happened lately. And when I reopen Firefox, it opens with all the tabs from the last session, because I have that preference set.

Also, this is definitely a problem limited to Firefox. At least, I think so, because the only other browser I've used is IE and when I print the same page from there it doesn't close.

I agree that this sounds like an application problem rather than a system problem.

Do you have another printer to test, such as a PDF printer driver? If you don't already have a PDF printer set up, you can install PrimoPDF from: http://www.primopdf.com/

Can you print to that "printer" without crashing, or do both crash?

Since I haven't read any other reports like this recently, I think we should check whether it could be related to one of your add-ons or custom settings. A standard diagnostic for that is to try Firefox's Safe Mode.

First, I recommend backing up your Firefox settings in case something goes wrong. See Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles. (You can copy your entire Firefox profile folder somewhere outside of the Mozilla folder.)

Next, restart Firefox in Firefox's Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode using

Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled

In the Safe Mode dialog, do not check any boxes, just click "Continue in Safe Mode."

If you can print sites without crashing, this points the finger at one of your add-ons or custom settings as the problem. Of course, tracking down the exact culprit can take some time.

Any luck?

• Also see this article -> Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems

Check and tell if its working normally while using Firefox in Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode.

Tried safe mode. Still closes after printing. Next will try printing to PDF printer.

No difference with update to version 13 either. It still seems to be something to do with printing directly from Firefox via the tool bar. If I print from a page that has it's own printer configuration, then Firefox doesn't close.

It still seems to be something to do with printing directly from Firefox via the tool bar. If I print from a page that has it's own printer configuration, then Firefox doesn't close.

Some pages have a link or a script to pop up the print dialog. Are you saying that those pages print correctly? I believe it's the same print dialog you would normally get from the menu or toolbar in Firefox; you also can open it by pressing Ctrl+p. Very odd.

No, not linked to print dialog, but their own external print function. Like coupon printers.

Firefox 13 includes a new feature to "reset" the browser. Actually, it retains your bookmarks and history, but it creates a new settings folder that leaves a lot of potential sources of trouble behind. It might be worth a try: Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings.

Although there is no built in "undo" for this process, there is a way to manually switch back to your old settings folder if the reset doesn't solve the problem.