Firefox Support Forum

Starting a couple of weeks ago, I began noticing that occasionally (every 2-3 days usually), a few empty files appear in my c:\ folder (Windows 10, as up-to-date as Windows ever is). They have names like "wal3A7109C6" (no file extension). Usually 4-5 will be generated at the same time (ie, same timestamp, so within the same second).

When I first noticed them, I (nervously) deleted a batch with no apparent consequences - but I had to activate Administrator privileges to get rid of them. I ran virus scans but have seen nothing unusual.

A few minutes ago, I had Firefox open but minimized to the task bar. I also happened to have c:\ open in a Window I could see. As I tapped to expand the browser, another of the files appeared, and the browser window behaved oddly for a moment, as though about to crash. The last few versions - I'm at 125.0.3 (64 bit) - have been crashing more than I'm accustomed to, but this is the first time I'd considered the browser to be a likely suspect.

Does anyone have any clues/possibilities to offer? It would be much appreciated.

Opened a directory of pdfs from the command line using ```firefox * &``` and went on with my work. Checked the terminal to see these error messages: ``` [Child 19416, MediaDecoderStateMachine #1] WARNING: Decoder=7f6e75431700 Decode error: NS_ERROR_DOM_MEDIA_FATAL_ERR (0x806e0005): file /builddir/build/BUILD/firefox-125.0.2/dom/media/MediaDecoderStateMachineBase.cpp:167 [Child 19416, MediaDecoderStateMachine #1] WARNING: Decoder=7f6e79a87a00 Decode error: NS_ERROR_DOM_MEDIA_FATAL_ERR (0x806e0005): file /builddir/build/BUILD/firefox-125.0.2/dom/media/MediaDecoderStateMachineBase.cpp:167 [Child 19416, MediaDecoderStateMachine #1] WARNING: Decoder=7f6e84e52400 Decode error: NS_ERROR_DOM_MEDIA_FATAL_ERR (0x806e0005): file /builddir/build/BUILD/firefox-125.0.2/dom/media/MediaDecoderStateMachineBase.cpp:167 ``` I tried recreating this error by restarting the entire process and repeating everything, but to no avail. I'll try to recreate the error a few more times, however if I don't post a message it means I was unsuccessful.

Details: Mozilla Firefox 125.0.2

CPU: Architecture: x86_64

 CPU op-mode(s):         32-bit, 64-bit
 Address sizes:          39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
 Byte Order:             Little Endian

CPU(s): 8

 On-line CPU(s) list:    0-7

Vendor ID: GenuineIntel

 Model name:             Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8350U CPU @ 1.70GHz
   CPU family:           6
   Model:                142
   Thread(s) per core:   2
   Core(s) per socket:   4
   Socket(s):            1
   Stepping:             10
   CPU(s) scaling MHz:   22%
   CPU max MHz:          3600.0000
   CPU min MHz:          400.0000
   BogoMIPS:             3799.90
   Flags:                fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge
                          mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse ss
                         e2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constan
                         t_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopol
                         ogy nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes6
                         4 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16
                          xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt ts
                         c_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm a
                         bm 3dnowprefetch cpuid_fault epb pti ssbd ibrs ibpb 
                         stibp tpr_shadow flexpriority ept vpid ept_ad fsgsba
                         se tsc_adjust sgx bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid m
                         px rdseed adx smap clflushopt intel_pt xsaveopt xsav
                         ec xgetbv1 xsaves dtherm ida arat pln pts hwp hwp_no
                         tify hwp_act_window hwp_epp vnmi md_clear flush_l1d 
                         arch_capabilities

Virtualization features:

 Virtualization:         VT-x

Caches (sum of all):

 L1d:                    128 KiB (4 instances)
 L1i:                    128 KiB (4 instances)
 L2:                     1 MiB (4 instances)
 L3:                     6 MiB (1 instance)

NUMA:

 NUMA node(s):           1
 NUMA node0 CPU(s):      0-7

Vulnerabilities:

 Gather data sampling:   Mitigation; Microcode
 Itlb multihit:          KVM: Mitigation: VMX disabled
 L1tf:                   Mitigation; PTE Inversion; VMX conditional cache flu
                         shes, SMT vulnerable
 Mds:                    Mitigation; Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
 Meltdown:               Mitigation; PTI
 Mmio stale data:        Mitigation; Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
 Reg file data sampling: Not affected
 Retbleed:               Mitigation; IBRS
 Spec rstack overflow:   Not affected
 Spec store bypass:      Mitigation; Speculative Store Bypass disabled via pr
                         ctl
 Spectre v1:             Mitigation; usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user poin
                         ter sanitization
 Spectre v2:             Mitigation; IBRS; IBPB conditional; STIBP conditiona
                         l; RSB filling; PBRSB-eIBRS Not affected; BHI Not af
                         fected
 Srbds:                  Mitigation; Microcode
 Tsx async abort:        Mitigation; TSX disabled

I have a 2019 Macbook Pro 16" and whenever I share a FireFox window on facetime, I'm unable to stop sharing it until I end the Facetime call. Even then, the sharing screen notification still appears in the top right in the menu bar and I'm unable to share my screen for future Facetime calls unless I restart my laptop (thus removing the problem). Is this a known issue, and is there a way to fix it other than restarting my laptop?

Video of issue Video of issue

What strategies or technologies has the Firefox platform implemented to ensure efficient memory management and minimize resource consumption, particularly in handling large-scale web applications and multimedia content?

I have used Firefox for many, many years and have always loved it. Recently, it stopped loading some websites. I have read and tried everything I have read and still can't fix the problem. I have to switch to Edge to load the sites. I am tearing my hair out trying to get this fixed, but I will have to use other browsers if this doesn't get cleared up. Some sites load and most don't, but there is no rhyme nor reason to what it loads and what it doesn't. I do not have a great deal of tech know-how and cannot seem to fix this according to my research. I get no "error" messages except that the page can't load. Please help. I would hate to have to learn another browser.

I see my original question is now archived at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1380948#question-reply I never closed it because I didn't know if my last process could really fix the issue. It didn't, not always. Over the years, there have been times when the issue would still pop up, but not as often as before (2022 and earlier).

I have a feeling that during an issue, FF is having difficulty setting up shop after starting up. Consequently, it is spending more time before it could become prepared to connect to the Net. I've come up with another "solution," which is deleting (or moving out) xulstore.json in the profile folder after exiting or before starting FF. You can create a batch command or script to execute the process.

So far, FF is connecting immediately after startup.

Device: Surface Pro X SQ2 OS: Windows 11 Home for ARM (Up-to-date at time of writing) Firefox Version: 125.0.3 (AArch64 up-to-date at time of writing)

I am having an issue with Firefox and video playback, specifically on YouTube. When I play a video in default view mode, the playback is super choppy / low frame rate. When I change to theatre view or full screen, playback works perfectly.

I've tried incognito windows and troubleshooting mode with no improvement.

Microsoft Edge works fine.

Not sure where to go from here.

I have tried all fixes suggested by others reporting similar problems with previous versions, but this was noticeable for me yesterday afternoon right after some downtime and the latest version (for me) of Firefox was installed. Every time I try to use a site requiring recaptcha, the wheel spins and I get no choice to log in. I've cleared cookies and my cache, refreshed Firefox, etc. Nothing works.

To check my icloud email, I log into icloud.com, enter my password, got through a two step authorization process and ask to stay signed in. I successfully access my email messages. When opening a message that has a hyperlink, I lose the iclolud connection. The link opens in a new browser window, but when i return to the email I am frequently signed out. Apple support does not know what the issue is; they suggested a different browser. This does not seem to happen with Microsoft Edge - and I don't want to use it.

Thanks for your help David Bartold; dwb0224@icloud.com

Hello, since the latest version of Firefox, as always, it breaks now if I want to enter instantgaming or it does not enter no matter how much I click on enter or in kinguin.net, when it asks me for the recapcha, it stays in an infinite loop and does not show the images. .

I have done safe mode and installed firefox from 0 and nothing, it is tedious that at this point a browser that has been having this type of problems for years because in opera, edge they do not give me these errors, it is tiring to always have to have a browser that fails due to anything.

I look forward to your help, thank you

Windows 10 Home 22H2 Firefox 125.0.3

For quite awhile I have had an intermittent problem when watching YouTube videos. To watch a video I right click on it and select "open link in new window". If I just click on the video to watch it, the main page may reload when I click on the back arrow and some of the videos I was interested in are no longer displayed. Sometimes my touchpad doesn't recognize the right click and opens the video in the current window. After it starts playing, if I click the back arrow, the video returns to the previous page (which may be reloaded), and sometimes the audio from the video keeps playing, so I have audio for a video that is no longer visible. When this happens, if I click on another video, the audio from both are played. Today I had the same thing happen when I was streaming a TV program from the Spectrum website.

1. If I click on a YouTube video from the main page, should the main page be rebuilt when I click on the back arrow? 2. How do I resolve the audio continuing to play problem? i don't know if this is a Firefox problem but I have no idea where to start to fix it.

I'm about to give up on Firefox.

While Firefox is the browser of my choice, its bugs are a constant source of frustration. When navigating on YouTube, I'll suddenly have it stop loading properly and just load more or less blank. You can see this in the image attached. To rectify this problem, I'll need to quit Firefox completely and run a cleaner (WiseCleaner, in my instance) so that it loads correctly again. This happens across several computers I have.

As I game, I usually dual-monitor to watch things on YouTube or Twitch simultaneously. When watching Twitch with Firefox, I noticed that the video would stutter or freeze while the audio continued. I checked Task Manager and found CPU usage to be extremely high. I cannot recreate this problem now as my second monitor is in the repair shop.

Firefox is one of the only few alternatives to a Chromium-based browser. As I don't like Google policies on ad-blockers, tracking, and so on, I'd like to stay away from anything Chromium-based. But it's becoming increasingly difficult to do so, as the user experience in Firefox is so bad, especially when using YouTube, one of my main browsing activities.

I tried turning off hardware acceleration, but this did nothing. I've reinstalled Firefox, but as this happens across several unconnected browsers, I cannot think this is a local problem. What to do?

Comments on YouTube videos are no longer visible after Firefox version 115.10esr update. They do however work on my other computer which also has Firefox but not an esr version since it has a more current version of windows. I tried deleting all cookies and cache, starting in safe mode, disabling ad-blocking on YouTube but nothing worked. I'm thinking of rolling back to the previous update but would rather have this problem fixed.

The news reader (powered by Technavia) for the Tucson Daily Star starts OK but continually slows down and eventually Firefox hangs and is non responsive. It happens in different places. The same news reader works OK in Edge or Chrome. Any idea how to trouble shoot this?

Mike Mulcahy

I've been using Firefox for about six months. I'm a MacBook user with the most recent version of Sonoma installed. After a month or so of using Firefox it starts crashing and freezing. Sometimes I can't restart it for several minutes. Whenever this happens, I refresh it. I've refreshed it about twice. I've re-installed it twice too, but it keeps happening. Most settings are default, but I wanted to include the settings in case this could be the problem: - I've turned off Firefox home content - I've turned off all passwords and autofill features - Never Remember History - Do Not Track and Tell Websites not to share/sell my data are turned on - I left the standard-level security settings as is

I have one extension installed.

The only other browser I have installed is Safari and I am not having these issues. I should add that I don't receive any error messages when this happens, it just freezes. The most recent issue is that I was clicking on buttons on a website and it wasn't working, but when I started using the Safari browser (which also set to private mode) it worked fine.

When it works I love Firefox and would like to keep using it. I am wondering if there is anything I can do to fix this.