http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_%28Firefox%29

We're sorry to hear that. Please note Adobe updated Flash Player to its version 10.4 recently, and that version may need the latest Firefox version.

Yes, it is a PITA. You have to upgrade Firefox to version 14. If you don't like to, you can always reset Firefox or test Firefox Portable, which doesn't require installation, to see if it works.

The Reset Firefox feature can fix many issues by restoring Firefox to its factory default state while saving your essential information. Note: This will cause you to lose any Extensions, Open websites, and some Preferences.

To Reset Firefox do the following:

1. Go to Firefox > Help > Troubleshooting Information.
2. Click the "Reset Firefox" button.
3. Firefox will close and reset. After Firefox is done, it will show a window with the information that is imported. Click Finish.
4. Firefox will open with all factory defaults applied.

Further information can be found in the Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings article.

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I rather enjoyed Tyranno's rant. Largely he is spot-on, but it was probably completely wasted on Mozilla.

I share his irritation about unexplained changes imposed arrogantly from on high.

I share his annoyance at the general response that somehow he, the user, has done wrong, and should spend several hours debugging Moz' programs for them. (A prime example is the idiot response above, which I trust was the product of some kind of warped sense of humour. Thanks for the lampoon, finitarry :-D)

A general websearch reveals hundreds (nay, thousands) of wrong answers to the perceived plugin-container problem.

"What firewalls are you running?" I saw that! What puzzles me is why this expert diagnotician didn't ask what the user ate for breakfast that morning, it's about as relevant.

On the PR side, how is it that Mozilla did (does) such a bad job of explaining that plugin-container is there to stop Flash from crashing the entire browser? (Yes, they did and are doing. )

Or that it offers to provide missing plugins from time to time, and regularly fails to do so, and is deaf to complaints.

Or... , Or...

But that isn't the real problem, is it?

The essential problem here is that Firefox plugin-container ISN'T keeping Flashplayer confined properly; it continues to run away with vast memory & cpu without being curtailed promptly, the FF resource management obliges by providing more & more until the user's mouse & keyboard are ignored, and he has to go for system commands to get control back. Sometimes it seems to steal the keyboard even when its cpu is displayed as relatively low 3% or so. Kill it, and everything runs again.

I'm having to do that on a regular basis right now, with FF Aurora 12., plenty memory, plenty swap space.

It's the same story even with FF 15.0

What is more, it continues even if I use an open-sourced replacement for the Adobe offering, which rather points the finger at FF (although I suspect the problem has something to do with bad error-handling in the Flash spec).

But I suspect that isn't the major problem at all. The major problem is attitude.

The major problem is that Mozilla has developed arrogance. Mozilla IS NOT LISTENING when people say their carefully-crafted offerings do not work, are inconvenient, are unasked-for. Mozilla is not listening or consulting at the design stage either.

(Am I being too harsh? No. My input to the AMO was censored and removed, dammit. The "new" AMO is still a poor effort.)

(Sorry, Mr. Moderator.)

That's the problem. Users say, hey, Mozilla, there's a problem with Flash plugin-container. It hogs resources and takes control from my mouse. I have to kill it on a regular basis to get reasonable response back. In fact, I've just killed it at 18%cpu because nothing else was working.

They might go on to say, hey, Moz, there's a problem with your memory management. I know it's very clever & difficult & technical & that, but if I open a lot of tabs it fails to cope & my box slows to a crawl. Whay are so many unseen windows consuming so much out of sight?

They might go on & on. But Moz isn't listening to any of that.

Moz says, oh, that's your fault, YOU did did something bad, you don't understand it's protection for your own good (because Moz doesn't explain that at POS), you should be grateful - You debug it for us, would you? Here, go through this arcane procedure. Anyway, why don't you just put up with it? What did you eat for breakfast, anyway, is that the problem? Have you tried buying a new computer? And do be quiet, please, we're busy congratulating ourselves on our brilliance.

Time for the beast to wake up again, methinks, before people are tempted away by other, more shiny things.

Oh, and Mozilla, listen: There's a problem with Flash handling & plugin-container & resource-handling that takes control away from the user to the extent that he can't even scroll or kill a tab. There is a problem, there really is. And it isn't up to the user to cope with it.

And there may just be an attitude problem as well (and I don't mean the users' attitude).

malcontent,

The question about firewalls is not totally irrelevant, but should be more specific, such as, "Has your firewall allowed plugin-container.exe to access the Internet?" When I was using Windows XP, I had Kerio firewall, and I had to make a rule for it to allow the plugin container to access websites.

The plugin container was supposed to prevent any plugin from crashing the browser, not just Flash. Too bad it does not play nicely with Real Media plugins. To use those, you have to bypass the plugin container. I have not had a problem with the Flash player, on Windows or Mac OS.

I do think that the Mozilla developers are concentrating too much on copying Chrome rather than making the browser work better.

Hi, finitarry,

Standard Diagnostic! ROFL!  :-D

There's Tyranno~ describing his FFing experience in somewhat effusive terms as not exactly ideal, and the voice of reason says "let's go through this arcane ritual" which really, really isn't go into solve his problem, and just adds to his view that techies nowadays inhabit a different planet.

It's quite instructive to take his amusing rant & separate it out into cogent points. They're easily missed in there, I suspect due to this compositing software re-formatting his layout. It probably put another few points on his blood pressure, and it is truly annoying not to have a WYSIWYG editor here. Just another aspect of lack of consideration.

Part of his problem is, you see, having to go through arcane techie rituals in order to get on with the rest of his life, which the techies (and so-called designers ) have interrupted by imposing their clearly superior views upon him (sarcasm, note).

And he's angry with himself for trusting you (you, Moz, that is) amongst other things.

Now, I'd say that FF10 was probably a low point (and that his timing was really unlucky there) but my view - already stated above - is that there IS an unaddressed problem going beyond

You defend the question about firewall; Was it the solution, I wonder? More pertinently, how does FF report such a problem to the user? By hogging resources, by crashing?

I admit I'd have missed that because

- I wouldn't expect a f/w exception to cause the behaviour described, 
- I would have expected plu-con to have inherited permission - but who knows. 

Perhaps it would have been better if the helper had said instead that "some firewalls require an extra specific rule to permit internet access for plugin-container, could that be the problem?", rather than asking an intrusive question about his security provisions, but that's just a question of style.

"Why do software developers ALWAYS refuse to take responsibility for a terrible design flaw and just undo it already - instead blaming everyone else?" he says.

Yes. Why? How can we stop that?

Here's an example:

When plu-con crashes, for example, it produces a nice little message saying Adobe has crashed, you can reload the page. Not so impressive if it just crashes again, of course. But that rarely immediately happens because all the other instances have been stopped as well. (Maybe a clue there?).

But wouldn't it have prevented a lot of flack & misunderstanding if it said, "The Flash player has crashed, but Firefox's clever 1970s technology plugin-container has saved you from a whole-browser crash, so all you need to do is reload the tab. Aren't you lucky?"

And wouldn't it be even better still if FF somehow contained & prevented the crash in the first place? Even if that is not always possible.

That idea of lack of consideration for the user somehow brings me on to the kind FF occasional offer to supply missing plugins, which never actually works. Thousands of man-hours wasted, worldwide. And it doesn't even say which plugin is missing, so the user can't take over & do his own thing. It's just indicative of a mindset.

Here's the main problem, otherwise stated, using the truly terrible Goo-search statistic:

G-search [firefox "10." slow ]  About 108,000,000 results 
G-search [firefox "15." slow ]  About      60,800 results
                                 improved!
G-search [firefox  ~frozen OR ~crashes OR ~unusable] (in past year)
                               About  28,700,000 results
G-search [firefox  locks up ]  About 1,330,000 results
(it would be more, but FF was locked up & they couldn't 
    report it :)

My view remains that some contemporary programmers favour their precious software over the user's access to his/er own machine. Sometimes they even try to justify that error as "letting the machine do what it's good at", rather that acknowledging that they should be letting the user do what he's good at.

Don't even get me started on air-head designers. (The rare good designers are another matter.)

At the same time I'm very aware of some very good work going on "behind the scenes", it's just that something is still lacking in consideration for the user.

Now, as I've said,

 LISTEN, there at the back, please,

there seems to be a problem with FF slowing, hogging resources. It's still there, certainly in Aurora 12, and even in FF15.

• It goes to the extent of preventing the user from even moving the cursor. There is no response to the keyboard.
• It even stops the user getting the o/s process-monitoring/control that would free things up (Linux AND M*cro-s**t, it seems).
• it goes as deep as obstructing system hot-key combinations.
• It halts dowloads, so the connections are lost.
• It delays scripts until they time-out and generate a swathe of notifications, sometimes not immediately visible (& sometimes precipitating consequent lock-ups).
• Sometimes it crashes the FF session, sometime the only way out is to stop the machine.
• It particularly relates to the Crash player & container, whether Adoobe or opensource, and also to having a large number of active tabs.

The problem is going unaddressed. Maybe because of a view that it's the user's fault in some way, and developers maybe feel they have something more important to do than protect the user's experience. (Is that right?)

My own two penny-worth is that FF resource manangement is attempting to second guess o/s resource manangement, the two are competing and getting too close to a reasonable operating limit. But I could be wide of the mark.

It isn't going to be addressed by the standard diagnostic.

Please, finitarry, go tell your leaders.

Malcontent,

The Mozilla developers are not my leaders. The closest contact I have had with them is through the occasional newsgroup message. With some of them, I get the impression that they are not interested in the user's point of view. They seem to be absolutely dead set on copying everything Google Chrome does.

finitarry, Thanks for responding. It's a pity Mozilla isn't listening.

Plugin container crashing and using 25% of resources.

Simple remedy - I now use Opera.