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Firefox for Mac freezes when changing system location

  • 2 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by bmclarnon

bmclarnon
bmclarnon
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I have a number of system locations set up to switch between work proxies and my home network. If I have Firefox open when switching locations, the location switch does not take effect. If I then try to close Firefox to switch locations and restart it, the previous Firefox process does not finish closing and starts to take up significant CPU time. If this continues, the kernel_task will also start to take significant CPU time (up to 800%!), even after the zombied Firefox process is killed. The only resolution at this point seems to be to shut down and restart the Mac.

This has been like this for a long time (since at least Mac OS 10.12 and Firefox 53, if not longer), and seems to be getting worse lately. I am using a mid-2014 MacBook Pro.

Any help in identifying what is happening and a better mitigation strategy (or bugfix!) would be appreciated.

I have a number of system locations set up to switch between work proxies and my home network. If I have Firefox open when switching locations, the location switch does not take effect. If I then try to close Firefox to switch locations and restart it, the previous Firefox process does not finish closing and starts to take up significant CPU time. If this continues, the kernel_task will also start to take significant CPU time (up to 800%!), even after the zombied Firefox process is killed. The only resolution at this point seems to be to shut down and restart the Mac. This has been like this for a long time (since at least Mac OS 10.12 and Firefox 53, if not longer), and seems to be getting worse lately. I am using a mid-2014 MacBook Pro. Any help in identifying what is happening and a better mitigation strategy (or bugfix!) would be appreciated.

All Replies (2)

bmclarnon
bmclarnon Question owner
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Found it in Bugzilla, fix is targeted for Firefox 60(!?)

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1424709

bmclarnon
bmclarnon Question owner
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Can confirm that you can fix this manually until the release of Firefox 60. Open the file /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/Info.plist and add the lines shown in the bugfix here:

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/216830/diff/3/?collapse=1