I-Firefox Community Forum

When I have multiple tabs open, around the 6th tab, the entire computer freezes. I have to press the physical button to shut down and restart. This behavior started with the last Firefox update. It doesn't happen when I use Brave browser. What changed to cause this?

I'm running Mozilla Firefox for Linux Mint mint 100 - 1.0 version 141.0.3 (64 bit) on Linux Mint 22.1 Cinnamon. These are the latest versions of Mint and of Firefox for Mint.

I opened Firefox on one of my computers as usual today but the whole performance changed. Used to go to my home tab and select various news sites to see what was happening. First, when I scroll down the bookmarks, I would hit the "news" and click on it so all the sub items would stay in the scroll, but instead of that, it wanted to open every item as a new tab. When I finally started opening the various news outlets, it opened them in new tabs, it had always opened in the same tab. Then, I couldn't close the various tabs it had opened. I would go to the tab and hit the "X" but it didn't close the tab. I had to use a drop down menu to close a tab. And when in a site, I used the scroll button on the mouse, instead of scrolling, it made the page larger or smaller instead of going up or down. What could make such a change in behavior? I opened up the 'settings' on it and looked at 'tabs' and they were the same as the ones that are on this computer that works as expected. Both computers have it set to open all previous windows and tabs. Both have the same settings for 'tabs' and 'browsing'. I don't get it. Both are version 143.0.3 (64-bit) I have Ubuntu OS.

Anyone else having an issue with the newest firefox in Linux Mint? I don't know what's causing it but when multiple tabs open my address bar and all other primary buttons/icons (including the menu button) don't work, only the download button. Across multiple tabs. Not using any groupings/classifications or any "new" tab features or vertical windows etc.

In 2024-25 Microsoft Edge gained the ability to limit the usage of physical RAM that the processes uses. Once that limit is reached tabs are put to sleep or are unloaded. So a user of Microsoft Edge could restrict the memory usage to say 1GB or 2GB or 3GB and so on till the maximum available physical RAM.

Does Firefox have such an ability? Is there some flag or settings in about:config that can be enabled for a similar feature to be used? Does Firefox have ability to put tabs to sleep once SWAP is started to be used? Is there some flag or settings in about:config that can be enabled for a similar feature to be used?

If none of one of the above is not available with Firefox then will Firefox add this feature as part of the browser in the future?

I have an issue where my firefox freezes whenever I try to take certain actions inside home assistants music assistant. I have created the following profiler of the issue https://share.firefox.dev/4pPZRPo

I have tried all the recommended settings to mitigate these kinds of problems (remove hardware acceleration, set disable all addons). I don't know where to report this exactly, but I'm hoping someone might be able to see something from the profiler that could illuminate what exactly is going wrong?

Notably this issue does not happen in firefox private mode.

Ubuntu - I use the SNAP version of Firefox - I generally have lots of tabs open but only use 5 or so of them and it's generally fine.... but when I am closing Firefox, it USES like 100% of the CPU and ALL of the RAM and ALL of the SWAP memory when closing.

This locks up the computer.

Sometimes it doesn't quite go all the way but I can watch it all happen in real time, using Task Manager - and that shows a solidwall of all resources occouring, when the close Firefox is run.

I am told by research via ChatGPT that this is a very real problem with the SNAP version and it's best to change to the Debian version, copy all the bookmarks etc., across and then uninstall the SNAP version.

It's rather disconcerting to have Linux crash because of this one app locking it up and frequently.

Chat GPT:

Is there a problem with Firefox Snap Version closing and using all the resources while doing so, which results in locking up the computer?

You're definitely not imagining it—there have been reports of Firefox's Snap version consuming excessive system resources (CPU, memory) and even causing lockups or hangs, particularly during closure. Here's what’s going on and how to mitigate it:

What’s Happening with Firefox Snap?

2. Browser Hangs or Locks the System on Close

On Linux (especially Ubuntu), users have reported that closing Firefox can lead to it hanging in memory, sometimes unresponsive and still consuming resources.
Super User
Ask Ubuntu
A stark example from Reddit illustrates the severity:
“About 50% of the time I open Firefox, it'll reach 100% CPU usage in about 30 seconds… PC completely unusable unless I shutdown.”
Reddit

3. Known Wayland Sway Bug

On Wayland/Sway setups, reloading Sway while Firefox is open can trigger intense logging, causing high CPU use and an enormous syslog.
Fix: Set MOZ_DISABLE_WAYLAND_PROXY=1, or upgrade to FF 125 where the issue is addressed.
Reddit+1

Alternative Approach

Many users, particularly on Ubuntu, opt out of Snap completely in favor of the .deb package or PPA builds. These alternatives often avoid these specific issues. Ask Ubuntu Reddit

Thoughts? Solutions?

Thanks in advance.

This is happening more frequently. sometimes clicking links works but the cursor will not respond if i hover over the new tab button. To continue I have to select a new firefox window, The unresponsive window remains in error even when a new working window is active.

On updating to linux mint 22.3 - cannot type anything in firefox in address box, search and primary password or anywhere else within firefox - have uninstalled & reinstalled but nothing happens

Hello! Today I stuck with problem in my system: after minor package update, hardware acceleration was broke. In past, I stuck with same problem after total pc upgrade (AMD -> NVIDIA GPU, another might be unnecesary), and somehow I fixed it, but i dont remember what exactly fixed it. Can someone please help me turn hardware acceleration on this time? My searching the key arround didn`t helped, but i found in about:support line which notes that firefox unrecognized my videocard etc. My specs: kernel: 6.17.1-zen1-1-zen driver: nvidia-dkms-580.95.05-1 videocard: GTX 1080 TI DE: gnome 49 with Wayland

Tips that ive tried: Tried to make all as wrote in archwiki Tried to install an nvidia vaapi implementor Made some random steps from internet, without effect(maybe thats why hardware acceleration doesent work??)

theres also about:support page attached

I updated firefox just yesterday or earlier today idk and the right click menu is so long with multiples of the same and they DO NoThInG! Linux Mint 22 Cin. 6.8.0-55 Generic Kernel

I use Firefox with DuckDuckGo on Ubuntu 24.04, Gnome desktop. My Firefox browser window regularly freezes but can be unfrozen by simply repositioning the window. This is really annoying.

I also use Chromium on the same system and there are no issues.

Any ideas?

This started happening a few days ago.

I tried to drag a tab out of the main window to put it in its own window on my other monitor, but the tab just became unselectable, and if i scrolled in the tab bar, the tab icon and text would remain locked in place in the display while the other tabs moved behind it.

The main Firefox window also lost the minimize, restore, and close buttons. The only way to make the tabs work was to close Firefox and relaunch it.

I noticed this happened only after any app in the OS went full screen, be it a steam game, or another Firefox window, or a VLC window, or anything else that I did that made an app full screen in any of my monitors.

I am using Ubuntu 24.04 with KDE Plasma 5.27.12. Kernel is 6.14.0-29. Display server is Wayland.

Initially I thought this could be a problem with the snap version of Firefox, so now I've installed the deb package, but the problem remains. Firefox is the only app which presents a problem of any kind when any window goes full screen.

Here's a video showing what the problem looks like, in case my description was not clear. The ghostly tab in this video is the chess.com home page and you can see it as the third tab from the top right of the video, and it remains in that position as i scroll the other tabs, completely unselectable with the mouse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mAfPS3_qkg

Any idea of what could be causing this issue to appear?

Thank you!

I'm using Firefox 141.0 on OpenSuse Tumbleweed with KDE and Wayland. I'm using Firefox with two profiles: work and personal - which is (usually) awesome, until suddenly it's not.

Then, one or both profiles seem to become corrupted, and closing firefox, opening it, choosing either profile just hangs forever. My old tabs show up, but clicking on any tab, for any site, just hangs forever, and no page is ever loaded. Sometimes restarting helps, but sometimes not. Sometimes restarting 2 or 3 times and then suddenly it will work. But normally, I have to just delete all my profiles, and re-create them. Fortunately everything is synced with Firefox sync. Then everything will work wonderfully for a bit - although I have to re-login to everything.  :-(

Any ideas? This is a huge pain and productivity killer. I really love firefox, but this sucks.

Arch Linux Wayland FF v150 from Arch repos

When right clicking the context menu appears, but sometimes in odd places, and the disappears, so you can't select anything.

Same is true selecting the Help submenu from the Hamburger menu.

Restarting the browser fixes it for a few minutes, then same problem comes back.

Other people also reporting the same thing - also Linux Wayland: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1suounc/comment/oi7jk9u/

What's wrong with the new release?

Today i decided try the new firefox(140) since it's going to be ESR, but i'm getting hot-fan from a couple of tabs (particularly video streams). Second it's slower and seems to have 4second delay for shutdown..

The laptop is running linux mint with intel i5 (11th), tigerlake (iris xe) gpu. It might not be newest, but it shouldn't have a problem with regular web browsing.

Is it a bug? like it's not maxing my ram or cpu during use.