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Firefox Add-ons prevent Windows sleep function from working

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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If I have any Firefox Add-ons enabled, Windows 7 won't go to sleep. I can work around this by manually disabling all Add-ons. But this is not a practical or reasonable solution. I'm using the latest Windows 7 Pro (7601), Firefox Quantum 61.0.2 and a variety of Add-ons. This includes newly released Quantum-compatible Add-ons. The problem seemed to have started approx. 6 months ago with a particular release of FF.

If I have any Firefox Add-ons enabled, Windows 7 won't go to sleep. I can work around this by manually disabling all Add-ons. But this is not a practical or reasonable solution. I'm using the latest Windows 7 Pro (7601), Firefox Quantum 61.0.2 and a variety of Add-ons. This includes newly released Quantum-compatible Add-ons. The problem seemed to have started approx. 6 months ago with a particular release of FF.

All Replies (3)

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If the problem does not exist when you disable all add-ons, then one (or maybe even more) must be causing it.

Have you tried disabling all add-ons and then re-enable them one by one till you find the culprit  ?

You won't have this add-on, cause that would be too obvious :

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/keep-awake-screen-only/

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Thanks, McCoy. As I tried to say in my posting I must manually disable "all Add-ons". To prove this, I disabled all Add-ons, then painstakingly enabled each one, one at a time, then tried to sleep. Each and every one prevents the system from sleeping, not any one in particular.

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You can try to disable hardware acceleration in Firefox.

Close and restart Firefox after modifying the setting to make the change effective.

You can check if there is an update for your graphics display driver and check for hardware acceleration related issues.


In Firefox Safe mode these changes are effective:

  • hardware acceleration is disabled (Options/Preferences -> General -> Performance)
  • all extensions are disabled (about:addons)
  • default theme is used (no lightweight theme)
  • default toolbar layout is used
  • xulstore.json is ignored
  • userChrome.css and userContent.css are ignored (chrome folder in profile folder)
  • JavaScript JIT compilers are disabled
  • plugins are not affected
  • preferences are not affected