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When I minimize firefox or click on the icon on my taskbar while firefox is running the session I was just in disappears and I do not get indication of a crash

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  • Last reply by rawbarnes

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I have been having the following issue for a couple of months (noticed it back in April). I open firefox from the icon on my desktop. It opens fine on my windows based PC. If I minimize the program closes. I do not get a crash report or any indication that the program crashed. It doesn't save the session in my session manager so that I can go back to that session. If I have firefox running and do not minimize but leave it running behind other programs and click on the icon on my taskbar firefox closes, and like the other issue I do not get a crash report or any indication of a crash & the session is lost. I have installed the newest version, I have unistalled and reinstalled and still have the issue. I have disabled all add ons and still have the issue.

I have been having the following issue for a couple of months (noticed it back in April). I open firefox from the icon on my desktop. It opens fine on my windows based PC. If I minimize the program closes. I do not get a crash report or any indication that the program crashed. It doesn't save the session in my session manager so that I can go back to that session. If I have firefox running and do not minimize but leave it running behind other programs and click on the icon on my taskbar firefox closes, and like the other issue I do not get a crash report or any indication of a crash & the session is lost. I have installed the newest version, I have unistalled and reinstalled and still have the issue. I have disabled all add ons and still have the issue.

Chosen solution

Hello,

Try Firefox Safe Mode to see if the problem goes away. Firefox Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode that temporarily turns off hardware acceleration, resets some settings, and disables add-ons (extensions and themes).

If Firefox is open, you can restart in Firefox Safe Mode from the Help menu:

  • Click the menu button New Fx Menu, click Help Help-29 and select Restart with Add-ons Disabled.

If Firefox is not running, you can start Firefox in Safe Mode as follows:

  • On Windows: Hold the Shift key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
  • On Mac: Hold the option key while starting Firefox.
  • On Linux: Quit Firefox, go to your Terminal and run firefox -safe-mode
    (you may need to specify the Firefox installation path e.g. /usr/lib/firefox)

When the Firefox Safe Mode window appears, select "Start in Safe Mode".

SafeMode-Fx35

If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode, your problem is probably caused by an extension, theme, or hardware acceleration. Please follow the steps in the Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems article to find the cause.

To exit Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.

When you figure out what's causing your issues, please let us know. It might help others with the same problem.

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Chosen Solution

Hello,

Try Firefox Safe Mode to see if the problem goes away. Firefox Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode that temporarily turns off hardware acceleration, resets some settings, and disables add-ons (extensions and themes).

If Firefox is open, you can restart in Firefox Safe Mode from the Help menu:

  • Click the menu button New Fx Menu, click Help Help-29 and select Restart with Add-ons Disabled.

If Firefox is not running, you can start Firefox in Safe Mode as follows:

  • On Windows: Hold the Shift key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
  • On Mac: Hold the option key while starting Firefox.
  • On Linux: Quit Firefox, go to your Terminal and run firefox -safe-mode
    (you may need to specify the Firefox installation path e.g. /usr/lib/firefox)

When the Firefox Safe Mode window appears, select "Start in Safe Mode".

SafeMode-Fx35

If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode, your problem is probably caused by an extension, theme, or hardware acceleration. Please follow the steps in the Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems article to find the cause.

To exit Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.

When you figure out what's causing your issues, please let us know. It might help others with the same problem.

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Did you do a clean reinstall and deleted the Firefox program folder?

Do a clean reinstall of the current Firefox release and delete the Firefox program folder before installing a fresh copy of the current Firefox release.

If possible uninstall your current Firefox version to cleanup the Windows Registry and settings in security software.

  • do NOT remove "personal data" when you uninstall the current Firefox version, because this will remove all profile folders and you lose personal data like bookmarks and passwords including data in profiles created by other Firefox versions

Remove the Firefox program folder before installing that newly downloaded copy of the Firefox installer.

  • (32 bit Windows) "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\"
  • (64 bit Windows) "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\"

Your personal data like bookmarks is stored in the Firefox profile folder, so you won't lose personal data when you uninstall and reinstall or update Firefox, but make sure NOT to remove personal data when you uninstall Firefox as that will remove all Firefox profile folders and you lose your personal data.

If you keep having problems then create a new profile to test if your current profile is causing the problem.



Boot the computer in Windows Safe mode with network support to see if that has effect in case security software is causing problems.

Do a malware check with several malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.

Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware. All these programs have free versions.

Make sure you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.

You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.

See also:

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So the solution was the hardware acceleration. I figured it out after doing everything else, silly me I should have started with that since they mentioned it first.