Oct 31 2006

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Firefox Stalls or Hangs

Why Does Firefox Stall (Hang) Intermittently?

I have encountered this problem off and on. Below a list of possible reasons for Firefox hangs:

Potential Sources for Firefox Hanging

Hyperthreading
User Agent Switcher
JavaScript
MS Antispyware
McAffee Antivirus
Adobe TypeManager/ Font
Extensions
- Changes regularly as extensions are updated - post the extension you are having problems with below.

Some Solutions

My solution for the moment is to clear the cache, and reduce the memory load. I also had a problem with the Tabbrowser Extension (known also to conflict with FCKEditor and TinyMCE, among other things), which I replaced with TabMix Plus, and that seemed to solve the problem. Another extension that I think is great but unfortunately is experiencing extreme memory leaks is TagAlert. Hopefully a future release will solve the memory leak issues.

If All Else Fails

If all else fails reinstalling Firefox, disabling all extensions, and doing the following will most always solve any issue:

Windows: Rename the "Firefox" folder in the following directory: C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Mozilla to something like "Firefox-bak" and reload Firefox. Post any questions below.

View Comments

Just switch to chrome

Submitted by a web rocker on January 18, 2012 - 4:33am.

Firefox is crap since version 3.5. It has become too large to be useful. They need a full rewrite.
In the mean time, just use Chrome, which is still lean and mean.

Firefox hangs

Submitted by a web rocker on December 10, 2010 - 7:50pm.

I now need to go to task manager to close Firefox. I've been a user for years but I have just finished getting all my passwords into Internet Explorer (took two days). I am dumping this sh#t browser for Microsoft (I still do not believe it!). Sorry Firefox, but I'll try you out again in a few years.

Reloading Passwords

Submitted by a web rocker on January 31, 2011 - 9:25am.

Hey, I was trying to fix my hanging, non-opening and delayed actions problem when I noticed your comment on the pain of reinstalling passwords.

I am a web designer and deal not only with my passwords but also my clients and their accounts when I need to create affiliate websites for them.

I used to use the browsers system, then a separate lock box on my computer but that errored out on me once and I lost all that. Now I use a free online service called last pass (lastpass.com). Its been great for the last year and a half. I highly recommend it.

I don't even try to remember passwords any more, I let it generate secure passwords and remember. Most of my clients are return customers so it saves a lot of time dealing with so many accounts.

I don't get any commission for telling you this, I am just passing it on because it's a great service I think you'll appreciate as much as I do. It works with chrome FF and IE which is great because I test in all these browsers.

Enjoy!

This worked for me

Submitted by a web rocker on October 29, 2010 - 8:56pm.

Been having problems for a couple of weeks, and did the following this evening. Not only is FF ok now, but my laptop is like lightning. It will take a little time, but it works a treat.

Download Revo Uninstaller Pro (You get a 30 day free trial)
It's very idiot proof to use. use it to uninstall:-
1. Java
2. Flash (And all plugins)
3. Aany current versions of Firefox
Shut down (NOT RE-START) - Shut down your computer and start it up again
Use the following features of Revo Uninstaller:-
1. Windows Cleaner
2. Microsoft Office Cleaner
3. Browsers Cleaner
4. Junk Files Cleaner
5. Autorun Manager (Take away things like Yahoo messenger, MSN Messenger etc, you can start them up by yourself, it's not hard)
Once all that is done, SHUT DOWN your PC once again, and re-start again.
Re-install:-
1. Java
2. Flash
3. -Firefox
Final tie, SHUT DOWN your PC and re-start.
You will now notice that your PC is tunning a lot more crisp and fast.
Open Firefox. The first time you go to a website that needs Flash, a bar at the top will pop up, tell you need a plugin. Install it.
Go to Youtube, and enjoy your viewing:)

Problem solved

Submitted by a web rocker on September 22, 2010 - 5:54am.

Although I wanted to avoid it since I've been with Firefox for many years I just switched to Chrome, and everything works properly.

For me it hangs while browsing Facebook

Submitted by a web rocker on April 15, 2010 - 4:59am.

Every time I browse Facebook, Firefox hangs for sure, I guess its because of JavaScript, cos Facebook runs the chat app. n stuff using Java. I have not yet found a solution for this. I don't know if any extension is causing this. I will try disabling a few extensions and update if its solved. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Fixed it

Submitted by a web rocker on February 25, 2010 - 2:51pm.

For some of the non-tech I have just started using IE. Crap now I get with all the MS crap.

So here is a call for help. FIREFOX FIX IT. Just give me a new update and do what is needed. I don't have time for this and am getting pissed off restarting all the time. This brings be back to the good old blue screen of MS and a reboot to solve it.

Firefox, please don't get too big to care and start developing garage.

firebug causes hangs on many sites

Submitted by a web rocker on June 22, 2009 - 11:52am.

firebug was causing many hangs for me. smartzip maps would not load until I disabled firebug or explicitly forced a refresh (CTRL-F5). disabling firebug not only made the hangs go away but my browsing experience was so much faster. I guess there is always a performance trade-off when running in some sort of "debug" mode.

Firebug was by bugaboo, too.

Submitted by a web rocker on November 9, 2011 - 10:54am.

Thanks for the tip. I only use firebug on occasion, but after reading your post it did seem that the timing of my stalling problems might coincide with installing firebug. It looks like I'm good now!

Firefox hanging

Submitted by a web rocker on February 11, 2009 - 5:04am.

Yup - I also had the history file problem. Thanks for the tips and the article, glad to have this working again.

Possibly unrelated, but Yahoo's finance site keeps freezing up in Firefox. Any idea why this would be happening?

history file was the problem for me

Submitted by a web rocker on October 8, 2008 - 1:40am.

I had the same hanging problem with constant disk access whenever I try to load Firefox.

I got rid of places.sqlite and places.sqlite-journal and it worked again.

Remove places.sqlite and places.sqlite-journal

Submitted by a web rocker on May 21, 2009 - 8:57pm.

Getting rid of places.sqlite and places.sqlite-journal works too.

Thanks for the tip.

Worked for me

Submitted by a web rocker on August 6, 2009 - 5:40pm.

Thanks, this one has been wasting SOOO much of my time. This should be a bug.

Firefox solution

Submitted by a web rocker on October 4, 2008 - 1:08am.

Hmm, nice stuff, I also was suffering from this trouble that Firefox used to hang over the period of time, I got the problem because the antivirus software would loose up the system and it results in the hanging the system, but when I found antispyware software the problem vanished very fast and I am happy.

Just formatted my machine... still stalls.

Submitted by a web rocker on October 3, 2008 - 4:36pm.

Ok.. so I just formatted, reinstalled windows... first thing I install is Firefox 3... Hangs immediately. So I try the compatibility mode change... now Firefox won't open. I have nothing in my extensions menu either. Any ideas? I'm lost now.

Ok... figured it out

Submitted by a web rocker on September 18, 2008 - 12:44am.

In most cases, it's not extensions. If your history cache is too big, that is the cause. Delete old links from history and reduce the number of days of history to save and the problem will be fixed.

Reducing history worked for me too

Submitted by a web rocker on November 26, 2008 - 3:53pm.

Reducing the history solved the problem I had with my Firefox freezing for short periods of time. Tools -> Options -> Privacy. I then reduced the "Keep my history for at least" from 90 days to 7 days and clicked the "Clear Now" button to clear old history.

This also worked for me

Submitted by a web rocker on August 19, 2009 - 10:06am.

This also worked for me, although I suspect it was the "Clear Now" more than reducing the history.

I selected the cache and cookies as well as browsing and search history with the Clear Now option.

firefox stall

Submitted by a web rocker on March 9, 2008 - 6:02pm.

check about:config for "network" and reset all entries you see had changed (in bold).

Google browser sync will cause stalls

Submitted by a web rocker on April 18, 2007 - 1:30pm.

For me, it was Google browser sync that caused a stall with a period of ~50 seconds. These were my debug steps: 0) Download Process Explorer from the MSFT site. 1) Start up firefox, but don't do anything with it. 2) Start Process Explorer and look at the CPU usage graph for firefox. 3) If you have my problem, you will see periodic spikes in CPU usage, even though nothing is happening. 4) Go to Tools->Add-ons and disable one of the extensions. 5) Restart firefox and observe CPU graph (it will be a new PID in Process Explorer, so you'll have to launch a new graph as well). 6) Repeat steps 2-5, changing only the extension that is disabled until you no longer see the spikes in the firefox process CPU graph.

Excellent stuff! Thanks so

Submitted by alex on April 18, 2007 - 2:20pm.

Excellent stuff! Thanks so much for the tip!