Firefox 30 switched many plugins from running on any site automatically to requiring your permission to run. In case the Office plugin is not compatible with this setting, you could try switching it back to see whether that helps.

Open the Add-ons page using either:

• Ctrl+Shift+a
• "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons

In the left column, click Plugins. Look for the Office plugin(s) and change "Ask to Activate" to "Always Activate".

You might need to create a new window or exit and start Firefox up again before this takes effect. (This varies between plugins.)

Any improvement?

No, unfortunately it did not. Something changed in the last few days without my doing yet I've done no updates. I can download the files and then open them outside of Firefox but launching Word or Excel from within Firefox isn't working.

Just to clarify, when you get the dialog to Open, Save, or Cancel, are the results as follows:

• Open : Office application doesn't load successfully
• Save : Office application can open the file after it is saved

The "Open" option uses the Windows temp folder. That folder can become congested; you may want to clear it at some point if you haven't already tried that.

Yes, both. I can save without any problem but if I choose to open it goes right into that useless window popup that says "Microsoft [X] stopped working. Windows is looking for a solution" and then after 5 seconds of "trying" it just closes and I'm left empty handed-no solution and the file doesn't open. Again it only happens with word and Excel, not PP or pdf which is very odd to me.

I cleaned out Windows/temp but no change.

Would love to get some more ideas. I also think I have profile issues because occasionally when I try to upload a file (through various ways), the browser crashes.

Note that you usually open files in read-only mode that way and you should never modify such a file and save it under the same name to avoid dataloss.

It is possible that security (anti-virus) software is blocking the file, so you may have to check that.

My issue has nothing to do with read only. Firefox can no longer open Word or Excel files so I can't get these files from websites unless I save it locally and open it outside Firefox. Until last week I could choose to open it from the popup box inside Firefox. There have been no system changes so firewall, anti-virus, etc is not the issue. Firefox can open Powerpoint and pdf files just fine.

It's puzzling, because it's hard to think of a reason for two particular files types not to load in their corresponding external application when others do. As far as I know, the "hand-off" is the same.

Firefox learns the hand-off from the Windows registry. If something has changed with the shell commands for Word and Excel, Firefox might not have gotten the memo, or perhaps it has become garbled. You can clear Firefox's download action settings file and have it re-read the registry. Here's how:

Open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
• Help menu > Troubleshooting Information

In the first table on the page, click the "Show Folder" button

Leaving that window open, switch back to Firefox and Exit, either:

• "3-bar" menu button > "power" button
• File menu > Exit

Pause while Firefox finishes its cleanup, then rename mimeTypes.rdf to something like mimeTypes.old

Start Firefox back up again. Any improvement?

Note: This will clear any preferences you changed on the "Applications" section of the Options dialog, such as your preferred PDF viewer. Those will need to be set again.

That didn't help although the idea sounded good.

PS after renaming the mimestype file I had the same Windows error for any Office files I tried to open OUTSIDE of Firefox. I assumed that file was only in use in Firefox. Anyway the new one that was supposedly created was a problem. I had to delete the new one and rename the old to be able to open files again. I don't know if that was expected or not.

As far as I know, neither Windows nor Office reads mimeTypes.rdf. I really can't explain what's going on.

Thanks for trying.

I don't have a solution either but I've marked this thread as 'escalate' so someone from the Help Desk team can get to you.

Thank you so much.

Do you have any ideas as to why Firefox sometimes crashes when I try to upload a file (attach to email or upload to Canvas)? That's another issue I've been having. I did the reset option to try to fix this issue above but it didn't fix either.

Office Authorization plug-in for NPAPI browsers is a plugin to provide support for Office Web Apps which is basically Microsoft’s version of Google Docs. If you use Office Web Apps, then you will need to keep the plugin enabled, otherwise you can disable it.

I think it is referring to this plugin http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libra.../ff407576%28v=office.14%29.aspx which is the plugin related to the steps you have described your issue, opening Microsoft Office files from Firefox.

I can recommend updating or reinstalling that plugin to see if the issue persists. However since you have tried to disable the plugin and have created a new file that stores the "Application" actions for the profile and have also seen it cause a crash in Microsoft, but you said it crashed do you have some crash reports we can take alook at to see if its not a memory issue? Troubleshoot Firefox crashes (closing or quitting unexpectedly)

I don't have that dll. I have 2 plugins for that purpose. Both are "Microsoft Office 2010" with one being 14.0.4761.1000 that says its for allowing the opening of Office apps. The other is 14.0.4730.1010 which is for authorizing the plug-in for NPAPI but since I don't have that dll that probably isn't working. Firefox doesn't know the first one so I can't update it. I've tried to update the adobe and java that are out of date but your update link sends me to the release notes but that's it so nothing gets updated (what's with that?).

As for the crash report, are you asking in regards to my second question? If so I got to the list of reports. When I did the whole "appdata" path with the Windows+R per the instructions in your link it gave me a list of txt files all dated in 2013. I have no idea where the 2014 files are. Attached are screenshots of the only crash report I could open through Firefox.

Would uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox fix my issues with opening Word and Excel? If so what's the best way to save all my current settings?

kimski: I'm not sure about Word/Excel as I prefer LibreOffice over Microsoft Office.

The screenshots of your crash report is caused by Adobe Flash. Try disabling Hardware Acceleration.

1. Go to this Adobe Flash Player Help page.
2. Right-click on the Flash Player logo on that page.
3. Click on Settings in the context menu. The Adobe Flash Player Settings screen will open.
4. Click on the icon at the bottom-left of the Adobe Flash Player Settings window to open the Display panel.
   
   The image "fpSettings1.PNG" does not exist.
   
5. Remove the check mark from Enable hardware acceleration.
6. Click Close to close the Adobe Flash Player Settings Window.
7. Restart Firefox.

This Flash Player Help - Display Settings page has more information on Flash Player hardware acceleration, if you're interested.

If you still get crashes after that, try to disable Protected Mode in Flash 11.3 and above by adding the line ProtectedMode=0 to the Flash "mms.cfg" file located in one of these locations: [46]

   (Windows 32bit) C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash 
   (Windows 64bit) C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash 

For example, on a Windows 7 64-bit system, open the C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash folder, copy the file "mms.cfg" to the desktop, open it in Notepad, add a new line ProtectedMode=0 and then close Notepad, saving your changes. Next, go back to the C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash folder, rename the original file to "mms.cfgBAK" (to save it as a backup) and then drag and drop in the modified "mms.cfg" file from the desktop.

Note: To re-enable Flash Protected Mode, either restore a backup of the original mms.cfg file, if you saved one, or else re-edit the mms.cfg file to remove the ProtectedMode=0 l line you added. Updating Flash Player or installing a newer version does not automatically re-enable Protected Mode

Moses,

I did uncheck and will see if the crashing stops. Thanks

Moses and jscher2000,

I figured out what happened with not being able to open Word or Excel inside Firefox. We run Firefox from inside Sandboxie (virtual browser) and once I cleaned it out (from all the crap people try to install on my computer) I no longer have the problem.

kimski, Thanks for your last reply reporting how you solved the problem, which I've marked as the solution.