Reloading Tabs Causes Crash
I have several tabs that are always open and constantly reloading- they reload about every second. Having just one open, Firefox can somewhat handle it, and all the other tabs I'm working on just slow down. But as soon as I get to around 3 tabs, they all start slowing down and Firefox eventually freezes and then crashes (and when I say eventually, it takes about 5mins or less).
I have updated my graphics drivers. I have updated Firefox to the latest version. I have updated the drivers for my graphics card. All plugins are updated. Windows is up to date. Anti-virus program is up to date. No I can't test if this happens in safe mode as the reloading program is an add-on. And yes I've gone into the settings and de-selected the thing saying "Use hardware acceleration when available" and this still happens.
My computer specs are as follows: Intel quad core i7-3610QM 2.3GHz processor, 8GB RAM, Nvidia 630M (2GB), Windows 7 Pro 64bit.
What can I do to stop this freezing and crashing?? At best, I need 6 tabs open together that are constantly refreshing but I can't even reach 2 without issues right now. My computer isn't exactly high end but it's not slow either, and runs a decent amount of heavy games without issue, I don't see why it shouldn't be able to handle a few refreshing tabs.
All Replies (12)
What extension are you using to reload the tabs and why can't you use a larger refresh time?
Most pages require more than one second, especially if JavaScript needs to run.
There are other things that need attention.
Note that your System Details List shows multiple Flash plugins.
- Shockwave Flash 17.0 r0
- Shockwave Flash 18.0 r0
You can find the installation path of all plugins on the about:plugins page.
You can check the Flash player installation folder for multiple Flash player plugins and remove older version(s) of the plugin (NPSWF32) and possibly (re)install the latest Flash player.
- (32 bit Windows) C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash\
- (64 bit Windows) C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash\
It's a Greasemonkey user script that refreshes the tabs amongst doing other things. The pages are quite small & basic, so they're fine to refresh at the speed (I'm one of thousands doing so) and the script alerts me when a specific character appears on the page. I know it sounds strange but it's part of an online game so trust me when I say that's how it's supposed to be :) (That said, even with a slower refresh time, having more than 3 tabs open doing so will freeze Firefox- I tried slowing down the refresh rate for 2 tabs but it just doesn't work with the game).
Didn't know about the multiple Flash plugins though... I'll remove those now and see how I go with it. Discovered some old Java plugins amongst there too.
Modified by firecat55
Did the suggested changes and it still freezes up and crashes, though I admit it lasts a bit longer now. Any other recommendations to fix this?? Is there anyway I can give Firefox higher priority for CPU usage and maybe this could resolve it? At this stage it only uses 11% and rarely shoots up to near 20%.
To clarify, I'm not doing anything else while I'm running these tabs- most of the time I leave the computer by itself or I maybe watch a movie from my hard drive. I'm not gaming or even running photoshop or multiple tabs of Youtube, so I wouldn't mind giving Firefox CPU priority if it'll help solve this.
Modified by firecat55
Bump- still having issues with this! I've increased the CPU priority for Firefox and given it more cache RAM but it's still freezing up.
Bumping post- still looking for help on this :)
there is one extension, if that was installed in your browser by mistake then your page will be refreshed after 5 seconds . I suggest you to remove unwanted extensions from your browser and restart it.
The fact that my page is being refreshed so frequently isn't a mistake- that's what I need to do. The problem is that I can't refresh it frequently because when I do, it crashes, despite having a somewhat decent computer that should be able to handle such demands.
Have you taken a look at your Crash Reports to see what the core issue might be?
Enter about:crashes in the Firefox address bar and press Enter. A Submitted Crash Reports list will appear, similar to the one shown below.
Note: If a recent Report ID does not start with bp- click on it to submit the report.
You can post a few of those Crash Report ID's here and someone can take a look at them, and might be able to help.
More information and further troubleshooting steps can be found in the Troubleshoot Firefox crashes (closing or quitting unexpectedly) article.
Modified by the-edmeister
Well I've taken a look at that but I'm not all that technical, so I have no idea what the report it telling me or what to look for. Here are the last 3 most recent IDs:
bp-bbfe48c4-cc87-4cca-9054-791b32150903 a418e874-31f2-4c76-8523-94a20508d3be d5bd76c7-16f6-402b-a843-8518eefc9021
The first one opened up fine, but the other 2 and the majority of IDs on the page all linked to this page instead: https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/about/throttling
That crash report is a hang in the Shockwave Flash plugin.
You can check for problems with current Shockwave Flash plugin versions and try this:
- make sure you have the latest Flash version:
http://www.adobe.com/special/products/flashplayer/fp_distribution3.html - check for updates for your graphics drive drivers
https://support.mozilla.org/kb/upgrade-graphics-drivers-use-hardware-acceleration - disable protected mode in the Flash plugin (Flash 11.3+ on Windows Vista and later)
- disable hardware acceleration in the Flash plugin
- disable hardware acceleration in Firefox
https://support.mozilla.org/kb/upgrade-graphics-drivers-use-hardware-acceleration
See also:
Did all of that as you said, and it can run one tab fine but as soon as I add another one it still crashes. This is the ID of the most recent one: bp-bbfe48c4-cc87-4cca-9054-791b32150903
In it, it says that the hang was caused by the Shockwave plugin again, but lists it as being version 16 when I have version 18 installed. I can confirm this via going into my files and seeing where it's installed, and can see I have version 18.0.0.232 (the latest) and no other old versions in that folder anymore (see my first reply near the start of the thread about that).
Between the More System Information in the right-column at the top of this thread and the latest crash report it looks like Firefox is finding 3 different versions of Flash available for Firefox. Flash 16, 17, & 18. Use the Adobe Flash uninstaller and reinstall the latest version of Flash.
First, grab the Adobe uninstaller from here: http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-windows.html
Then download the latest Flash Plugin version from here: Select the Windows > Plugin-based browsers - the EXE version. https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/distribution3.html
Run the Flash uninstaller program, then reboot your PC. Then install the Plugin version of Flash. So you'll have a clean installation of Flash for Firefox.