Windows 10 reached EOS (end of support) on October 14, 2025. If you are on Windows 10, see this article.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More
Solved Archived

Firefox stalls when not in use and must be forced quit.

cor-el replied
Dareru76

The program works fine while I am actively using it. When it is in the background while using another application, or when I wake the computer from sleep and bring up Firefox, the program has stalled/become unresponsive. This phenomenon started approximately two weeks ago. I have turned all add-ons acquired the past six months in an attempt to eliminate conflicts, but the program still freezes when not active at least once a day.

The program works fine while I am actively using it. When it is in the background while using another application, or when I wake the computer from sleep and bring up Firefox, the program has stalled/become unresponsive. This phenomenon started approximately two weeks ago. I have turned all add-ons acquired the past six months in an attempt to eliminate conflicts, but the program still freezes when not active at least once a day.

All Replies (7)

Chosen Solution

You do have a load of addons that can cause weird problems.

Could you try safe mode and see if it works there?

Further information: Use Troubleshoot Mode in Firefox

You can also consider to create a new profile to have a fresh start. That will also get rid of some weird pref values.

See "Creating a profile":

You can transfer some files from an existing profile to the new profile, but be cautious not to copy corrupted files to avoid carrying over the problem

I will start disabling add-ons in reverse order of how I have installed them, as these daily stalling issues are a recent phenomenon.

After 36 hours of Firefox running in the background without freezing, I think it safe to say that by process of elimination I have found the add-on that was causing this issue after upgrading to the latest version. I have since removed said add-on from the browser altogether.

Can you tell us which extension caused this issue?

Flash Video Downloader 5.3.2.