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Firefox 12 pauses aprox. 5 seconds EVERY 5 seconds will remove if there isn't a fix

  • 6 replies
  • 15 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by ptoland1

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approximately every 5 seconds Firefox pauses for about 5 seconds... This happens after Firefox has been open for arount 5-10 minutes... this effects all browser windows and most recently caused me to miss bidding on Ebay because of the inability for firefox to display the countdown timer without hanging up, then jumping ahead then pausing while trying to enter bids. 7 out of 7 users known to me personally have this problem and a few thought at first it was the fault of their computer and replaced video cards etc. only to discover it was Firefox all along. Although I have been very Anti- Internet Explorer... I may have to resume using it and remove firefox if there isn't a fix

approximately every 5 seconds Firefox pauses for about 5 seconds... This happens after Firefox has been open for arount 5-10 minutes... this effects all browser windows and most recently caused me to miss bidding on Ebay because of the inability for firefox to display the countdown timer without hanging up, then jumping ahead then pausing while trying to enter bids. 7 out of 7 users known to me personally have this problem and a few thought at first it was the fault of their computer and replaced video cards etc. only to discover it was Firefox all along. Although I have been very Anti- Internet Explorer... I may have to resume using it and remove firefox if there isn't a fix

All Replies (6)

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Start Firefox in Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode to check if one of the extensions or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance/Themes).


You can also check for problems with the places.sqlite database file.

You can also try to repair the places database with this extension:

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Same here. Does not happen with Chrome or IE.

Can see visually by going to a page that has a partial zoom image off to the side and moving the view box around in circles. Seems to freeze at regular intervals. Gets worse with time (and/or multiple open Firefox windows)..

Monitor CPU usage via Task Manager and there's no apparent culprit. No task other than Firefox ever gets above 1% (excluding System Idle). It quickly becomes unusable.

There are no add-ons except Norton which has had no adverse impact. Default theme is in use.

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hey ptoland1, even if you don't suspect the norton addon, please try running firefox in safemode once like cor-el has described to diagnose the issue, since there may be other factors like hardware accelerations involved!

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I did that after I posted. Problem seemed to disappear. However I didn't wait for very long to see if time was the critical factor. I did add back features one at a time and problem seemed gone at each step.

However, once I brought Firefox back up normally, the problem was still gone. Until now. Which is about half an hour later with two Firefox windows open for that time.

Am now going to retry safe mode and leave it that way for awhile to further check if time is the determining factor.

Am running XP SP3.

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This is getting weird. So Safe Mode on for 1hour+ seemed to have no affect.

And then I remembered that I had just installed Skype for Mac/Windows chatting and it had added an extension to Firefox.

So I restarted a few Firefox windows normally and waited awhile. Lo and behold the freezey twitches reappeared. I then disabled the Skype "Click to Call" extension and the pauses went away. Aha I say. I then re-enabled Skype and still OK. And now an hour later with 5 Firefox windows open it's still OK?!?!? WTF? Am going to reboot and see if the pauses rears its ugly head again.

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Further notes.

Had been running well.

Left a Firefox window open overnight for 12 hours. Running horribly this morning. Task Manager had Firefox's memory usage to 1.4 gig. Window had an idle Weather Channel Flash box.

Closing then opening helped immeasurably but still a little twitchy.