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A website has captured my husband's Firefox; it can't be closed except by restarting PC. Subsequent Firefox restart goes to same place. Help!!!

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  • Paskiausią atsakymą parašė Sue_Caldwell

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The website claims to be a survey about Fox News. The full URL exceeds the URL window. The website takes over Firefox -- it can't be closed, and no Firefox commands work. The Firefox window can't be killed by Task Manager. I can't clear the cache or history from Firefox because it is already possessed by this demon. (Note: My husband is blind, and his screen reader -- JAWS -- can't handle this bizarre behavior, so I'm involved. He has no idea how he first got into this predicament.) Note: He is running Windows 7 (64 bit), and I believe the latest version of Firefox -- it updates automatically. My next idea is to uninstall and reinstall Firefox. Will that kill the cache? (good) the Bookmarks? (bad!!)

The website claims to be a survey about Fox News. The full URL exceeds the URL window. The website takes over Firefox -- it can't be closed, and no Firefox commands work. The Firefox window can't be killed by Task Manager. I can't clear the cache or history from Firefox because it is already possessed by this demon. (Note: My husband is blind, and his screen reader -- JAWS -- can't handle this bizarre behavior, so I'm involved. He has no idea how he first got into this predicament.) Note: He is running Windows 7 (64 bit), and I believe the latest version of Firefox -- it updates automatically. My next idea is to uninstall and reinstall Firefox. Will that kill the cache? (good) the Bookmarks? (bad!!)

Chosen solution

Delete the sessionstore.js file and possible sessionstore-##.js files with a number and sessionstore.bak in the Firefox Profile Folder.

Note that deleting sessionstore.js will cause App Tabs and Tab Groups and open and closed (undo) tabs to get lost, so you will have to create them again.

You can set the Integer pref browser.sessionstore.max_resumed_crashes to 0 on the about:config page to get the about:sessionrestore page immediately with the first restart after a crash has occurred or the Task Manager was used to close Firefox.

That way you see if a sessions has crashed or otherwise didn't close properly and will allow you to deselect the tab(s) that you do not want to reopen, but will allow to reopen other tabs.

See:

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Try the Firefox Safe Mode to see how it works there. The Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode, which disables most add-ons.

(If you're not using it, switch to the Default theme.)

  • You can open the Firefox 4.0+ Safe Mode by holding the Shift key when you use the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
  • Or use the Help menu item and click on the Restart with Add-ons Disabled... menu item while Firefox is running.

Don't select anything right now, just use "'Start in Safe Mode" To exit the Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before using the Firefox shortcut (without the Shift key) to open it again. If it is good in the Firefox Safe Mode, your problem is probably caused by an extension, and you need to figure out which one.

Please follow the Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems article for that.

When you figure out what's causing your issues, please let us know. It might help other users who have the same problem. _________________________________________________________________________________

Sometimes a problem with Firefox may be a result of malware installed on your computer, that you may not be aware of.

You can try these free programs to scan for malware, which work with your existing antivirus software:

Microsoft Security Essentials is a good permanent antivirus for Windows 7/Vista/XP if you don't already have one.


Further information can be found in the Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware article.

Did this fix your problems? Please report back to us!

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Chosen Solution

Delete the sessionstore.js file and possible sessionstore-##.js files with a number and sessionstore.bak in the Firefox Profile Folder.

Note that deleting sessionstore.js will cause App Tabs and Tab Groups and open and closed (undo) tabs to get lost, so you will have to create them again.

You can set the Integer pref browser.sessionstore.max_resumed_crashes to 0 on the about:config page to get the about:sessionrestore page immediately with the first restart after a crash has occurred or the Task Manager was used to close Firefox.

That way you see if a sessions has crashed or otherwise didn't close properly and will allow you to deselect the tab(s) that you do not want to reopen, but will allow to reopen other tabs.

See:

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The root cause was a Trojan virus that must have slipped past Kaspersky. After a full run of Kaspersky and cleaning the virus, I used cor-el's suggestion to clear the sessionstore.js files. All is now well. Thanks!