Firefox Community Forum

After every update, Firefox starts to a blank screen and will not start loading the webpage url put in for over twenty minutes to a half hour. During this time other browsers on my Win 10 PC load immediately so it is not a network issue. It is Firefox. When I see that an update is pending I hesitate to do the update because I know I will lose the use of Firefox until it is ready to respond. It just hangs with "loading X.com" showing at the bottom left of the blank screen. I have been using Firefox for a long time and in the past year or longer it has become very unreliable. There are also instances where without an update it will do this and the only way I can get it to work is to clear the cache and the history through settings. What is going on with Firefox! (And lately there is an update every couple fo days!

Hi, after latest update just now, the browsers uses up to 45gb of ram within a few minutes! Not sure what it is, I am on MACOS Sequia Version 15.6.1 (24G90) macbook pro M1

This has been in the last month or so. It will freeze up and I can't break out of it. Last time it froze the whole computer and I had to power down and restart. There must be something that changed. And there must be some way for me to be able to quit when this happens. Last time it was on a video call with my 104 year old mother and it is very annoying. The whole thing froze and I had to restart the computer and when I got it back up, she was off. I need some way to break out so I don't have to do a complete restart. t.

When I have multiple tabs open, around the 6th tab, the entire computer freezes. I have to press the physical button to shut down and restart. This behavior started with the last Firefox update. It doesn't happen when I use Brave browser. What changed to cause this?

I'm running Mozilla Firefox for Linux Mint mint 100 - 1.0 version 141.0.3 (64 bit) on Linux Mint 22.1 Cinnamon. These are the latest versions of Mint and of Firefox for Mint.

Hi folks My configuration: MacOS Tahoe FF 15.4.0 When I relaunched FF after restarting the Mac, in the Windows menu all the pages from the previous session were listed but none appeared when I tried selecting them. They must be hidden somewhere. I tried several work-arounds. The one that gives a result is by selecting in the View menu the Enter Full Screen item, then try to go back to a normal view which is a pain in the neck. Is there a clean method to make all those windows come back to their normal position and if possible preventing FF from doing this in the first place? TIA Nick

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.

whenever i scroll trough a website in firefox, the ewperience is very laggy, feels like its 15fps. i have done basic things like disabling hardware acceleration, smooth smooth scrolling.

Hello, For about two or three days now, when I launch Firefox and try to open any website, it takes maybe one minute to load the page, then the navigation is OK on every website.

It only happens when I launch Firefox for the first time of my session. If I close it then relaunch it, it's still very swift.

I tried clear cache and remove cookies, just lost my logins lol but didn't work. I also tried with no extensions, nothing changed. Lastly I tried to set "network.captive-portal-service.enabled" to "false" in "about:config" but it didn't change anything neither.

So before I try anything else that could erase something on my profile, I'd rather ask here for some help :)

PS: running FF 153.0.4 on Debian Trixie with Mozilla repos. Only have two extensions: µblockOrigin and NoScript.

Thank you in advance!

When I brought Firefox up about a week ago, it presented me with a survey, results of which were sent to Firefox developers. They asked several multiple choice questions about features, but they didn't ask a very important question: Would you use Firefox more if it used less system memory? I currently use Google Chrome for about 2/3 of my web browsing because Firefox uses up too much system memory. I would prefer to use Firefox most of the time, but can't, since it bogs down when memory usage gets too high.

The survey should have included a text input box so users could enter any comments for the developers, and the survey did NOT do that.

So, after completing the survey, I was disappointed that I couldn't comment on the most important issue I have with Firefox. I would like the Firefox dev team to try get Firefox's use of system memory down. A short while ago, I opened 4 websites in Google Chrome, then opened the exact same 4 websites in Firefox. The attached shows the memory usage of each browser.

I get screen tearing on videos or when i scroll on any website. Only happens on Firefox, I've tested Chrome, Edge, Opera.

https://streamable.com/80gxcm

Smooth Scrolling is Off. Hardware Acceleration is Off. I've tried toggling "gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.force-enabled" Firefox is up to date.

None of this has helped.

Dear Support Person,

Yesterday, after being notified that an upgrade was available, I executed the upgrade to version 152.0.

The upgrade completed successfully with my eight tabs populating on the left side along with a new tab showing all the features of the new upgrade.

I opened my Gmail tab and my Yahoo mail tab. Eventually, Firefox froze up, saying it was Not Responding. I looked at Task Manager and saw that Firefox was continuing to grab up memory. I ended the Firefox process in Task Manager.

I then opened it again and deleted all the tabs except for one. It continued to grab up memory.

I then opened it in Troubleshooting mode. It errored out, and I sent the report to Firefox support.

The only thing that has changed is the fact that I ran the upgrade to Firefox. Nothing else has changed.

Firefox has been my go-to browser for years. I am using Chrome as my access to the internet now, and cringe every time I go into it.

I hope and pray that you can bring my Firefox friend back to me.

I am anxiously looking forward to hearing from you.

Take care and God bless!

~ Kyle P.S. I just tried getting information from about:support. I was able to copy the raw data and then the application crashed. I sent the Crash Report to you folks. The raw data I pasted in the Troubleshooting Information box.

I always have multiple tabs open in my browser. Previously, I could easily open (and switch between) 20+ tabs (I have 16GB of RAM). Recently, after opening five tabs, the Task Manager shows 10-11GB of RAM (88-90%) in use! How can this be? I cleared the cache and history, but it didn't help. I installed several RAM cleaners, but none freed up the required amount. None of the five programs worked. Where does that 15GB of RAM go when I open Firefox? When will you finally implement something like Google Chrome—they free up RAM for active pages when inactive ones are opened. Maybe it's because I have so many inactive tabs that the RAM is disappearing? But I had just as many tabs before, some of them inactive, and fewer than 20 active ones, so I could easily open another 20. And now I can't even open five new ones. What's happening to the browser?! SOS!

Firefox freezes when I try to sign into YouTube via Google. Becomes totally unresponsive and I have to close browser. It's the only site this happens on. I have cleared the cache and cookies, unchecked "Hardware Acceleration" and other recommendations from other posts. Please talk to me like I'm your Baby Boomer dad.

Been using Firefox for over a decade. But lately is has become so slow now. Often freezes up if more than two tabs are open or a website is in any way very complex. What settings and issues should I check? What has changed? I can run the same sites on Brave and Edge browsers with no issues or not nearly as slow and bogged down.

It takes almost a minute for my home page to come on after I click on My Firefox icon. That has only started happening in the last week or so. But . . . also . . . when I sign into my email account with my ID and complete password, even though I check the "stay signed in" box, that does not happen. I need to fully sign in each time, and that, too, time-wise is somehow related to the delay in getting my home page up. On several occasions I have gotten a message that Firefox is not responding. Thanks for any help you can give. I have Windows 11.

I normally use Firefox Developer Edition, version 127 because any later version always freezes my whole computer (probably because I'm using a 15-year old PC). Recently all my extensions became disabled. I'm now also unable to install any extension because it says "Installation aborted because the add-on appears to be corrupt". I found some instructions on Mozilla website about deleting compatibility.ini and extensions folder, but it didn't solve the issue. Now I'm stuck and confused as I suspect some of the extension files that should be in my Profile folder may not be there.

The simplest solution in this case would be to use the "Refresh Firefox" option which resets everything to default settings, but every time I do it my computer freezes until rebooted. Uninstalling and reinstalling manually is also not the way to go, because it retains all the settings.

I've tried installing the standard Firefox browser (v. 119) alongside the Developer Edition but the same issue is there as well.

I'm looking for an alternative way to get a clean Firefox install, so I can fix my extensions.

Additional info: - Your system specs? Windows 10 64-bit, 4 GB RAM, Pentium Dual-core, no GPU - Hardware acceleration? Disabled. - Using any mods? Yes, two. Geckium for Firefox, which always works fine. The recent issue started when I played around with Revert8Plus, but it initially worked without issues.

It seems that since the Version 141.0 update, initial startup of FF seems to take ve-e-e-ery long (approx 3-4 minutes).

The startup time/lag seems almost the same as it takes to restart after an update.

Anyone else experience this also? Thanks.

Using Google Voice became unusable. Firefox too slow. Had been running just fine up till maybe a month ago when I finally gave in and allowed Firefox to update. Not knowing if it was a Windows or other issue I stupidly did a Windows reset and lost all my installed programs (including Firefox). I did a fresh install of Firefox and manually reentered passwords and bookmarks.

Ran fine for a day or two and is now again unusable. Cleared cache and appears to work OK at the moment but still sluggish.

Finn

Hello For some reason most of the buttons in my toolbar have stopped working. When I first open Firefox they all work, then when I enter websites they stop working. The 'home' button still seems to work, but almost all others (such as the 'back' button etc) can't be selected. This is very frustrating. To note, I am not tech savvy at all.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Andrew