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firefox freezes pc
Help this is annoying. In the past month, while in firefox suddenly my computer freezes for no reason. The whole PC freezes for about 20 seconds, then I can bring up task manager after that. Im running Win 7 on a top of the line PC for gaming. I tried resetting firefox, no change. i tried reinstall, disable adobe flash player still no resolution.
Just now, my PC froze indefinitely, while in firefox, (couldnt do anything for minutes and minutes) . I had to hard reboot my laptop which I DONT LIKE TO DO. Firefox is causing my computer harm by these freezes and its pissing me off. Ive never had this issue before so why am I now. I havent done anything different. My comp runs avast security and is clean and updated and everything. I heard the new adobe update could cause this error but i disabled it in firefox. Honestly if this is firefox fault they need to fix this crap argh. I was in middle of college application when my pc hanged. GREAT THANKS FIREFOX
Chosen solution
You often can bypass graphic driver incompatibilities by disabling Firefox's use of hardware acceleration for graphics.
You usually need to restart Firefox in order for this to take effect, so save all work first (e.g., mail you are composing, online documents you're editing, etc.).
(WIN) orange Firefox button (or Tools menu) > Options > Advanced
(MAC) Firefox menu > Preferences > Advanced
On the "General" mini-tab, uncheck the box for "Use hardware acceleration when available"
If you restart Firefox, is the issue resolved (or at least improved)?
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Hello,
Try disabling graphics hardware acceleration. Since this feature was added to Firefox, it has gradually improved, but there still are a few glitches.
You might need to restart Firefox in order for this to take effect, so save all work first (e.g., mail you are composing, online documents you're editing, etc.).
Then perform these steps:
- Click the orange Firefox button at the top left, then select the "Options" button, or, if there is no Firefox button at the top, go to Tools > Options.
- In the Firefox options window click the Advanced tab, then select "General".
- In the settings list, you should find the Use hardware acceleration when available checkbox. Uncheck this checkbox.
- Now, restart Firefox and see if the problems persist.
Additionally, please check for updates for your graphics driver by following the steps mentioned in the following Knowledge base articles:
Did this fix your problems? Please report back to us!
Thank you.
To the original poster with the problem, i had the same issue just tonight 7/9 and fixed it.
The problem was my computer asked me to update my Adobe Flash Player. I did so but it didn't install saying 'action list not found'. I am on Windows 7 btw. Then when I tried to run FF 22, it would just hang and I would need to kill my computer and turn it back on. I tried my other browsers such as Chrome and IE and same thing, when it tried to load a page, whole computer froze and i had to turn off turn on the computer to get it back up.
I uninstalled FF and then used IE to download Flash Player. I got the same error with the 'action list not found' but directed me to a troubleshooting page. I did a search on 'actionlist not found' error, and it had a direct download link to flash thru IE. I did that, installed the newest version of Flash and it didnt give me the actionlist error.
Then I used Chrome, opened the browser, went to a page, then it froze on me again, but this time I let it run, and some window popped up for split second so I didnt know what it said, but then the webpage unfroze and everything was back to normal. I then redownloaded FF and it has been working without the freezing problem ever since.
I hope this helps.
I have similar problems for several weeks now. FF randomly freezes up the PC. Sometimes it recovers and sometimes it's gone for good and I have to reset the PC via reset-button. Sadly I am not sure when it actually started but I too thought it was due to some Flash Problems.
Since I didn't know what to do, I just did a fresh installation of Win7 on my maschine and installed FF 23.0.1 with the following addons: This time NO Flash.
Addons: AdBlock Plus 2.3.2 DownThemAll! 2.0.16 Roomy Bookmarks Toolbar 1.4.4
Theme: Gaia Nature
Plugins: Nitro PDF Plugin for FF & Chrome 8.5.5.2 NVIDIA 3D Vision 7.17.13.2049 NVIDIA 3D VISION 7.17.13.2049 Silverlight Plug-In 5.1.20513.0 VLC Web Plugin 2.0.6.0
Hardware Acceleration is also disabled in FF.
However, the freezes still occur. They seem to be less fatal (aka FF comes back to life more often) but just yesterday the whole system froze after lingering on the DropBox website. I left the PC for a while and when I returned, the screen was black but the cursor was still displayed. I think it tried to start the screensaver and that was it then.
Come to think of it, maybe the NVIDIA drivers don't like FF anymore?
Please find this cockroach and fry it. I really like FF and am using it since the beginning and I would hate to switch to Chrome.
Keep up the good work!
Modified
I started having this problem when i when i updated nvidia drivers (320.49)
FF V23
Chosen Solution
You often can bypass graphic driver incompatibilities by disabling Firefox's use of hardware acceleration for graphics.
You usually need to restart Firefox in order for this to take effect, so save all work first (e.g., mail you are composing, online documents you're editing, etc.).
(WIN) orange Firefox button (or Tools menu) > Options > Advanced
(MAC) Firefox menu > Preferences > Advanced
On the "General" mini-tab, uncheck the box for "Use hardware acceleration when available"
If you restart Firefox, is the issue resolved (or at least improved)?
I did this from the beginning. The freezes still occur.
What I found out now is that the freezes actually DO stop after several seconds.
But the freeze is still complete, no mouse, no keyboard, no nothing. :(
Hi Peabody, do you notice any pattern in the types of pages that cause Firefox to freeze, e.g., pages with embedded videos, pages that are ad-heavy, secure vs. unsecured pages, etc.?
It's hard to think of why there would be a problem with Dropbox, but I do not use the site very much.
Or perhaps the problem isn't triggered by particular sites, but based on something Firefox does on a schedule. For example, every 15 seconds Firefox updates the file that stores your open windows and tabs. Some users who keep a lot of tabs open discovered that this frequent updating of session data caused their Firefox to get laggy. Here is a recent threads like that: Last update made my Firefox stop working for a second every minute.
If you notice a different schedule for the problem, that may provide a useful clue.
I have this problem too and I think this is a mouse related problem. Because after continuing from freeze , mouse cursor glitches and then freezes happen more and more and I have to restart windows quickly.
Just for the record, I have the same symptoms as in described in this topic. It took a while realising there's highly possible that it is FF related. I tested my rig's RAM, changed VGA, VGA driver, no luck.
Now I'll try disabling hardware acceleration.
OS: Win8 I updated FF, Adobe flash player & Avast. The fan on my computer started running hard (like on high) & FF got slow & freezing up. I started FF up in safe mode, when I enabled Avast Webrep it started acting up again. Is there a fix for this?
Hi witchee2u, if this problem only occurs when the avast! extension is enabled, I suggest checking with the avast! forums: avast!WEBforum.
Ok, will do. Thank you.
I have found the cause of problem. It's nvidia new drivers. downgrade to version 314.22 and you will got the problem fixed!