Firefox Stalls or Hangs
Why Does Firefox Stall (Hang) Intermittently?
I have encountered this problem off and on. Below a list of possible reasons for Firefox hangs:
Potential Sources for Firefox Hanging
- Hyperthreading
- User Agent Switcher
- JavaScript
- MS Antispyware
- McAffee Antivirus
- Adobe TypeManager/ Font
- Extensions
- Changes regularly as extensions are updated - post the extension you are having problems with below.
Some Solutions
My solution for the moment is to clear the cache, and reduce the memory load. I also had a problem with the Tabbrowser Extension (known also to conflict with FCKEditor and TinyMCE, among other things), which I replaced with TabMix Plus, and that seemed to solve the problem. Another extension that I think is great but unfortunately is experiencing extreme memory leaks is TagAlert. Hopefully a future release will solve the memory leak issues.
If All Else Fails
If all else fails reinstalling Firefox, disabling all extensions, and doing the following will most always solve any issue:
Windows: Rename the "Firefox" folder in the following directory: C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Mozilla to something like "Firefox-bak" and reload Firefox. Post any questions below.
Google browser sync will cause stalls
For me, it was Google browser sync that caused a stall with a period of ~50 seconds. These were my debug steps: 0) Download Process Explorer from the MSFT site. 1) Start up firefox, but don't do anything with it. 2) Start Process Explorer and look at the CPU usage graph for firefox. 3) If you have my problem, you will see periodic spikes in CPU usage, even though nothing is happening. 4) Go to Tools->Add-ons and disable one of the extensions. 5) Restart firefox and observe CPU graph (it will be a new PID in Process Explorer, so you'll have to launch a new graph as well). 6) Repeat steps 2-5, changing only the extension that is disabled until you no longer see the spikes in the firefox process CPU graph.
Excellent stuff! Thanks so
Excellent stuff! Thanks so much for the tip!
firefox stall
check about:config for "network" and reset all entries you see had changed (in bold).
Ok... figured it out
In most cases, it's not extensions. If your history cache is too big, that is the cause. Delete old links from history and reduce the number of days of history to save and the problem will be fixed.
Just formatted my machine... still stalls.
Ok.. so I just formatted, reinstalled windows... first thing I install is Firefox 3... Hangs immediately. So I try the compatibility mode change... now Firefox won't open. I have nothing in my extensions menu either. Any ideas? I'm lost now.
Firefox solution
Hmm, nice stuff, I also was suffering from this trouble that Firefox used to hang over the period of time, I got the problem because the antivirus software would loose up the system and it results in the hanging the system, but when I found antispyware software the problem vanished very fast and I am happy.
history file was the problem for me
I had the same hanging problem with constant disk access whenever I try to load Firefox.
I got rid of places.sqlite and places.sqlite-journal and it worked again.