Firefox Community Forum

Since a month or so, Firefox browser freezes when playing youtube videos. Simply closing the app and restarting won't do the trick, I am forced to open the WIN Task Manager and manually "end task" before I can watch youtube videos again ... until an hour later, or lucky a day later, the same drama unfolds. I run the newest version of each, Firefox and Windows 11. No new extensions or plugins have been added recently. What is to do here? I'm since Netscape on this route and would hate to switch to another browser... :-) Thanks in advance!

I have Firefox (always updated to the latest version) and I have noticed a memory leak that EATS up RAM. I have 1 tab open, playing a set spotify playlist. within 24 hours of rebooting the machine, Firefox has swallowed 7gb of my Memory as shown in Activity Monitor/Memory Pressure. I've been having this issue for some time, updates to MACos make no difference either. NO other program does this. I've tested the same playlist in other browsers, Chrome, Safari, uses 1gb, brave/opera uses less than 500mb and they've been open for over a week. This memory leak is a bug in Firefox. I've seen it before (other software, mainly on Windows) but never like this on a Mac......How do I escalate this?

I have been using Firefox for many, many years. As of late I find it is constantly slowing or freezing and when I check with taskmanager I find Firefox has opened and is running as many as 85 processes. I have tried the recommended methods of limiting it...but the performance options do not provide the ability to limit processes as set out in the instructions....and changing the browser.tabs.remote.autostart to false also did not work. If I can't fix this, I will have to stop using Firefox. I am using version 144.0

I have been using Firefox for many, many years. As of late I find it is constantly slowing or freezing and when I check with taskmanager I find Firefox has opened and is running as many as 85 processes. I have tried the recommended methods of limiting it...but the performance options do not provide the ability to limit processes as set out in the instructions....and changing the browser.tabs.remote.autostart to false also did not work. If I can't fix this, I will have to stop using Firefox. I am using version 144.0

Hello! Today I stuck with problem in my system: after minor package update, hardware acceleration was broke. In past, I stuck with same problem after total pc upgrade (AMD -> NVIDIA GPU, another might be unnecesary), and somehow I fixed it, but i dont remember what exactly fixed it. Can someone please help me turn hardware acceleration on this time? My searching the key arround didn`t helped, but i found in about:support line which notes that firefox unrecognized my videocard etc. My specs: kernel: 6.17.1-zen1-1-zen driver: nvidia-dkms-580.95.05-1 videocard: GTX 1080 TI DE: gnome 49 with Wayland

Tips that ive tried: Tried to make all as wrote in archwiki Tried to install an nvidia vaapi implementor Made some random steps from internet, without effect(maybe thats why hardware acceleration doesent work??)

theres also about:support page attached

Is there a way to have Firefox start with all, or all but the first tab unloaded?

My Firefox starts with about 100 tabs open and many of these now have ads running which makes Firefox very slow. It seems to take ages and ages for all the tabs to load.

Maybe if all the tabs were unloaded when I start Firefox it would be quicker to get up and running??

I'm running Windows 11 on a desktop with an i5 CPU and 32 GB of RAM.

Any help much appreciated.

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.

Windows 11. I have my taskbar behaviour set to ‘Automatically hide the Taskbar’ So usually the Taskbar is not displayed, but when I move my cursor to the bottom of the screen it reappears. With Firefox I cannot make the Taskbar reappear.

I booted the computer this AM and firefox is acting up. I can go to my email accounts (2), but I can't open an email. Both act like this. They will open with MS Edge and all other functions seem to work on the computer except for firefox.

I tried searching for a solution using duckduckgo and google, many of the links wouldn't open and some that did, just loaded re-loaded, but never finished. Pulldown menus, where they ask a question and click to see the anwer, don't work. They are frozen. Can see the cursor highlight the menus, however it will not allow any interaction with them.

I restarted the computer, there was an update, and I had it update. No change with firefox. I reinstalled firefox. No change. For the moment, I'm out of ideas. Anyone have any thoguhts about this, please help. Thanks in advance. Ken

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

Using desktop 141.0, noticed issue of the hand pointer either not appearing, or appearing for less than a second and disappearing when hovering over buttons/urls/etc elements. Sometimes it stops being buggy for a minute or so and then goes back. I can't figure out the exact cause for this, but maybe going outside of the window of the browser ? Consistent in the safe mode, on different websites. See the gif for the visual

Whenever I start my machine, without opening Firefox, Ctrl-Shift-I works (For inverting selections in certain programs, for example).

However, once I open Firefox, these 3 keys no longer work when used together (but work in any other combo).

This persists even when I close Firefox, or kill it in Task manager.

Any ideas?

Cheers

Every couple of minutes Firefox just freezes. YouTube buffers, all open tabs just stop working. I can open new tabs but i cannot search up anything or go into any websites. Is there any fix for this?

Just a note that I had a lot of probem with the firefox not opening when a link is being clicked. It would open in background but not come to focus.

External hyperlinks do not open in Firefox window.

I found that focusmanager.testmode was the cuplrit, after a lot of hard work.

Добрый день! Обратил внимание, что с последним обновлением. у меня стала виснуть браузерная строка полностью и я не могу зайти в настройка. Уже было несколько раз так и мне помогает только полный перезапуск браузера.

Я могу прислать видео, как это выглядит.

Прошу помочь решить эту проблему. Спасибо

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.

I downloaded Firefox not too long ago to combat the fact the Microsoft Edge wasn't working correctly, but ever since I downloaded Firefox it's been making my computer run really slow on the browser. Things are often slow like scrolling up on and down pages websites like Pinterest, and the text when typing on Google docs takes a moment to show up after I've typed it and not instantly, for example.

I checked my computer's task manager because I recently cleaned the laptop, thinking that something else was causing it to be slow, but it isn't. I don't have many processes open on the computer mainly mandatory things and my browser, since I use my laptop mainly for school work, music, or writing. Firefox opens multiple processes, the highest being 21 at one time, and takes up most of the memory on the laptop. Is this normal? Because it takes 1,094.0 MB and keeps my laptop's memory at 90-91%. If it isn't normal, how can I reduce this as well as the lag on my laptop when Firefox is open?

I attached a photo as well.

Hello team,

I tried searching for a solution for the problem I'm about to describe but unfortunately I wasn't able to move forward.

I am running Firefox 141.0 version on my Macbook M4 Pro. The refresh rate of the display is set to 120Hz, but I the scrolling and interaction in the browser feels like it's on standard 60Hz refresh rate. When I compare it to Safari/Chrome it's not as fluent as it should be.

Am I missing an existing option that could be changed or is it something available at the moment?

Thank you, Arsen