Firefox keeps crashing at startup

[georgelee]

Is anyone else encountering this?

It started with FF8 and continues with FF9, not every time the browser is opened, but probably about a dozen times daily. Almost always opens at the second attempt.

[Roderunner]

Hi georgelee, I suggest using CCleaner at default setting with 'DNS Cache' added.

[georgelee]

Thanks for the suggestion.

At first I thought it had solved the problem, but that was too optimistic. However, Firefox seems to be crashing less frequently than previously, although Saturday not being a trading day I have been online less than normal, so can’t be certain of that.

As the problem began about the time of installing FF8 I assumed a connection, but as nobody else seems to be affected that was clearly wrong.

Anyway, thank you for alleviating the annoyance, just as I was about to try Chrome once more.

George

[Roderunner]

Any time I get trouble with FF, I use the default settings of Revo Uninstaller Portable to remove all of it, then clean install FF. Revo Uninstaller.PDF

[JohnFleming]

I support Roderunner. I run FF9 with 40 extensions, that's why I use FF, but I am reconciled to periodic uninstalls of FF, followed by a complete reinstall in a new profile, after which FF runs much more quickly, for a bit.

[caribconsult]

I think there are some loose screws in FF9...as soon as I installed it over my existing FF8 it started acting up, crashing, not starting, all sorts of undesirable crap, so I uninstalled it completely after saving my bookmarks, re-installed FF8 and have had no problems. As has often been said, there's a lot of bleeding on the leading edge. I always used to tell my clients "Don't upgrade yourself into oblivion." I don't know specifically what improvements v9 carries over v8, but 8 works fine for me.

[JNygren]

I've been noticing some FF wierdness since FF9, maybe FF8, too. My browser will become incredibly slow, and I notice nearly constant disk thrashing. Task manager shows FF using 400+ Meg of memory, and a high percentage of CPU time. I close FF, but the disk access and sluggishness continues. Although there are no FF windows showing up on the system, task manager still shows a firefox.exe process running, and it never ends. Virus scans and system clean-ups haven't helped. I suspect it might have something to do with virtual memory use, and the disk thrashing is swapfile access, but I don't know and I haven't found a solution. Thoughts?

[glcsic]

I have had a similar problem and fixed it by going to Options...Advanced...and unticking Use Hardware Acceleration When Available.

[bethel95]

I'd tend to agree that the first thing to look at is a conflict between FF8/9 and something else in your system configuration along the lines of the advice already given, just because that's the easiest place to start.

If you've run through all those possibilities, however, you may want to consider the additional possibility that you've got one or more corrupted files in your FF profile. This could be a corrupted add-on, add-on conflict, or a corrupted FF configuration file, and may have cropped up during your upgrade to FF 8. Tracking down these kinds of problems can take some time, especially when the problem is intermittent (as it is for you).

A quick test you could try would be to open FF in safe mode (no add-ons loaded) several times. If it consistently opens without crashing, that would seem to indicate an add-on problem. If so, then disable all of your add-ons and go through the "re-enable one at a time" method of tracking down the problem.

If FF continues to crash in safe mode, then I'd recommend looking at the FF configuration files in your default profile as the source of your problem. To do this:

1. Make a temporary backup of the default profile (located in your user folder under AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles).
2. Start the FF profile manager (see this article for how).
3. Create a new profile and make it the default.

If FF starts OK with the new default profile, you can either just reinstall all your plugins and recreate your preferences (oy!) or replace configuration files in the new default profile with the ones from the old default profile (one at a time).

Where to start with replacing the configuration files? Compare the old default profile set to the new default profile set--files that are larger in the old set than the version in the new set will probably have configuration settings. It's a been a while since I've done this, but I seem to recall that the files of interest had *.ini, *.js, or *.rdf extensions--that's at least a good place to start.

As soon as a replace/restart results in the old crashing problem, then you've found your culprit. Delete that file from your old default profile (FF with create a new one later), use profile manager to switch back to the old default profile, and restart FF. All should now be well (though you may have lost some of your preferences).

As a final clean-up, you could then delete the temporary backup of the original default profile (I had you make that just in case you accidentally blew up your "working" copy) and delete the "new" default profile (the one you used for testing) in profile manager.

Sadly, I've had to do this 2-3 times in the past 4+ years of using Firefox. So far, the FF's plusses have made it worth it.

Late addition: Just for others who might find this post via a search, there's additional good information about FF profile issues in this Mozillazine article--just skip down to the section titled "Profile Issues."

[JLentz]

I worked on a computer that was given to a friend where Firefox would crash when trying to start. I fixed it be going into Add/Remove Programs and deleting the five or six Toolbars that had been installed as tagware to applications. l

[georgelee]

I have had a similar problem and fixed it by going to Options...Advanced...and unticking Use Hardware Acceleration When Available.

Thanks for the suggestion, but it hasn't made any difference. In fact it coincided with the update to FF 10, which seems even more unstable on this PC.

I would switch entirely to IE, but for the fact that Last Pass doesn't work well there - instead of inserting passwords at the click of a button they have to be manually typed in.

[georgelee]

@bethel95
Thanks, and apologies for the delayed response, I thought this thread had ended with #4, until catching up with last week’s newsletter I saw someone else was having the same problem, only to discover it was me.

I will certainly try your suggestion, as everything else has failed, Chrome is awful and IE suffers from the Last Pass defect mentioned above.

However, it may take a few days as I am out most of this week.

[bethel95]

I will certainly try your suggestion, as everything else has failed, Chrome is awful and IE suffers from the Last Pass defect mentioned above.

However, it may take a few days as I am out most of this week.

Hope that does the trick for you.

Please post back to this thread what happened when you try it--the rest of us would probably learn something from that.

[Roderunner]

I have learned by trial & error, that if I'm installing a new program, I have to put Outpost Firewall Pro in Rules Wizard mode then select Auto Learning mode. If uninstalling or updating a program, it has to be disabled, as the FW protects certain files, thus preventing it from being done correctly.

[georgelee]

I have learned by trial & error, that if I'm installing a new program, I have to put Outpost Firewall Pro in Rules Wizard mode then select Auto Learning mode. If uninstalling or updating a program, it has to be disabled, as the FW protects certain files, thus preventing it from being done correctly.

Thanks, but unfortunately the firewall in Avira Internet Security doesn't appear to have an Auto Learning mode.