Firefox woes and frustration

I have been tempted to shove my keyboard through my screen today.

My usual browser, Firefox, is hanging and crashing, ALL THE TIME today.

Grrrr.

Anyone else having trouble?

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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64 Comments

  1. Yep, I’ve had the same problem with Firefox for the last several days. Google Chrome seems to be a much more agile browser for me.

  2. RJSciurus says:

    I’ve not seemed to have any issues for what’s it’s worth. I wonder if it’s a problem related to it’s interaction with Windows (I’m on a Mac)

  3. CDN Canonist says:

    In my experience, Firefox only crashes when I visit this page.

  4. cuaguy says:

    I gave up on FireFox awhile ago when people were pushing Google Chrome in Chat. I have never looked back.

  5. John Enright says:

    I agree with cuaguy and Patrick Madrid. Try Google Chrome. I think it is generally more stable than Firefox, and since it doesn’t carry all of the extra baggage, it is much faster.

  6. Nora C says:

    Absolutely having this trouble all week!

  7. John Mc Keown says:

    About a fortnight ago, Firefox crashed on me 100 times in ten minutes! Looking into it, some others were having problems with that particular version – which I think was 3.07.

    I took somebody else’s advice and downloaded the latest firefox beta, uninstalled 3.07 and installed the beta. This solved the problem for me.

    It’s been suggested that version 3.07 was problematic.

  8. skeeton says:

    One word: Chrome!

  9. MargaretMN says:

    FF crashes 2 or 3 times a day on me. I would dump it except for the great sidebar rss reader. Even that is not doing it for me these days because I end up have to re-mark stuff as read after a crash.

  10. TS says:

    Switch to Firefox 3.1 beta. I don’t trust Google and their policies.

  11. I haven’t been crashing, but I have also never been able to get Adobe Flash Player to work on Firefox with Windows Vista. That is a source of continuing annoyance.

  12. Immaculatae says:

    I don’t have Firefox, but twitter has been wierd today for me.

  13. Andy K. says:

    It has been jacked up for me too. Especially when loading multiple tabs, or visiting AmericanPapist.

  14. Nicholas says:

    I’m running Firefox 3.0.8 under Linux with no stability problems. Platform and version can make a big difference; Mozilla has made dud releases in the past.

  15. A Random Friar says:

    I like some things about Chrome, but it seems to use more memory, and I like multiple tabs (see their support boards). FF works great for me and haven’t had any problems with it on Vista either. I have FF 3.08

  16. Paul the Other says:

    Interesting…I use Firefox (currently 3.0.8) under XP Professional all day long and seldom have an issue with it.

  17. Toni says:

    I’ve been having trouble for the last week or so. FireFox crashes when Windows Explorer crashes silently, which has been happening constantly since I downloaded the last Vista SP.

  18. Matt says:

    Running IE7 at work and IE8 at home. No problems.

  19. Damien Horn says:

    I am not having any problems with Firefox v3.0.8, the current version.

  20. JeffL says:

    Try launching Firefox in “Safe Mode”. Windows: go into the Start menu, into the Mozilla Firefox group, and look for the Safe Mode launcher. (There’s a command-line switch for Unix/Linux users…)

    This will launch Firefox while (temporarily) disabling all your extensions/add-ons. See if the stability problems go away. Do they? If so, then try disabling and re-enabling your add-ons to see which one(s) are causing you grief.

  21. Emilio III says:

    No particular problems with Firefox on Windows XP or OpenBSD, but it noticeably slower on your blog than IE8 or Safari on Windows, or Seamonkey on OBSD. I would avoid any software by Google unless it becomes absolutely essential for some reason.

  22. cel says:

    I haven’t had any problems with Firefox

  23. Have you given Google Chrome a try yet? It doesn’t have as many of the addons as Firefox yet, though they’re coming. It’s a bit faster and a better overall interface, I think. I’ve been using it almost exclusively since it came out a few months ago.

  24. Rich says:

    Firefox has been crashing regularly on my machines for at least the last week or so. It’s only happened after I updated to the latest release, and it seems to be independent of whatever site I’m viewing. (Though some sites, such as this one, seem to provoke it more than others.)

    In a weird way, I’m glad to hear it’s not just me…

  25. JohnE says:

    My understanding with Google Chrome is that each tab is a separate process, so if you have something consuming memory or resources you can just shut the faulty tab without affecting the entire browser. I don’t think Google Chrome has a good way to import bookmarks from Firefox though. When I installed it at home it seemed to only allow import from IE. That being said, I’m using Firefox 3.0.8 here at work and haven’t noticed any problems.

    Perhaps you’ve recently installed an add-on or extension in Firefox that’s causing problems?

  26. Kathy says:

    Yes. Firefox either crashes or just–poof!– disappears for no apparent reason. I also have switched to Google Chrome, except for downloading. Chrome won’t download. A couple of minutes after I find something I’d like to save– even if it’s only one page long– Chrome tells me it will be 24 hours until my download is completed.
    Also, I uninstalled, reinstalled, and installed a new version of Firefox. Nothing helped.

  27. PMcGrath says:

    Here’s my summary of what’s been happening to me in the past few days. The same things have been happening with FF 3.0.7, 3.0.8, and the 3.1 beta which I just downloaded a moment ago.

    1. WDTPRS loads and reads just fine. No problems at all.

    2. Wikipedia loads only in the base HTML version.

    3. GoogleMail loads only in the base HTML version.

    4. Some of the blogs that I read — AmP, Rich Leonardi, some others — some of their graphics load, and some do not. Can’t suss why this is so. It seems to affect the header graphics most.

    5. Facebook is totally unavailable. Can’t even log into it.

    And I don’t want to switch to Chrome, for the reasons cited by earlier commenters. IE? Are you kidding?

  28. Peggy says:

    I’ve been having crashes on a couple of machines. I’ve assumed some hardware concerns. I have had it hang when I’ve tried to come here to WDTPRS, as one other reader noted–but problems w/FF in general as well.

  29. Fr. David says:

    I had the same issue and the problem was Zone Alarm. I switched to Comodo firewall and have had no problems with Firefox.

  30. Jerry says:

    I’ve been using Chrome since it came out in September – very few problems. However, be aware that it does not support ActiveX which is required for some programs – TaxAct and VectorVest, two that I use – so IE or Foxfire with IE Tabs is necessary. I use Chrome for everything else.

    I’ve also had problems uninstalling Firefox. I’m trying to do a complete uninstall and then a reinstall – but I can’t get it to uninstall. Any thoughts?

    Jerry

  31. B. P. says:

    Opera.

    ;-)

  32. chris p says:

    No problems at home (iMac) or here at work (Windows).

  33. Maureen says:

    The Adobe Flash plugin often goes crashy-crashy on WDTPRS, on IE; and Acrobat has troubles on Firefox with crashing on PDFs. But I don’t use IE often, so that doesn’t matter; and I haven’t had troubles with Acrobat since I got the Foxit plugin.

    Adobe. Focus of Murphy’s Law since its founding.

  34. Will says:

    I’m having no troubles here. Firefox 3.0.8 running on Windows 7 (Beta 7000).
    In my experience, when Firefox crashes, it is usually due to a faulty plug-in. You might try experimenting with switching them off or launching the “safe mode” version of FF. It’s usually located here: start -> Mozilla Firefox -> Mozilla Firefox (Safe Mode).

    Also, look at what pages you have loaded, what kind of media are they using?

  35. Will says:

    Oh, and IE 8 ain’t bad at all. It’s a huge improvement over 7, which was in turn a gigantic improvement over 6.

  36. Jim of Bowie says:

    I tried Chrome, but didn’t like it. Many things don’t work on it including some Google gadgets. I missed many of the Firefox addons and features. I especially missed NewsFox which is the best RSS reader I can find.

  37. Janet says:

    No problems with Firefox here.

  38. Dove says:

    I’ve had a lot of problems with Firefox lately on my XT pro machine. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was related to plug-ins. I haven’t installed any but it has installed some itself. I will try booting in safe mode to see if I can figure something out. I’m using 3.0.8. Yesterday I rebooted multiple times because of a dropped internet connection and eventually it seemed OK.

    I’ve had problems with 3.1 beta (can’t load acrobat files with it). I have another machine that is not having problems, also using 3.0.8 but it’s on Windows. It’s on the same wireless network as the other computer. I read that Mozilla is not planning to support versions of XT after next year that are not on SP 3. I’m on SP2 and I wonder if that’s the problem.

  39. Ad Orientem says:

    Firefox has been hanging and crashing a lot over the last few weeks. My first thought was that I had a virus. But repeated scans show nothing. I think I am going to have to consider migrating to Google Chrome. Sigh…

    Under the mercy
    John
    (3 days til Pacha and dead animals for food)

  40. Romanrevert says:

    As a Mac user, I switched from Firefox to Safari 4 beta… smoking fast. I was having some weird issues w/ Firefox as well. Not sure if you use Mac or not, but the Safari beta is great.

  41. Ricky Vines says:

    Chrome is faster, but Firefox is more secure.

    Are u getting the blue screen of death afterwards, Father?

  42. John Mc Keown says:

    Re: Firefox and add-ons.

    Before my problems with 3.07 (which would crash 5 seconds after launch), the only previous Firefox problem I had was with the QuickTime plug-in. 9 times out of 10 that a web-page contained a QT file, Firefox would crash. Before I could get an update from Apple for QT, Apple wanted me to install iTunes – so I just removed the QT plug-in from Firefox. No QT, but no loss. I’ve had no plug-in trouble since.

  43. Jacob says:

    You may have a problem with your internet cache. Tools->Clear Private Data. Select cookies, offline website data and cache. This may help. Also make sure you have the latest version of firefox. I use ie, firefox, chrome, opera, and safari on windows vista. I have noticed that IE8 seems to be the fastest right now, I suspect chorme and its improvements that get put in firefox may leap frog IE soon.

  44. The key *theological* reason why I much prefer Chrome over Firefox is that the former contains the word ROME.

    Chroma locuta est. Causa finita.

  45. Pater, OSB says:

    Like some of the others, Firefox crashes on my only when I visit this site.

  46. Ted Krasnicki says:

    Firefox 3.08 is very stable, so if it is crashing, then it is being broken by something else, perhaps as someone suggested a plug-in. I would completely uninstall then re-install Firefox if this has not been done. If it still crashes after that and no plugins are running, something is wrong with the Windows system files that Firefox relies on, such as .dlls being changed by some other programmes. Adobe .pdf plugins for Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc. are notorious for being unstable. There is one issue with Vista when many tabs are open and available RAM is running low: it will slow down to a crawl for a minute or two when activated after not being used for a while until it finishes processing the open pages using the hard drive for temporary storage, but I do not think other browsers would behave differently under these circumstances.

  47. I haven\’t received any problems all week. I use Ubuntu(linux) and not Win/Mac. maybe its one of your add-ons. disable a few and see what happens. you can enable them again later. but try that out.

  48. tertullian says:

    Safari 4 beta for PC is available

  49. Make me a Spark says:

    It would be interesting to hear which version of FFOx you are using, Father. I am running 3.0.8 on windows XP.

    I have heard really good things about Google Chrome, but my theory is if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. We have had slow surfing the last couple days and have run the usual checks and scans. rebooted the compy and it is fine now. I did have one crash over the weekend, which is almost completely unheard of in my experience with FFOx.

    So, so far, not enough to make me make such a huge switch

  50. Make me a Spark says:

    Well, in the light of Mr. Madrid’s comment perhaps the more Orthodox choice is chRome!

  51. Craig says:

    Dear Father,
    Yes, I’ve been having problems on 2 different machines with Firefox the past several days…I THINK it was after an update was pushed out.

    Like many other posters, I use Chrome, Opera, IE as well…but have had no problems. FF has been extremely reliable for quite some time, so I’m surprised by this.

    Somethings up. Glad to hear it’s not just me.

    God Bless,
    Craig

  52. pinoycatholic says:

    My Firefox was crashing but it happened last week. I think it was an update. I had a new update installed and everything was fine since then. It did not crash. It slows down when I opened a lot of tabs from the constant browsing. I just click on Tools>Clear Private Data and everything speeds up again.

    I don’t trust what big companies like Google and Microsoft would install in my PC.

  53. Jason says:

    No problems with Firefox on my Mac…

  54. Chris says:

    I myself didn’t have any problems with 3.0.7 Firefox. I am an IT guy with probably 25 users who primarily use firefox. I’d have known if they had problems. The rest of my users are on IE 7 (communist pinko jerks, I tried to set them straight but they love their IE too much even if it’s way slower and kills their computer’s performance). I’ll be interested to see IE8, but I won’t deploy it till it’s in general release for fear of pooching numerous users.

  55. Firefox 3.0.8 on Vista 64-bit runs just fine for me.

  56. I’m on IE 7 and get a strange error message only on this site asking me to abort, retry or ignore.

    It seems odd that this is the only site on which the message appears. I abort and continue on.

    Assert in LSP
    g_socket_data.Lookup(s)==0
    capture\lsp\molsp\wsp_patches.cpp:1313

  57. I should add, I’m on VISTA too (I know, I know….)

  58. JB says:

    Switch to Kmeleon. It is much faster and lighter than Firefox.

    http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/

  59. John says:

    No problems here. FF 3.0.8 on Windows XP Pro. Google already owns enough of my life…

  60. RCR says:

    I run Firefox on Windows XP, Home Edition. It has occasionally stalled for a few seconds. Otherwise, I haven’t had any serious problems with it—not yet, anyway.

  61. Al Huntz says:

    I have been using Firefox for years and have never had any trouble with it. I like the special features it has to offer. I can’t imagine why some are having difficulties with it and it crashing.

  62. MAJ Tony says:

    Never had a problem with FF (on MacBookPro OS X Leopard) until AFTER you posted this. It seems to be related to a specific website. Happened 3 times last night, and I gave up. Thanks all for the info.

  63. Kathy says:

    Windows installed a major automatic update yesterday. My Firefox was incredibly slow and kept hanging for a couple of hours or so, until the update and all my antivirus/spyware etc. software sorted itself out. It’s fine now; hopefully yours is too.

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