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Firefox prevents Windows from Shutting Down, left in a bad state

  • 9 replies
  • 4 have this problem
  • 15 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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If I have any Firefox tabs open when I try to restart Windows, I get the "The following programs are preventing Windows from shutting down" error, with each of the FF tabs listed.

If I click Cancel and return to the desktop, Firefox is now in a bad state. It has minimized and cannot be restored; the tabs/window cannot be closed from the taskbar, etc. Usually I have to kill the FF process in the taskbar now.

This has happened for the past two years. Today I installed Win 10 Pro and it's still happening. Make this go away!

(Windows, always running the latest stable version of FF)

If I have any Firefox tabs open when I try to restart Windows, I get the "The following programs are preventing Windows from shutting down" error, with each of the FF tabs listed. If I click Cancel and return to the desktop, Firefox is now in a bad state. It has minimized and cannot be restored; the tabs/window cannot be closed from the taskbar, etc. Usually I have to kill the FF process in the taskbar now. This has happened for the past two years. Today I installed Win 10 Pro and it's still happening. Make this go away! (Windows, always running the latest stable version of FF)

All Replies (9)

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We're sorry to hear that Firefox is crashing. In order to assist you better, please follow the steps below to provide us crash IDs to help us learn more about your crash.

  1. Enter about:crashes in the Firefox address bar and press Enter. A Submitted Crash Reports list will appear, similar to the one shown below.
  2. Copy the 5 most recent Report IDs that start with bp- and then go back to your forum question and paste those IDs into the "Post a Reply" box.

Note: If a recent Report ID does not start with bp- click on it to submit the report.

(Please don't take a screenshot of your crashes, just copy and paste the IDs. The below image is just an example of what your Firefox screen should look like.)

aboutcrashesFx29

Thank you for your help!

More information and further troubleshooting steps can be found in the Troubleshoot Firefox crashes (closing or quitting unexpectedly) article.

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1. not crashing, just doing what I said above 2. no crash reports in the list 3. anything else I can provide you?

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I would recommend contacting Microsoft support at this point. I have went through all of my resources so far and am not finding anything.

Thank you

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Heh. This is clearly not a Microsoft issue.

Any chance anybody else will be looking at this issue?

This was reported as a bug some years ago (I found it in the list), but listed as fixed.

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Hopefully someone else will see this post who has a little bit more experience then I do with this! I am kind of new to this I am sorry that I was not more of assistance to you!

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If you use "Clear history when Firefox closes" to clear Cookies then exclude the cookies and instead let the cookies expire when Firefox is closed to make them session cookies.

  • Firefox/Tools > Options > Privacy > "Use custom settings for history" > Cookies: Keep until: "I close Firefox"

Use "Firefox > Exit" (Windows: Firefox/File > Exit; Mac: Firefox > Quit Firefox; Linux: Firefox/File > Quit) to close Firefox if you are currently doing that by clicking the close X on the Firefox title bar.

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Thank you for assisting on this one cor-el! It is much appreciated!! :)

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I'm not sure I understand your answer. Are you suggesting that I do something? Can you clarify what that is?

I do have the "Until I close Firefox" option selected. Are you saying that this is the problem?

And as I state in my post, I'm not closing Firefox at all. I'm quitting Windows while FF is still running. Windows is sending FF the "Shutdown" message, and FF is either (a) saying "No" or (b) ignoring the command, and just sitting there.

The real problem, of course, is that when I come back to the desktop, FF is in a bad state which is equivalent to a Hang.

BTW, a quick Google shows this problem reported many many times. Nobody seems to have an answer, though...

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It is not a good idea to let Windows close Firefox as it can take more time for Firefox to close completely. You should always close Firefox yourself to make sure that Firefox closes properly. You can check the Processes tab in the Windows Task Manager to check how long it takes for Firefox to close.

Are you using "Clear history when Firefox closes" to clear any data?