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Firefox cache is very hard to clear since last update - takes up to 50 clicks to get it cleared

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It use to be that clearing browser cache really was a one click operation. Since the last update this is no longer the case. Now it can take up to 50 clicks to clear. And when cache total gets below 100MB it goes down by tenths! I have arthritis in my hands and this is very painful!

It use to be that clearing browser cache really was a one click operation. Since the last update this is no longer the case. Now it can take up to 50 clicks to clear. And when cache total gets below 100MB it goes down by tenths! I have arthritis in my hands and this is very painful!

All Replies (8)

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HI djklaugh19, I noticed that you have Firefox on a Windows 10 computer. I might recommend showing the menu bar in your Firefox profile to minimize the number of clicks to clear the cache.

  1. Go to the Firefox menu, and click on "+Customize"
  2. See that the Toolbar is shown

This way it is only two clicks to clear the cache.

Another option is to clear the cache when you close Firefox to never remember history in the Preferences > Privacy menu.

I hope this helps.

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Do you mean the cache usage that you see in "Options/Preferences > Advanced > Network" (about:preferences#advanced > Network) after you have clicked the Clear Now button?

Clearing the cache might be done in the background and can take some time, especially when the amount of space that needs to be cleared is large. Firefox doesn't seem to update this information on the about:preferences page. You can try to reload the page a few times via F5 or via the reload button on the Navigation Toolbar to see if that changes the amount of space used.

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I have a similar problem, but on a Windows Vista Desktop computer. My problem started pretty much in the same way, I would click to clear the cache and it would clear the cache with 1 click! Then gradually it took 2 clicks, then 3, 4, 5, etc.. Now it takes hundreds of clicks or I have to click and hold several times to get it to clear the cache! But then something odd happened, It would not fully clear the cache all the way. At first it would leave 1kb of cache. I would wait a minute or 2 then click to clear and then it would clear it completely. But Then it just would not clear that 1kb of cache no matter how many times I clicked or how long I Press and held on "clear now". Now it is up to 551kb that it will not clear!! I have a screen shot to show what I am talking about!

This problem seems to get worse and worse with each Firefox Update!!

I have also tried clearing cookies, computer cache, downloads and browsing history to see if that helps, but it doesn't!

I have done the recommendation listed in the posts above to see if they help and will let you know if they work or not.

If this would require me to open a post topic of my own, could a moderator please let me know, Thank you.

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Hi Groffeaston, next time you have a lot to clear, could you click the Clear Now button only once, then reload the page every 5 seconds using Ctrl+r or F5 to check on progress? The cache clearing runs in the background to avoid locking the interface, but there is a glitch with the remaining size not getting updated in all cases. They are working on that, and there should be some fixes for it in Firefox 48, but it would be useful to know whether yours is running slowly/continuously in the background, or simply stalling out.

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I am not sure if it is running slowly/continuously in the back ground.

At one time I was able to click "Clear now" and it would clear the cache down to 0 with in couple seconds or even Immediately. Now I click "Clear Now" sometimes It does nothing for a few seconds and then clears only a little bit of the cache, sometimes it does nothing for a few minutes and then only a clears a little bit of the cache, and some times it totally does nothing at all! Sometimes I will click it again and it will immediately clear some more cache and some times it will clear a lot of cache, and some times it will NOT clear any cache at all; it will actually go up (Increase)!!

The other thing is, I am thinking it might be related, but I am not sure, Every time my computer starts it take forever to load up, and when I open my Firefox web browser it takes forever to load up and It freezes up and will freeze up my computer as well. Also when the Firefox loads up I have it load up: My Yahoo email account, My Hotmail email account, Bing.com (search), and my AOL email account Pages. My Yahoo.com email page usually takes the longest to load up and usually triggers the Freezing and "Crashing" of the Web browser, But so will my Hotmail and occasionally so will the AOL email page. I get a Ton of "Script Errors" when ever I click on a story on my Yahoo.com home page and then try to read the article!! Another time I get the "Script Errors" is when I go to Yahoo Fantasy Sports pages and/or click on a video or article link on Facebook! That is when I get a message saying: A Script error occurred and about a plug in container failed in Firefox and will be shut down/closed!

Somehow or other I feel these are all related. I could be wrong, but when I seem to get one relatively okay and working somewhat fine, so I can try to work on the others, there is a Firefox update and suddenly they all get worse! Java was working fine and then suddenly I am getting all of these "Script Errors" and then the slow start up and slow load up of the web browser, then the "cache clearing issue" began to develop. It could be because of the age of my computer, 9 years old, or that I have had several virus/malware infections over the years, there is just a whole lot of files on my computer, some of the files that are needed the data has been corrupted, or a combination of some or all of them!

Sorry for the long post, just doing a lot of thinking out loud. Hopefully it helps others who may have a similar problem(s).

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Empty Cache Button {web link} Cache clearing made easy. One click.

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Hi Groffeaston, it's difficult to tell whether unresponsive script errors are related to slow (or stalled) cache clearing or slow startups. I haven't seen that in other threads since cache clearing changed from a foreground task (when I used a "spinning" hard drive, this locked up Firefox for 30-60 seconds) to a background task.

Could you start a new thread for the other issues? There's an Ask a Question link at the top of support pages, or use this link:

https://support.mozilla.org/questions/new/desktop/fix-problems

Scroll to the bottom of the suggestions list to continue with the form.

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Okay, thanks.