Firefox Community Forum

I use Firefox with DuckDuckGo on Ubuntu 24.04, Gnome desktop. My Firefox browser window regularly freezes but can be unfrozen by simply repositioning the window. This is really annoying.

I also use Chromium on the same system and there are no issues.

Any ideas?

After the last Linux upgrade to 36.0.2 the password or user name hot links only work once. The first time the link is gray and will activate. The second time I try and use this feature the link is not gray and will not activate.

Every time this happens I have to close Firefox and reopen it. Then I get one more shot at auto loading a password before it stops working.

Ubuntu - I use the SNAP version of Firefox - I generally have lots of tabs open but only use 5 or so of them and it's generally fine.... but when I am closing Firefox, it USES like 100% of the CPU and ALL of the RAM and ALL of the SWAP memory when closing.

This locks up the computer.

Sometimes it doesn't quite go all the way but I can watch it all happen in real time, using Task Manager - and that shows a solidwall of all resources occouring, when the close Firefox is run.

I am told by research via ChatGPT that this is a very real problem with the SNAP version and it's best to change to the Debian version, copy all the bookmarks etc., across and then uninstall the SNAP version.

It's rather disconcerting to have Linux crash because of this one app locking it up and frequently.

Chat GPT:

Is there a problem with Firefox Snap Version closing and using all the resources while doing so, which results in locking up the computer?

You're definitely not imagining it—there have been reports of Firefox's Snap version consuming excessive system resources (CPU, memory) and even causing lockups or hangs, particularly during closure. Here's what’s going on and how to mitigate it:

What’s Happening with Firefox Snap?

2. Browser Hangs or Locks the System on Close

On Linux (especially Ubuntu), users have reported that closing Firefox can lead to it hanging in memory, sometimes unresponsive and still consuming resources.
Super User
Ask Ubuntu
A stark example from Reddit illustrates the severity:
“About 50% of the time I open Firefox, it'll reach 100% CPU usage in about 30 seconds… PC completely unusable unless I shutdown.”
Reddit

3. Known Wayland Sway Bug

On Wayland/Sway setups, reloading Sway while Firefox is open can trigger intense logging, causing high CPU use and an enormous syslog.
Fix: Set MOZ_DISABLE_WAYLAND_PROXY=1, or upgrade to FF 125 where the issue is addressed.
Reddit+1

Alternative Approach

Many users, particularly on Ubuntu, opt out of Snap completely in favor of the .deb package or PPA builds. These alternatives often avoid these specific issues. Ask Ubuntu Reddit

Thoughts? Solutions?

Thanks in advance.

firefox stalls on ubuntu and the OS says it is running but I cannot or don't know how to restart/reset it from the terminal. A reboot of the computer solves the issue but I have to re enter the bios password etc. Is there a simple solution?

I just set up a server with linux Ubuntu 24.04 Desktop, with Firefox 129.0.2 included to do some dev and testing work.

Problem: Firefox seems unable to see or open files that are above or outside the user's home dir tree.

The only extra packages installed are the LAMP stack and Google Chrome, which has no problem. (had to have something for A/B testing.)

I've tried entering the url of file:///var/www/index.html, I've tried selecting 'open with...' from the files app, etc. Nothing works.

I can get to the file through http://localserver/index.html with no issues. I've verified permissions on the entire directory tree to the file. Everything from end to end has read permissions for all, 755.

I've checked the following advanced settings: security.sandbox.content.level..............................0 (started at 4, now at 0, no effect or change.) security.fileuri.strict_origin_policy.........................false (default setting as installed.)

I am able to open file:/// and get a dir listing. BUT, if I click on var, it gives "Access to the file was denied." I even tried changing the permissions on /var to 777, but no change.

This seems to be a Firefox only problem, since Google Chrome works where firefox doesn't.

I've spent several hours searching for ways to fix this, all with no success. Does anyone have any idea how to fix this, or even what to look at???

This is one of the more annoying messages Firefox has recently added:

"Your browser is being managed by your organisation."

It is obviously wrong, because it is shown on a private Ubuntu 24.04 computer where I have myself installed Firefox from a tarball installation (Firefox version 142.0.1).

The about:policies page just shows: Homepage: URL "https://start.ubuntu-mate.org/"

  Locked	false
  StartPage	"homepage"

Why does Firefox give such obviously misleading information? All the other articles are not helpful at all either, some are talking about security software, some about malware.

This is an extremely user-unfriendly and confusing message: if security software is to blame, why does Firefox not tell what exactly is restricted? When malware changed something why does Firefox not tell what it changed? What even does the message actually imply, what is prevented what otherwise would work and why? What does the information shown on the about:policies page really tell me?

This is by the way shown when starting Firefox using an EMPTY directory for its profile (so making it use a brand new profile), running from a brand new installation directory extracted from a tar file. So what on earth makes it think it is "managed by my organization"?

There is no extension installed, no policies.json file in the newly created profile, nothing. It looks as if the firefox browser would just arrive with this weird setting/configuration comiled right into it?

I know that there is a generic Linux iteration that can be downloaded, but it does not appear to allow for use on ARM64. Is there a way that I can download, install, and access Firefox on my Orange Pi 5 Plus?

That is the first line in the Hippocratic Oath. All doctors have to swear to it. All software developers should too.

I made the mistake of letting Firefox on KUbuntu update. It obliterated all my tabs and all my history. There's nothing left. I had a lot of tabs open with intent to use them to update some astronomy instructional activities. I don't know if I'll be able to find them again.

I don't really have a question except to ask: What fresh hell is this? Is it really that hard to just leave things the hell alone? I'm afraid to ever update Firefox again. If everything else wasn't based on Chromium, I'd be out of here.

Also, it looks like something out of Windows 7.

It's all gone. It's a wonder you didn't delete all my bookmarks while you were at it.

So I have an Excel workbook in my onedrive from MS, It was working fine on my firefox browser in my Ubuntu OS, last week it started to delete my cell's information whenever I pressed the enter, tab or arrow keys, I contacted the MS support and they get me to opened the same file on a chrome browser and worked fine... I still want to use my firefox browser but this problem is very annoying, please help me sort it out!!!

There is (IMHO) some missing functionality / unwanted feature or call it what you like (bug?).

History -> Manage History

select e.g. Last 7 days, right click on Name and select at least two attributes (you can choose from: Tags, Location,Most Recent Visit, Added and Last Modified)

Select the first entry of the list, all displayed fields are selected/highlighted.

Copy (either with the menu or with Ctrl-C) and paste it in your favourite text editor.

Why is only the URL copied? Other fields were also highlighted. Why are they not included?

This is WYSINWYG (what you see is not what you get).

It is possible to export bookmarks as an html file, so why is this not possible with history?

OK, it is possible to query the sqlite3 database directly to get some history info but it's a bit cumbersome.

To do so,

  copy the sqlite (places.sqlite) database to some safe place then open the database (with 'sqlite3 places.sqlite')
  get the history info you are interested in with a sqlite query,
  e.g. select title,visit_count,site_name,url,description,last_visit_date from moz_places where url like '%support%';

But there is no simple (AFAIK) way to convert 'last_visit_date' (an integer) to something human readable.

So either include the whole selection when something is copied (WYSIWYG) or provide export history as an html file.

ps: why is there on option 'other' in the list of 'topics' ? pps: I already posted this comment but it got lost somehow

Machine: Dell Inspiron 15 5567 CPU: Intel i5-7xxx Op Sys: Ubuntu 24.04.1 Firefox version: Flathub 130.0

For the past 2 weeks Firefox has been repeatedly crashing soon after going on to certain sites or trying to apply my 2FA authenticator add-on.

Suddenly there's a screen shudder and a new window opens, inviting me to submit a crash report. See attached image.

I do not believe that this is down to Ubuntu 24.04 upgrade done at end of August.

But it's enough for me to largely go over to Chromium and Firefox Dev Ed.

If Mozilla don't act on this crashing I can see its market being lost fairly fast.

apparently, programmers don't understand how aggravating not having backward compatibility is to the rest of us, so please bear with my extreme aggravation here. IF IT AIN'T BROKE, QUIT FIXING IT.

 firefox disabled my addons, thus forcing me to upgrade, and now I am angry. Tried downloading the new version several times. My os is as updated as it can get. Using the APT link from this site, it just shows garbage. Using the download for linux 64 bit link, it makes me jump through hoops and looks like it is working, but it looks different and none of my bookmarks transferred over. Closing it down and reopening it, I see the old version, thus making it look like I am possibly running both versions separately. Once the *all new singing and dancing special that is supposedly so much better than the old that some ignoramus decided I MUST use it instead of the old and functional one* is closed out, I see no way to reopen it. And neither version will enable or allow me to download singlefile. That is the only program I need from firefox at this time.
 Will somebody please show me, step by step, as if I am 5 years old, a back door that will enable my addons, before I go nuts and start beating programmers to death with reams of algorithms?

very frustrated, and pissed at how programmers always screw things up that are working just fine by upgrading crap. Now, I have suddenly had all of my addons quit working, was forced to update my firefox. Nothing changed, and it still shows that I am using version 105, instead of the all-new, better and fancier, singing and dancing crap that is being forced upon me.

For some weeks I have ad an issue with Firefox using 50%-100% of CPU. Normally it is the Firefox process itself, sometimes it is also "Privileged Cont".

OS is Kubuntu 24.04. Firefox has done this across 2-3 versions.

Things I have tried:

Restarting Firefox No change, I'll even get 100% cpu usage with no tabs open

Refresh Firefox to remove settings and addons No change

Uninstall Snap and try direct Apt package No change

Remove ~/.mozilla to fully remove any residual settings/cache/etc No change

Try with and without hardware acceleration See: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1308215 No change!

I would blame my old computer hardware, but Brave runs fine. I am now using Brave, but would dearly like to return to Firefox as I miss containers, and I don't support a chromium dominated web.

For the past few months, the browser will no longer download any files. The only diagnostic that I can see is failed when the download is attempted. I have refreshed firefox and the problem remains. Chrome can download without any problems, but I used firefox for many years and wish to continue.

Bob Hopkins