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Firefox is unable to load any new websites

  • 6 replies
  • 5 have this problem
  • 9 views
  • Last reply by davidbundy

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Every now and then after running normally for some time Firefox is unable to load any new websites. Instead I get the message "Verbinden..." (I use the German version of firefox). Internet Explorer works as usual when this happens. If I then close firefox I am unable to restart because the Firefox process is still running. Instead I have to stop Firefox running in Task Manager and then restart firefox. It usually works ok for while until it crashes again.

Every now and then after running normally for some time Firefox is unable to load any new websites. Instead I get the message "Verbinden..." (I use the German version of firefox). Internet Explorer works as usual when this happens. If I then close firefox I am unable to restart because the Firefox process is still running. Instead I have to stop Firefox running in Task Manager and then restart firefox. It usually works ok for while until it crashes again.

All Replies (6)

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It is possible that your security software (firewall, anti-virus) blocks or restricts Firefox or the plugin-container process without informing you, possibly after detecting changes (update) to the Firefox program.

Remove all rules for Firefox and the plugin-container from the permissions list in the firewall and let your firewall ask again for permission to get full unrestricted access to internet for Firefox and the plugin-container process and the updater process.

See:

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance).

  • Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe Mode start window.

Check the connection settings.

If you do not need to use a proxy to connect to internet then try to select "No Proxy" if "Use the system proxy settings" or one of the others do not work properly.

See "Firefox connection settings":

See also:

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You may also want to check for malware.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a good permanent antivirus for Windows 7/Vista/XP if you don't already have one.


Further information can be found in the Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware article.

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It just happened again for the first time since my last post.

For Antivirus I use Notion Internet Security. Last week I set the firewall to allow Firefox automatically but that doesn't seem to have helped. I have done a couple of full scans since this problem first occured and it didn't find any malware.

At the time of the crash I had no other active programs running. Fiefox has also not updated since the last post. According to Task Station 68 other processes were running at the time. Who knows?

I am still at a loss to see what is causing this. It is difficult to analyse because only happens about once a week even though I use firefox every day.

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Norton you mean? Check with all the tools i suggested, can you reproduce in safe mode with networking.

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As a test you can try to load some web pages via Google Translate with a random source language.

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This problem has not occured in the last few weeks and may have been solved in the Firefox updates 25.0 or 25.0.1.

It was previously happening intermittently about once a day. I was never able to reproduce the problem reliably, so the original cause remains unknown.