Hi all.
This is a long message. I've tried to give as much info to reproduce a frustrating and re-occurring problem.
Firefox regularly freezes when my PCs resume from s… (read more)
Hi all.
This is a long message. I've tried to give as much info to reproduce a frustrating and re-occurring problem.
Firefox regularly freezes when my PCs resume from sleep. Multiple PCs, Windows 10 and Windows 11. Unfortunately it is hard to reproduce because it depends on a number of conditions and pages to be opened.
I've had this problem with Firefox for many years now, easily since 2015. Because I normally only notice it when resuming from sleep and the combined problems, I've struggled to identify the exact trigger combination.
Has anyone else seen this?
I will try gather debug logs next time it starts again. In the meantime, has anyone got a suggestion?
Troubleshooting attempts
- Over the past years I have tried clearing cache, cookies, resetting FF, restarting the PC, starting FF in troubleshooting mode, disable and even uninstall all plug-ins, and much more.
Nothing solves it, but it is usually intermittent.
Problem trigger conditions
• The problems seem related to when the network device resumes the connection. When the problem occurs after resuming from sleep, it can be reproduced when network connection is restarted.
• It doesn't happen if I immediately sleep the PC and wake it again. That might be because the network remains 'awake' for a while.
• It is highly dependent on the web pages open in Firefox at the time
AND which Firefox window they're in
AND the session in the pages that are open or something about the activity (scripts / session) on the page that is triggered when the network is re-established.
• A combination will cause one or more Firefox app windows to freeze
• Sometimes I can reproduce the problem 50+ times over two days in a row by restarting a wired network connection. Then the problem disappears.
For example:
○ I found one Firefox window was freezing during a test, but a second empty one did not. I then moved all but the active tab (where I was logging this ticket) to the other Firefox window. The first page in the primary FF window kept freezing, but the other tabs moved to a new app window did not. I then move a "working page" back to the primary FF Window and the "problem page" to the other Firefox window, and the problem disappeared and wouldn't occur again.
○ This situation is quite common. With a combination of pages open, on the same PC, Firefox freeze everytime after resuming or the network connection is restarted, even with all pages "unloaded" from Firefox, so they shouldn't be doing anything. Later, I might close a set of pages when I'm done, and the problem goes away.
Environment:
- Multiple Windows PCs over the past 6 or more years
- Clean and upgraded operating systems
- Windows 10 and 11 Pro 64bit, all with latest patches installed.
- Firefox - always latest version. If Firefox is uninstalled and re-installed, the sessions and open pages are lost, to the problem is gone for a while, but then re-appears.
- I use my Firefox account to sync everything: settings, bookmarks, tabs etc. between multiple PCs.
I also have Firefox on my Android phone, Samsung S24, also sync'd to the same Firefox account.
I always sleep my PC with Firefox and other apps running, with many tabs open in FF.
Symptoms:
- When it has frozen, Firefox app is the only one frozen. The other Windows apps work normally.
- In Firefox, you'll see these symptoms:
- Nothing inside the FF window works, but if not full screen, you can move it around and all the content shows normally. You can also minimize and maximize the window from the Windows toolbar. It doesn't matter how many Firefox windows or tabs are open, all are hanging the same way.
- You cannot close Firefox from the toolbar.
- As you move the mouse cursor onto the FF app, the first cursor image set (resize icon or whatever) when it goes onto the FF app, is retained until you move the cursor off then app. Once off, the cursor is back to the arrow pointer.
- All Firefox windows open when it becomes frozen, remain frozen for minutes or hours, until you restart Firefox. (See how to restart below, without losing anything).
- You can resize the FF window by dragging the edges or corners. Existing content is cropped when you shrink the window as if it's a screenshot image being cropped. The content is not redrawn when you enlarge the window.
How to get restart FF without killing the app:
- When the FF window(s) are frozen, you *can* open a new Firefox window by right-clicking on Firefox in the Windows toolbar, and choosing "Firefox" or "Open new window". That new window is full responsive and everything in that window and successive windows work 100%.
- You can then close Firefox using ctrl-shift-Q (Firefox menu > Exit), which closes all the FF app windows.
- Then, I can start Firefox again from the menu / pinned app and all windows open again as they were, with nothing lost. All the tabs open as well in each window, just as before the freeze. I can continue without anything lost except maybe session info. Even this partly typed message and session wasn't lost when I did a test.
I hope someone can help resolve this.
Thanks in advance.
Brian
