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why does firefox lock up when I open a new tab?

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When I click on the + sign to open a new tab, firefox locks up and stops responding immediately.. PIA for sure.. I have to shut it down and restart firefox..

When I click on the + sign to open a new tab, firefox locks up and stops responding immediately.. PIA for sure.. I have to shut it down and restart firefox..

All Replies (2)

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Hello Ranger802, try Firefox Safe Mode to see if the problem goes away. Firefox Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode that temporarily turns off hardware acceleration, resets some settings, and disables add-ons (extensions and themes).

If Firefox is open, you can restart in Firefox Safe Mode from the Help menu:

  • Click the menu button New Fx Menu, click Help Help-29 and select Restart with Add-ons Disabled.

If Firefox is not running, you can start Firefox in Safe Mode as follows:

  • On Windows: Hold the Shift key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
  • On Mac: Hold the option key while starting Firefox.
  • On Linux: Quit Firefox, go to your Terminal and run firefox -safe-mode
    (you may need to specify the Firefox installation path e.g. /usr/lib/firefox)

When the Firefox Safe Mode window appears, select "Start in Safe Mode".

SafeMode-Fx35

If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode, your problem is probably caused by an extension, theme, or hardware acceleration. Please follow the steps in the Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems article to find the cause.

To exit Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.

When you figure out what's causing your issues, please let us know. It might help others with the same problem.

thank you

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If Safe Mode has the same issue...

Does any of the new tab page display, or does it freeze with the page blank?

As you know, the new tab page shows tile from sites you have visited frequently. Depending on your zoom level, you may see 8 or more tiles. However, in the background, unless you changed the default settings, Firefox is preparing 15 tiles for the new tab page.

If Firefox was not able to capture a thumbnail image for a site in a history tile, it may try to do so in the background when you open the new tab page, and perhaps that might be causing this freeze.

To remove that from the page, you probably need to set Firefox to "Work Offline". You can do that from the File menu. If you do not normally display the menu bar, you can tap the Alt key to display it temporarily.

Then you could try to clear suspicious tiles from the new tab page, assuming you can access it.

Use Ctrl- to zoom out so you can see all 15 tiles, then hover suspicious thumbnails and click the "x" button at the upper right corner to block them from appearing on the page.

Does that help?