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Phantom Window Staying Open

  • 2 replies
  • 0 have this problem
  • Last reply by mnred01
  • Solved

Hi Everyone! I am having some trouble figuring out how to get rid of these "phantom" windows. They appear after I do a sign-in to my Google or Facebook account and it opens in a new window. The windows stay open in the background, or at least my Macbook shows them as windows as if they are still open. Whenever I click on them they just go to my most recently opened tab on Firefox and never actually allow me to click on them or see the tab. I've tried looking for them in the "open tabs" section on Firefox, and it doesn't show them there either. I added a photo to show that the "phantom" window is separate from my currently open browser on Firefox.

If anyone knows how to get rid of these, I would so appreciate your help! Thanks!!!

Hi Everyone! I am having some trouble figuring out how to get rid of these "phantom" windows. They appear after I do a sign-in to my Google or Facebook account and it opens in a new window. The windows stay open in the background, or at least my Macbook shows them as windows as if they are still open. Whenever I click on them they just go to my most recently opened tab on Firefox and never actually allow me to click on them or see the tab. I've tried looking for them in the "open tabs" section on Firefox, and it doesn't show them there either. I added a photo to show that the "phantom" window is separate from my currently open browser on Firefox. If anyone knows how to get rid of these, I would so appreciate your help! Thanks!!!
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Chosen solution

I remember having these quite often on very old macOS systems… maybe the newest shiniest macOS is bringing some old bugs back:/

These windows are closed. Just the Mac window manager thinks they were still there somewhere. You can probably check the processes Task Manager - see whether tabs or extensions are slowing down Firefox to verify they're really not there, just macOS retained their skeletons for some reason.

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Chosen Solution

I remember having these quite often on very old macOS systems… maybe the newest shiniest macOS is bringing some old bugs back:/

These windows are closed. Just the Mac window manager thinks they were still there somewhere. You can probably check the processes Task Manager - see whether tabs or extensions are slowing down Firefox to verify they're really not there, just macOS retained their skeletons for some reason.

Thank you very much! I figured it was a Mac issue, but wanted to make sure. Appreciate your help :)

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