Firefox crashing..

[apprentice87]

Anyone else had any problems?? For the last few days the thing has crashed every few minutes. If i want to GUARANTEE that it crashes, all i have to do is to go on facebook, and click on a link to any sort of video. It does it sometimes like that on youtube too.

I have "refreshed" firefox, updated window [8.1] updated my norton thingy, done a full scan of the contraption, and it still does it... Any ideas??

john...

 

[Lurch]

I have "refreshed" firefox, updated window [8.1] updated my norton thingy,

I think if I wanted to have a bad time with a computer I would put 8.1 on it, install Norton and Firefox and then try to do normal things.

What sort of computer are we talking about here? I'd imagine the specs aren't great (low memory) and you simply have 3 memory hogs.

Firefox is just Firefox, I still use it but that's because I have everything set up the way I want, and the extension I use the most isn't available on Chrome. I'd probably jump ship as Firefox isn't what it once was.

Windows 8.1 isn't the worst, but it still gets more bloated over time. Sometimes there is no option really but to just cut your losses and reinstall.

Norton is apparently better nowadays than it used to be, I still wouldn't recommend it though. ESET Nod32 every time (or the Smart Security Suite if you want more than just AV), I use it on loads of machines, it isn't free but I have not found any free AV that isn't just adware nowadays. Most of them make machines noticeably slower.

 

[calltronics]

install the Media Feature Pack or Platform Update Supplement that's appropriate for your version of Windows

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42503

 

[apprentice87]

What sort of computer are we talking about here? I'd imagine the specs aren't great (low memory) and you simply have 3 memory hogs

Hi Lurch, it is a..   [What ever that means.....]

View attachment 8702

install the Media Feature Pack or Platform Update Supplement that's appropriate for your version of Windows

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42503

Not a clue what that even means....

john..

 

[Lurch]

Hi Lurch, it is a..   [What ever that means.....]

Hmm, not as terrible as I was expecting!

Not a clue what that even means....

It's just a Windows update.

It's more than likely an issue with your browser plugin, and/or the actual media player itself. I'm guessing you'd be using whatever is default on the laptop? The above update may or may not fix the issue, but it shouldn't make it any worse.

 

[apprentice87]

It is not a laptop, it is a proper computer, whatever they call them!!

It has only done it in the last few days, since i did a windows update thing, so...... i guess there are about a billion people with the same problem... Often when i just click on a youtube video, the thing instantly crashes. I can see a report into why, but it means nothing to me

john..

 

[Evans Electric]

I used to have Firefox crashing  in every session  ,  after updating & refreshing it stopped crashing and began  ..." Firefox not responding"   frozen screen  .....then just taking ages to do anything .

Such as opening My BT emails , about 5 mins  ....opening this Forum , 5  --- 6 mins  then  "Firefox not responding"   or  "Microsoft  not responding"  .

Recently changed the browser to Opera  which seems to work much quicker .  

 

[ProDave]

It boggles my mind, why a browser, which after all is just a tool to display some text and graphics according to a fairly simple set of rules, can be so unreliable and consume so much memory.

I am a dinosaur on an old slow computer so notice browser issues. I used to be a fan of Opera, but gradually my old version got out of date and some sites did not work. I upgraded to the latest version of Opera and that just kept crashing.  Firefox was a pain, it was the most memory hungry browser I have yet found, ran slow, and kept "not responding"  I forget the issues with Chrome, but there were plenty.

I am now using Pale Moon. It is a lot less memory hungry, a lot faster, and does not crash as often as anything I have had before. This is rather surprising as it's based on the Firefox engine so quite how it perform better than real firefox is just one of those mysteries.

 

[Evans Electric]

A lot of these things are mysterious to me .....I notice how fast the computers are  , for example,  at the print company I go to .

All the design ones are Macs      .....all the rest are ordinary PCs  all using the mainframe  though .   

 

[user 28595]

For the last few days the thing has crashed every few minutes

Start FF without any plug-ins and test.

Hold the Shift Key down while starting FF and then select "Safe Mode".

If that works disable all plug-ins, start in normal mode and enable them one by one.

cheers, Paul

 

[apprentice87]

Start FF without any plug-ins and test.

Hold the Shift Key down while starting FF and then select "Safe Mode".

If that works disable all plug-ins, start in normal mode and enable them one by one.

cheers, Paul

Ha! did that, well, the first bit, the safe mode thing, and it works!! Now, how do i disable these "plug in" things, and, are there any i should leave alone??

john..

 

[apprentice87]

Ok, I found three of these "add on" things, and i disabled them, still did not make any difference.... When i start it it safe mode it is fine though...

john..

 

[Lurch]

Ok, I found three of these "add on" things, and i disabled them, still did not make any difference.... When i start it it safe mode it is fine though...

As I said above, it is a plugin not an addon. Safe mode disables more than just add-ons, it disables anything that isn't strictly necessary.

Assuming you haven't used anything specific it is probably using the Windows Media Player plugin. You can either upgrade that with the link above and see what happens, or download and install VLC Media Player and make sure you install the browser plugin. Hopefully one of those will fix the issue, personally I'd go for the latter.

 

[apprentice87]

Hi Lurch,

I have got that VLC thing and it works ok. I am not sure what is happening...

Here is what i think is a link to one of the facebook videos; https://www.facebook.com/Shaun.O33/videos/10207976953301699/

If i click on that, fire fox crashes instantly, but not in the safe mode.. What sort of whatever is used to play this video?? as this must be what is doing the crashing...

Yes, the link works!! Click on it and you should see the steel place that has all the electrical troubles due to water!! [wait till you see!!.] Anyway, why would this instantly crash firefox, but not in the safe mode??

john..

 

[Lurch]

I have got that VLC thing and it works ok. I am not sure what is happening...

Here is what i think is a link to one of the facebook videos; https://www.facebook.com/Shaun.O33/videos/10207976953301699/

If i click on that, fire fox crashes instantly, but not in the safe mode.. What sort of whatever is used to play this video?? as this must be what is doing the crashing...

I can't tell you what that does for me as I don't do Facebook.

When you say it crashes, what does it do? Do you get the Mozilla Crash Reporter pop up or does it just hang/close? In the Firefox settings you should be able to enable the Crash Reporter if it isn't enabled. This should give us some more info on what is actually causing the problem as we are working a bit blind.

 

[apprentice87]

Hi Lurch,

The mozilla crash reporter pops up. It gives a load of information, but i tried to copy and paste it but it will not let me.

john..

 

[apprentice87]

Ha, think i fixed it!!!!! There was a setting called "enable hardware accelleration" I turned that off and all seems fine now... But why??? What have i actually done??

john..

 

[Lurch]

What have i actually done??

Hardware acceleration is effectively handing off some of the video processing to the graphics hardware rather than trying to do it all itself. This is one of the things that get disabled in safe mode. It is probably some driver issue.

 

[apprentice87]

Ha!!! How clever are you!!! I updated the graphics driver thing, started up the "accelleration" thing again, but this time it all works!!!!!

john..

 

[Lurch]

Great news!