Firefox crashes Windows

Rushie

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Rushie
This is really a followup from my "how long do I wait" thread but I've isolated a problem so will start anew.

Turns out the Windows updates that were failing to install, finally installed properly after I uninstalled Firefox. (My tech support guy gave up and told me to call Microsoft. Well that'll be a cold day...)

The reason I uninstalled Firefox was that it seemed more laggy and slow than everything else, so I decided to remove it completely. Sure enough, the Windows updates all installed successfully.

So, I downloaded Firefox afresh, installed it and opened it, and it caused Windows to lock up. Chrome would not open, nothing would. I could not perform CTL-ALT-DLT and so could not terminate Firefox. Couldn't shut down properly so powered it off and rebooted in Safe Mode. There I uninstalled Firefox again. Rebooted and now all works great.

Keep trying or give up and use Chrome which I hate?
 
I'm pretty sure the problem is that I need to turn off hardware acceleration. Trouble is it locks and crashes before I can make that change so I will try your portable version...
 
firefox-has-encountered-an-unexpected-problem-with-windows-10918351.png
 
either or, or both,

some you instal exe.

this one is unziped into a folder & run from there
https://www.firefox-usb.com/

Wow it works! And I didn't turn off hardware acceleration. But I turned it off in Chrome and that made it a lot faster. Does this portable version not interact with Windows and/or video card drivers like the normal one and am I on to something with the hardware acceleration?
 
Wow it works! And I didn't turn off hardware acceleration. But I turned it off in Chrome and that made it a lot faster. Does this portable version not interact with Windows and/or video card drivers like the normal one and am I on to something with the hardware acceleration?
the portable vers is a way of getting around any issues there may be with the original setup, without having to sort it out,

it could be there were graphics hardware/software/driver & or ff software issues, related to the original that didn't sort out with a fresh standard reinstallation
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/964151

sounds like you're good with the potable vers? I understood all was good after uninstalling the original,

chrome seems to run faster with hardware acceleration off, here's a ff related comparison
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=105471.0

to go further, i'd check out the graphics drivers & do some tests on the graphics hardware (not upgradable)
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/upgrade-graphics-drivers-use-hardware-acceleration

i'd def max out the the ram & even processor if an easy job, some are

an easy way to see how your processor & ram are fairing with what you use the laptop for is running a meter, there's a bunch out there
http://win7gadgets.com/tag/ram/
 
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the portable vers is a way of getting around any issues there may be with the original setup, without having to sort it out,

it could be there were graphics hardware/software/driver & or ff software issues, related to the original that didn't sort out with a fresh standard reinstallation
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/964151

sounds like you're good with the potable vers? I understood all was good after uninstalling the original,

chrome seems to run faster with hardware acceleration off, here's a ff related comparison
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=105471.0

to go further, i'd check out the graphics drivers & do some tests on the graphics hardware (not upgradable)
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/upgrade-graphics-drivers-use-hardware-acceleration

i'd def max out the the ram & even processor if an easy job, some are

an easy way to see how your processor & ram are fairing with what you use the laptop for is running a meter, there's a bunch out there
http://win7gadgets.com/tag/ram/

I'll have to see whether the portable version will work in the long run. When I shut it down and restarted it I had lost all my extensions and settings, I'm sure there's a way to save those I haven't figured out. And every time I start it I see a box asking if I want to run it on the hard drive or something so that's some extra clicking.

I have Palemoon on my desktop and am considering switching to that on this laptop or another browser but Palemoon has a couple quirks too and Firefox is the one I'm most used to.

So I'll probably follow these suggestions next time I have a day to waste and try to sort it out. I did run the scannow and did check disk and cleaned up a lot of files, malwarebytes scan, virus all up to date, finding no problems with any of that.

And... thank you for all this!
 
That is not Firefox's fault. There's no WAY a user program should crash Windows if it wasn't a defective piece of equine excrement.
 
This is really a followup from my "how long do I wait" thread but I've isolated a problem so will start anew.

Turns out the Windows updates that were failing to install, finally installed properly after I uninstalled Firefox. (My tech support guy gave up and told me to call Microsoft. Well that'll be a cold day...)

The reason I uninstalled Firefox was that it seemed more laggy and slow than everything else, so I decided to remove it completely. Sure enough, the Windows updates all installed successfully.

might just be a coincidence, even tho the updates were successful right after uninstalling ff cos there was a connection issue in there prior

good that the scannow was successful, try a chkdisk & defrag mentioned also, it's important to deal with knowns & basics first when diagnosing

if you run a chkdisk during a boot up process, watch the process & results, ideally it runs clean showing no corrections for errors
 
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That is not Firefox's fault. There's no WAY a user program should crash Windows if it wasn't a defective piece of equine excrement.

If you mean Windows is the defective piece of equine excrement, I agree. Also, my laptop is a defective piece of equine excrement. :D It's just too old. Dropping it onto a hard floor last year didn't help it either.

I just need to get through this trip.


might just be a coincidence, even tho the updates were successful right after uninstalling ff cos there was a connection issue in there prior

good that the scannow was successful, try a chkdisk & defrag mentioned also, it's important to deal with knowns & basics first when diagnosing

if you run a chkdisk during a boot up process, watch the process & results, ideally it runs clean showing no corrections for errors

I did and no errors. You are right it could be a coincidence. But then why did it lock up again after I reinstalled FF? It was not just FF locked, it was everything. And I went through that two more times, so chance of a coincidence got very small.

I don't know if the "fault" is Firefox or Windows, but something was making those two things and only those two things not play nice together at all.
 
Sorry to drone on ...

Have you checked the integrity of the Operating system files with

sfc /scannow

Run in an Administrator command window. It took 22 mins to run on my old Win 7 machine.

Also check in Control Panel/Device Manager for red exclamation marks on any device drivers. (Or are they yellow? I think I forget.) You don't want any.

The reason that you don't get control of your computer back after firefox crashes MAY be that it is writing a HUGE crashdump file. Web browsers can use several gigabytes of RAM. The full crash dump is pretty much useless to anyone short of Microsoft or Mozilla.

May as well enable minidumps instead.
https://blog.nirsoft.net/2010/07/27/how-to-configure-windows-to-create-minidump-files-on-bsod/

This way you get your computer back in a reasonable time.

ALSO:-

You can then upload the minidump to a dump analyser which MAY identify which subsystem (often a driver) is causing the crash.

Just look at a couple or three of different dump files from different crashes to see if the same file is identified. It is full of Hex, register dumps, stack traces, but just ignore all of that and look for a file name. Often xxx.sys, or xxx.dll or perhaps xxx.exe. Maybe others, I am not an expert.

Then identify which driver the file belongs to and see if it can be updated. Google of course. Can also use explorer to find the file (windows\system32 folder, windows\SysWOW64?) and right click on it and choose properties/details, may assist in identifying source of file.

By the way - I don't advocate downloading from "driver" sites. Only from manufacturer sites. I feel the security risks are too high without knowledge of the driver sites that I don't have.

You need an official update package from some software or hardware manufacturers site. Get your IT guy to sort this out.

I have used this dump analyser-
http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=Analyze

Uploading a full size dump may be a security risk but a minidump is unlikely to hold sensitive information since it is so small.

# # #

The current time is: 9:30:52.14
Enter the new time:

C:\Windows\system32>sfc /scannow

Beginning system scan. This process will take some time.

Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

C:\Windows\system32>echo.|time
The current time is: 9:52:20.09
Enter the new time:
 
Sorry to drone on ...

Have you checked the integrity of the Operating system files with

sfc /scannow

Run in an Administrator command window. It took 22 mins to run on my old Win 7 machine.

Also check in Control Panel/Device Manager for red exclamation marks on any device drivers. (Or are they yellow? I think I forget.) You don't want any.

The reason that you don't get control of your computer back after firefox crashes MAY be that it is writing a HUGE crashdump file. Web browsers can use several gigabytes of RAM. The full crash dump is pretty much useless to anyone short of Microsoft or Mozilla.

May as well enable minidumps instead.
https://blog.nirsoft.net/2010/07/27/how-to-configure-windows-to-create-minidump-files-on-bsod/

This way you get your computer back in a reasonable time.

ALSO:-

You can then upload the minidump to a dump analyser which MAY identify which subsystem (often a driver) is causing the crash.

Just look at a couple or three of different dump files from different crashes to see if the same file is identified. It is full of Hex, register dumps, stack traces, but just ignore all of that and look for a file name. Often xxx.sys, or xxx.dll or perhaps xxx.exe. Maybe others, I am not an expert.

Then identify which driver the file belongs to and see if it can be updated. Google of course. Can also use explorer to find the file (windows\system32 folder, windows\SysWOW64?) and right click on it and choose properties/details, may assist in identifying source of file.

By the way - I don't advocate downloading from "driver" sites. Only from manufacturer sites. I feel the security risks are too high without knowledge of the driver sites that I don't have.

You need an official update package from some software or hardware manufacturers site. Get your IT guy to sort this out.

I have used this dump analyser-
http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=Analyze

Uploading a full size dump may be a security risk but a minidump is unlikely to hold sensitive information since it is so small.

# # #

The current time is: 9:30:52.14
Enter the new time:

C:\Windows\system32>sfc /scannow

Beginning system scan. This process will take some time.

Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

C:\Windows\system32>echo.|time
The current time is: 9:52:20.09
Enter the new time:

Thanks! That's the closest thing to a logical explanation I've seen. It did indeed behave as if it was maxing out memory, some things would happen extremely slowly and others not at all but might have after enough time.

Yes I've run sfc /scannow and got the message there were no violations. I wouldn't be surprised to find a driver is the conflict. Thanks for the instructions how to go about this. I didn't know you could enable minidumps.
 
Recent updates to Firefox have turned it into a memory hog on my Win 10 box. That slows it down and in one case caused to to crash. That's fairly recent - the last couple of weeks, though. It doesn't help that certain social media sites load hundreds of ads and trackers that consume memory.
 
Recent updates to Firefox have turned it into a memory hog on my Win 10 box. That slows it down and in one case caused to to crash. That's fairly recent - the last couple of weeks, though. It doesn't help that certain social media sites load hundreds of ads and trackers that consume memory.

Yep. I gave up on FF. I use Waterfox as my default now. Other than a few sites warning me that it's not a "supported" browser, it's been blissfully problem-free.

Rich
 
Yep. I gave up on FF. I use Waterfox as my default now. Other than a few sites warning me that it's not a "supported" browser, it's been blissfully problem-free.

Rich

I got that message today on my desktop with Palemoon. But the site worked fine.
 
Think in Russian.
 
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