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why is firefox lagging and pausing every few seconds on mac os x

  • 4 replies
  • 269 have this problem
  • 5 views
  • Last reply by lyneday

Diego214
Diego214
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I have a brand new iMac running Snow Leopard with 8GBs of RAM. I've been using Firefox 3.6 for a few days and its acting up. Every few seconds it will pause , nothing will move. For example when I'm scrolling, typing, clicking on something. A few seconds will go by until it finally will respond to my input.

I read somewhere else that if you go the the firefox profiles folder and delete sessionstore.js should solve the problem. So I quit firefox and delete that file. And it will be normal for several hour or a day. After a lot of use the same problem happens.

Please anyone, if you know what the problem could be, please help. It's super annoying.

Any ideas?

I have a brand new iMac running Snow Leopard with 8GBs of RAM. I've been using Firefox 3.6 for a few days and its acting up. Every few seconds it will pause , nothing will move. For example when I'm scrolling, typing, clicking on something. A few seconds will go by until it finally will respond to my input. I read somewhere else that if you go the the firefox profiles folder and delete sessionstore.js should solve the problem. So I quit firefox and delete that file. And it will be normal for several hour or a day. After a lot of use the same problem happens. Please anyone, if you know what the problem could be, please help. It's super annoying. Any ideas?

Modified by Diego214

All Replies (4)

chateaux
chateaux
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This is how I solved this very very very very annoying issue. Closed firefox, then restarted it by holding down the "alt" or "option" key. I then re-set firefox back to its default settings and then restarted it.

Problem solved!!

I hope this helps you out!!

PS - support a great site: http://www.free2xchange.com we are offering a barter/trade/exchange system to replace the money cartels! Join the movement :D

tklaus
tklaus
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At least for me, the problem was the session saver. Increasing the session save interval as described here eliminated the pauses:

http://www.techmynd.com/firefox-freezes-for-a-moment-after-every-10-sec-fix/

ccarrot
ccarrot
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Thank you, tklaus!

This issue has been driving me nuts for months, ever since I upgraded from 3.* (I don't update very often). Thinking it was just a bug in the latest version, I updated all the way to the current 'latest version', with absolutely no change in this behaviour (if anything it got worse). Tried disabling all addons, it was a *bit* better but still noticeable and irritating, and besides, what use is FF without addons?

Adjusting the session save interval to once an hour (3600000) seems to have reduced or eliminated *most* of the hang-ups, making FF much more usable again! Thank you for giving me my browser back!

(FYI, FF 5.0 running on XP - told you I don't update very often! :)

lyneday
lyneday
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I had a similar problem with 6.0.2. Every step I would make would cause a lag (type a status, open a new tab, move to a new tab, scroll, etc.)

Go to Tools -> Add-ons -> PlugIns -> check to see if your plugins are up to date -> update anything that needs to be

Also make sure your software is up to date (Apple Menu -> Software Update)

Mine seemed to be Java and Flash that were out of date and causing me to lag. After doing both of the above and restarting the computer, I'm running smoothly (so far)