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Firefox 7 intermittently stops loading pages, requires restart to correct. Why?.

  • 45 replies
  • 544 have this problem
  • 88 views
  • Last reply by John99

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During normal usage Firefox will suddenly stop loading all pages in all tabs/windows. Every currently loading page remains blank, with the usual 'Connecting to ____' message. Any new tabs or windows opened, or any new page requests, get stuck in the same loop. The program itself does not hang and, other than failing to load pages, performs normally. No change in behaviour with all add-ons disabled. Seems to happen with any website, but seems to happen more often on pages with any elements that take excessively long to load. Only current solution is to close program and restart.

This is not a router/connectivity issue, IE and other programs can connect fine while the issue is occurring. Full system virus scan came up empty (Sophos/Ad-Aware/WinDefender). I believe I first starting having the problem with FF6, feels like it has become more frequent with FF7.

During normal usage Firefox will suddenly stop loading all pages in all tabs/windows. Every currently loading page remains blank, with the usual 'Connecting to ____' message. Any new tabs or windows opened, or any new page requests, get stuck in the same loop. The program itself does not hang and, other than failing to load pages, performs normally. No change in behaviour with all add-ons disabled. Seems to happen with any website, but seems to happen more often on pages with any elements that take excessively long to load. Only current solution is to close program and restart. This is not a router/connectivity issue, IE and other programs can connect fine while the issue is occurring. Full system virus scan came up empty (Sophos/Ad-Aware/WinDefender). I believe I first starting having the problem with FF6, feels like it has become more frequent with FF7.

Chosen solution

I may have found a solution to this problem here (well, at least Firefox has been working again for the last few hours, not sure if it will prove to be a long term solution or not).

As it says in the linked article, type about:config into the address bar, find network.http.max-connections and change its value from 256 to 48.

I have absolutely no idea why this works but it seems to. According to my resource monitor Firefox still seems to be using a ridiculous amount of memory and disk, and my cpu fan is still going crazy, but at least websites are loading again!

Does this fix the problem for anyone else?

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All Replies (5)

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@ tristeconff7

A QUESTION: Has disabling an add-on the same effect as uninstalling it? 

As far as I am aware that is the case. It is not necessarily the case with all plugins or all circumstances.

I've noticed that there are some addons and plugins that Firefox can't tell if they are Up To Date or Outdated and their status is "Research"

Plugins are only checked

  1. if they are enabled when you do the check
  2. they were obtained from mozilla, not third parties

Some plugins from third parties are commonly implicated in problems with Firefox.

Also note some security related programs may

  • tend to be active when installed but apparently disabled
  • interact adversely with other security related programs, if they are not part of an integrated suite from a single supplier.

You may do better by starting your own thread, by asking your own question.

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Unbelievable difference. Quick and easy. I am so grateful.

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For now I've switched to Chrome and I'm using FF7 to run my plugins for checking my email accounts in Yahoo and Gmail.

Hope to return to FF for all my needs, someday soon.

Thanks very much for the help.

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I had hang / crash problems with both FFox and Chrome - while MSIE worked fine - which traced back to a conflict with a recent version of I/O Bit antivirus program. Deleted I/O Bit entirely / fixed for both browsers.

I went through browser uninstall/reinstalls, settings on browser user profile, add ons / flash, ISP proxy, graphics accelerator, prefetch, firewall, Windows file sharing / network, and ISP / router configuration - before pinning down to I/O Bit.

They probably got on to it and fixed their bug, but I'll never use it again.

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RField,
others may be interested to know:

  • what your OS is
  • the full name and version of the software you feel is a problem
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