Today I came across a Digg article “I Want To Love Firefox 3.5, But It Keeps Crashing On Me“. It made me wonder how in this age of technology would a mature browser be so vulnerable to crashes. Guess what – as a matter of fact 80% of the affected users are complainers and only 20% are doers. Mozilla has a rich ecosystem of support and resources. But it’s easier to follow some simple steps to figure out what is at fault.
- “Firefox is crashing” means a lot of things to lot of people. But to narrow it down to Firefox, you really must see if you can simulate the problem in safe mode. Someone is more likely to believe that it’s Firefox at fault if it still crashes in safe mode.
- But it is possible that it was not Firefox after all which was allegedly responsible for the crash. It could be one of your addons. Most of the addons at Mozilla are tested and approved. But the vicious mix of addons brings in new angles to the story. Two perfectly stable addons could create issues when used in tandem. Additionally there’s a list of addons with known problems. Try using Firefox with these addons disabled.
- Further it could just be one of the plugins. I had Firefox crash whenever I refreshed Gmail (the entire page). After doing some searching I found it could be the “Google Talk Plugin” I disabled the “Google Talk Plugin” and additionally “Yahoo application state plugin” which I believe have no business in the list of plugins. That fixed the crash at once.
- And by all means if it really comes down to it and you find it really is Firefox that is at fault, take the following actions:
- Note the circumstances when Firefox crashes – does it happen at random or a particular site or when you execute a particular task?
- Can you reliably simulate the crash at will?
- File a bug with the relevant information at Bugzilla.
- Additionally ensure that you are using the latest stable version of Firefox.
Essentially the point I’m driving is to be more aware of what’s really happening to your browser and being able to fix it than just tweet – hey Firefox keeps crashing on me.
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{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
I tried the “Answer” add-on and sure enough, Firefox crashed. I had to “run as administrator” to load it so I could un-install “Answer” and consequently Firefox restarted with no problem.
Firefox 3.5 is really giving lot of problems to users, some guys are even using firefox 2.x coz they think its faster
Most of the time if fox 3 crashes it is because of the plugins the user has chosen to install. Uninstall fox 3 then download and reinstall the browser. Become very picky with your choices of plugins
i want to tell you that some times fire fox get this error uninstall it then download newer version of firefox or opera these both are good browsers you can download it from download.com
My Firefox browser won’t even open up. I click on it, and it tells me it crashed. It’s been doing this since last night. Yesterday, around this time, it was working fine. I have reinstalled Firefox 3.0.1 and it still crashes. I can tell you right now that I don’t have any viruses–just ran a scan, there’s nothing there. Any ideas? I hate IE and really don’t want to be stuck using it.
I have reinstalled Firefox 3.0.1 and it still crashes. I can tell you right now that I don’t have any viruses–just ran a scan, there’s nothing there
I will try what you have suggested as Fx crashes a lot with me and it has almost become unbearable. I will check which add-ons I have and do my best to uninstall them.
Wow, it is very helpful. I’m new to using firefox and have come across several times of crashing. The solutions you’ve offered is very informative. Thanks for sharing it.
Nice tips on dealing with firefox crashing. It is very informative. Thanks a lot for sharing it.
I’ve bookmarked your blog. Keep working.
Great tips.
Very useful and informative post !
Helpful post.
Sorry but since 3.5+ has been released it has been NOTHING but a problem.
I’, an iMac user running the latest version of OSX. I was running Firefox, it had all those groovy add-ons. There’s not much reason to run Firefox if you’re not goosey about some of its add-ons. That’s the problem with Firefox. The add-ons can be buggy, they make Firefox unstable, and slow it down to a crawl. Finally I got wise, reformatted my HD, rebuilt everything from scratch, sans Firefox, and now run Safari. WOW, it transformed my Chev II into a gogomobile! Try it, you’ll like it.
I have never had problems with firefox crashing
I really like firefox, but to say its the add ons is a cop out.
I don’t care if its the add ons, or firefox. I use firefox because of the add ons ( otherwise Chrome). I don’t have time to fiddle with all different combinations. Firefox should do more stack analysis to figure out the problem.
my FF crashed a lot since upgraded to 3.6 and it is using a lot more memory compared to Google Chrome… If not for some of the plugins, I would have moved to Chrome completely…
I’ve given up on Firefox completely. It literally crashes on me twenty times I day. I have no add-ons, plug-ins or anything else, just the basic 3.5 browser which, in the last month, has gone from great to a piece of garbage. I only use Explorer or Chrome at this point (and it’s not just me – one whole forum I participate in is complaining about these new crashes and most have now switched to Chrome).
Cassandra: Have you tried the safe mode? If Firefox crashes regularly even in the safemode and you can duplicate the issue at will then you can create a bug report at http://bugzilla.mozilla.org.
BTW it would be interesting to know which forum is complaining about these crashes.
I’ve had similar problems with Firefox over the last 4-6 months (but not for years prior). Symptoms: runs very slowly sometimes and takes a long time to boot; used to be able to close easily by “x’ing” out but now when I do that it may not reboot, so I’m trying to use “exit,” but still why did it work fine for so long but now doesn’t?; on some web pages it will not load up a link I’ve clicked on but I never have that problem with IE; sometimes it seems to get “stuck,” ie uses 49% cpu time (oddly not usually 50% or 48%). I’m not much of a computer mechanic but I don’t think I have a lot of add-ons. I’d uninstall and reinstall but I’m a little intimidated about how to save my painstakingly collected bookmark file. I have a firewall and use NoScript; regularly run antivirus and adaware programs and nothing ever comes up. Why would those programs be problems when for years I’ve used Firefox blissfully without a hitch? Googling up my symptoms I read that certain files may have become “corrupted” and that even reinstalling may not be reliable. Geez I’m such a whiner, but in my ignorance I can’t help but think Firefox has gone past the converging curves of usefulness on the one hand and safety and fanciness on the other. But I truly have no expertise in this so I’m open to suggestions. NB: I’m visiting this site on IE, not Firefox.
Firefox was crashing repeatedly for me. No addons. Reinstalls didn’t fix it. I finally ran a registry cleaning program and that fixed it. Probably a corrupt key was causing the crashes.
i have to agree with cassandra and rob … i have one laptop repeatedly crashing and another running like crap. tried the safe mode on the crasher w/o success. on the other laptop the plugin container and firefox processes seem to gradually eat up more and more memory until it firefox crashes or gets so slow as to require reboot. firefox has got some issues right now, too bad, been using it for years.
ricoPan is right on. Maybe pristine Firefox works fine and it’s add-ons or corruptions or whatever that cause the problems but as a consumer it’s not my job to sort that out. By virtue of the sequence of events I’d guess there’s a problem with newer versions of Firefox. I tried uninstalling, including uninstalling all the pieces parts that Uninstall doesn’t uninstall, and reinstalling to no avail. Links sometimes don’t work; can’t open a second copy of Firefox by clicking the shortcut if one is already running; still get’s “stuck,” ie freezes up and sucks up about half my cpu time (have to “end process” and restart to use it again); Firefox may decide not to boot at all without restarting the computer. If Firefox is susceptible to these problems the issue is with Firefox whether or not the code works fine in the lab. In the real world with real users, at least with this one, my good buddy Firefox can no longer do what I need it to do, what it used to do all the time. I’ve been Chroming away blissfully for the last couple of weeks and finally uninstalled Firefox permanently.
I used FF for years, no problems at all. For the last 4-5 months it’s not only the program that’s crashing it’s also causing my PC to crash. Sadly now uninstalled, using GC without any problems at all. Pity, because I liked FF, let’s hope it gets fixed in a future version
I did everything a reasonable user who is not a geek might do to work with Firefox. If that makes me a complainer instead of a doer, and out of 100% of Firefox users who find a problem 80% of us go elsewhere because we fail to meet some geek’s standard of how we should admire and forgive Firefox because, gee, it’s not Firefox’s fault . . . well then, my friend, Firefox is F’d.