Firefox crashes

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I use Firefox (default browser) on two W7 laptops. On only one of them, if FF is closed, and I click a link elsewhere, say Outlook, FF opens but crashes before the page is opened. If FF is already open when I click the link, then there is no problem. Why does this happen? How do I resolve the issue? The version of FF does not make a difference as I have updated it whenever a new version comes out.
When it happens and FF closes, a window opens that says “Firefox had a problem and crashed. We’ll try to restore your tabs and windows when it restarts.” I can then tell Mozilla about the crash (obviously after innumerable times, they have not resolved the issue!), then either restart FF or quit FF. If I restart FF, it opens on the page that it tried opening previously, and crashes again. The only solution is to Quit FF. Then if I open FF that page opens automatically and FF does NOT crash.

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Try running AdwCleaner
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/

Jerry

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If Adw doesn’t find anything that could be causing a conflict, recheck your settings or change it to Always ask to see what it comes up with https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/change-program-used-open-email-links

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Don’t forget to check the FF add ons. One may be corrupt or an out of date version which requires an update. This is frequently the cause of FF crashes.

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Try uninstalling and then reinstalling Firefox again.

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Thank you all for your replies. Unfortunately the problem persists: I ran adwcleaner. I run malwarebytes daily, cc cleaner occasionally. No difference. Updated add-ons, no difference. All add-ons are set to “ask to activate” except shockwave flash and silverlight. I uninstalled FF a few times a week or so ago, no difference. Settings in FF ok. Any more ideas?

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Is anything showing in Event Viewer with a date and time stamp for when it occurred, or you could run it again for a more immediate Event error.

Reliability history may also have something.

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Is anything showing in Event Viewer with a date and time stamp for when it occurred, or you could run it again for a more immediate Event error.

Reliability history may also have something.

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I caused FF to crash as before, once at 9:38 and again at 10:00 today, then checked Event Viewer. The only items I found are:

Applications & Services LogsMicrosoftApplication experienceProgram telemetry:

08/13/2014 9:38:16
Compatibility fix applied to C:Program Files (x86)Mozilla Firefoxcrashreporter.exe.
Fix information: WinXPSp3, {df35b822-a1fe-4b70-bc53-34ff726a7eae}, 0x40102.

08/13/2014 9:38:04
Compatibility fix applied to C:Program Files (x86)Mozilla Firefoxfirefox.exe.
Fix information: WinXPSp3, {df35b822-a1fe-4b70-bc53-34ff726a7eae}, 0x40102.

08/13/2014 10:00:07
Compatibility fix applied to C:Program Files (x86)Mozilla Firefoxfirefox.exe.
Fix information: WinXPSp3, {df35b822-a1fe-4b70-bc53-34ff726a7eae}, 0x40102.

08/13/2014 10:00:30
Compatibility fix applied to C:Program Files (x86)Mozilla Firefoxcrashreporter.exe.
Fix information: WinXPSp3, {df35b822-a1fe-4b70-bc53-34ff726a7eae}, 0x40102.

There was nothing in Reliability Monitor, in fact nothing since 1/28/14! (Why??)

I don’t know what the event viewer logs mean.

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C:Program Files (x86)Mozilla Firefoxfirefox.exe.

Kenny is running an x64 Windows.

Drilling down into about:crashes might point to some possible fixes/workarounds.

No one has suggested resetting Firefox yet? Help > Troubleshooting information > Reset Firefox button.

I would suggest removing anything in Firefox that’s using any form of Compatibility, it really shouldn’t be needed.

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If you still have the desktop icon then try Control Panel/Find and fix problems/Run programs made for previous versions of Windows.

I no longer had FF’s desktop icon as I normally dump unnecessary desktop icons and had to reinstall FF to get the icon back so that FF was listed in the programs to choose.

It only gave up to Vista for me using Win 7 64bit HP, but the trouble shooter kept suggesting XP SP2 which would equate to a 64 bit system.

As it’s trying to make it compatible with XP SP3 for you, are you using Win 7 32 bit ?

One point of interest, although my FF works okay as a spare browser – was that when I went to uninstall it in Programs and Features, both v30 and 31 were listed.

The reason Reliability history is comparatively clean is because it had nothing to report, although mine normally lists Windows Updates and when I reset IE to defaults.

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Open up your task manager at the next crash and see how much memory FF is using. See if the memory even gets released after the Mozilla restart. It has always had a memory leak (at least for over a decade) and they finally got it under some control a few years back but since FF28 it is back. If y0ou find your FF is hogging 2, 3Gb or more well welcome to Chrome…they have a 64bitbeta you can try.

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Open up your task manager at the next crash and see how much memory FF is using. See if the memory even gets released after the Mozilla restart. It has always had a memory leak (at least for over a decade) and they finally got it under some control a few years back but since FF28 it is back. If y0ou find your FF is hogging 2, 3Gb or more well welcome to Chrome…they have a 64bitbeta you can try.

From that Event Viewer log I don’t think Kenny is using a 64 bit machine.

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“if FF is closed, and I click a link elsewhere, say Outlook, FF opens but crashes before the page is opened.”

Why would FF start when you open Outlook? What page is it trying to open – is there any clue to that? Next time you can open FF successfully, have a look in the History to see if the failing URL is listed.

To me it suggests a corrupt, out of date or incompatible add-on or plug-in in FF, which is somehow being triggered by the other application. Try disabling your add-ons and plug ins, one at a time, to see if the problem goes away. If you can identify the culprit, then update or ditch that particular component, or if it is a compatibility problem, FF should say “(name) is incompatible with Firefox” when you do Tools > Add-ons. You can possibly get around this by creating a Boolean entry in about:config called extensions.checkCompatibility.nn.n (where nn.n is the version of FF in use, e.g.31.0) and setting it to false. (Whenever a new version of FF comes out, I always create such a boolean for the new version before I do the upgrade.)

Getting technical, but if you have Process Monitor, you could set up a filter saying “if process name is firefox.exe then include”, and “if process name is not firefox.exe then exclude”, and see if the resulting trace gives any clue to the crash.

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Thank you all for your replies. Yes, I have 64-bit Win7 Sp1 Home Premium on this computer. (I have Win7 Pro Sp1 on the other laptop.)
Before resetting FF, I looked at troubleshooting information and then the most recent crash report: here it is: https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/ac9653fa-869f-449b-8755-5c5622140813 None of this means anything to me.
If I go to about:crashes I get a list going back to 2010 with 74 crashes listed, 55 of them in 2014.
The only FF listed in Control Panel is shown as: Mozilla Firefox 31.0 (x86 en-US).
Bundaburra: you misunderstood my statement: What I mean is that FF is closed. Outlook is open and receives an email with an internet link. When clicking that link, FF opens (since it is default browser), then goes through the crash process, etc. It does not crash if FF is already open before clicking that link.
Fascist Nation: task manager: normal running of FF: about 155MB. When I forced a crash as before, it went up to about 130MB, then nothing, not even listed after it crashed and closed.
I disabled add-ons one at a time, enabling each before disabling the next. The results were the same all the time. I did notice one thing: the crash seems to happen only when I move the cursor! Although this is a laptop, I use a wireless mouse and keyboard.
Sudo15: I am not sure I understand your suggestion regarding the FF icon.

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I just found out from my Domain Hosting service that Firefox 31 is causing several problems for them and their customers [they didn’t enumerate them] so I reverted to version 30 and no issue. I did go into Options [Preferences on Mac OS X] and the Update tab and set to notify but not install. My problem with Firefox 31 occurred on Win Vista, Win7, Win8.1 and Mac OS X 10.9, haven’t tried it on Linux Mint 17 yet.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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I have FF installed only as a spare browser and once opened, I pin it to the Taskbar and delete the desktop icon – which should only be a shortcut but when running Windows Compatibility trouble shooter, FF wasn’t listed as one of the programs to troubleshoot or was it listed in All programs to create a desktop icon, although it opens from the Taskbar icon.

I had to reinstall FF to get the desktop icon back and only then was FF included in the trouble shooting list.

You can also run the Compatibility trouble shooter by right clicking on the desktop icon and selecting that option.

As you are running a 64 bit system, it is puzzling as to why it wants to make it compatible with a 32 bit system – as I’ve said, it suggested XP SP2 for me and SP2 is the highest SP for XP 64 bit – which is why I thought the system with the error was a 32 bit one.

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I have FF installed only as a spare browser and once opened, I pin it to the Taskbar and delete the desktop icon – which should only be a shortcut but when running Windows Compatibility trouble shooter, FF wasn’t listed as one of the programs to troubleshoot or was it listed in All programs to create a desktop icon, although it opens from the Taskbar icon.

I had to reinstall FF to get the desktop icon back and only then was FF included in the trouble shooting list.

You can also run the Compatibility trouble shooter by right clicking on the desktop icon and selecting that option.

As you are running a 64 bit system, it is puzzling as to why it wants to make it compatible with a 32 bit system – as I’ve said, it suggested XP SP2 for me and SP2 is the highest SP for XP 64 bit – which is why I thought the system with the error was a 32 bit one.

My previous computer was 32-bit XP Sp3. Does that explain this?

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My previous computer was 32-bit XP Sp3. Does that explain this?

Not when FF was a fresh install onto a completely different machine.

If it’s okay in Safe Mode with Networking, can you check to see if all of your Plug-ins are up to date – possibly Shockwave.

Also if it works okay in Safe Mode with Networking – go to your computer vendor support site and check for any video graphic driver updates and then https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-extensions-themes-to-fix-problems if still problematic.

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Not when FF was a fresh install onto a completely different machine.

If it’s okay in Safe Mode with Networking, can you check to see if all of your Plug-ins are up to date – possibly Shockwave.

Also if it works okay in Safe Mode with Networking – go to your computer vendor support site and check for any video graphic driver updates and then https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-extensions-themes-to-fix-problems if still problematic.

Tried safe mode: looked OK at first, then crashed. I disabled all plugins on next go round, closed then opened FF, opene3d on my start page, I went to look at the add-ons page, it crashed.

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Ok, Troubleshooting Reports gives d2d1.dll (v.6.2.9200.16765) as the faulting dll (https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/ac9653fa-869f-449b-8755-5c5622140813 scroll down, it sticks out like a sore thumb), this is a standard Windows display/DirectX file. Looking at more reports of this crash for the last 7 days, 46.75 % of them occur within the first minute and 100% of them were using Intel graphics and running W7 SP1.

It feels like there’s a conflict between Firefox and Windows/IE Update; I’ve not tried to search Bugzilla for reports but I wouldn’t expect a fix anytime soon, probably easiest if you were to have Firefox started before clicking anything in Thunderbird.

If you wanted to spend an hour or so looking for a workaround, I’d suggest starting by rolling back IE to version 9 and uninstalling the prerequisite KB for it.

Or try rolling back to Firefox 28-30.

EDIT: the D2d1.dll version installed by the prerequisite above is 6.2.9200.16492, earlier than your version. That might be a ‘safe’ version, the version you currently have would have been installed via Windows Update sometime since February this year: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2912390

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Further to earlier response from me to Fascist Nation…. have been away from computer for a few hours. Tried opening FF, but got a window stating it was already open, etc…. (no it was not visible.) So I checked task manager again and now saw that firefox.exe is listed using about 130MB! What do I do about that? No I don’t want to switch to Chrome: have tried it on the other laptop, find it very slow and it always always froze when clicking an internet link elsewhere… with an error message that says “hangout services has crashed”.

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Further to earlier response from me to Fascist Nation…. have been away from computer for a few hours. Tried opening FF, but got a window stating it was already open, etc…. (no it was not visible.) So I checked task manager again and now saw that firefox.exe is listed using about 130MB! What do I do about that? No I don’t want to switch to Chrome: have tried it on the other laptop, find it very slow and it always always froze when clicking an internet link elsewhere… with an error message that says “hangout services has crashed”.

Change to IE 10 or 11 – it doesn’t bloat anywhere near as much as FF.

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Change to IE 10 or 11 – it doesn’t bloat anywhere near as much as FF.

Seriously!!!!

You can try what Berton said and revert back one version. Or try Safari for Windows or Opera. Tis a sad day for those of us who affectionately remember Firefox.

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“hangout services has crashed” is probably referring to Google’s ‘Hangout’ feature in Google+. Are you using the ‘social sidebar’ or whatever Mozilla calls it where you can link to Facebook and such accounts? Googling the error text gives quite a few hits of users of Chrome seeing this error, with it being caused by various Google services being down. Do you always see this message when FF crashes (I don’t think you mentioned it before).

FF29 and FF30 had shutdown problems for lots of users; 29 was bad for me, but 30 was fine. When you get the message that FF is already running, use Task Manager to stop the ‘phantom’ FF process that is running.

You appear to be at a point of desperation… maybe your profile is corrupt. Create a new FF profile and make that the default profile (if path/firefox.exe -P does not work for you, try the stand-alone profile manager: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/utilities/profilemanager/1.0/ at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Profile_Manager to add a new profile). Without changing any settings to suit your preferences, see if URLs within Outlook now launch FF without it crashing. Then change settings and try again. Then add your addins _one at a time_ and try again. If you finally get the new profile set up like the old one and everything is working fine, use the Profile Manager to delete the old profile.

Note the stand-alone profile manager defaults to FF profiles, but can also be used with SeaMonkey and Thunderbird by appending parameters. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Profile_Manager tells you how.

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Thanks again for all your responses.
1. I just tried uninstalling FF and reinstalling it. Now it crashes no matter when or how I open it! I get the error “Plugin Container has stopped working”. So at present I am without FF and am trying Chrome for the time being.
2. The error “Hangout services has crashed” happened ONLY with Chrome on my other computer.
3. Thanks satrow, but not sure I understand any of what you mention or how to go about any fixes.
4. I went back to IE9 a few months ago for another reason, now have IE10.
5. rodsmine: will try profile manager as soon as I can get FF to stay running!

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A 64-bit version of Windows can run 32-bit programs. On 32-bit computers programs get installed in C:Program Files but on a 64-bit machine the 64-bit programs are installed in C:Program Files while 32-bit programs go into the C:Program Files (x86) Folder. As far as I can find out Mozilla hasn’t released a final version of 64-bit Firefox.

Side note: only the Professional version of WinXP was available as either 32-bit [most common] or 64-bit. There weren’t many 64-bit applications back then.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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A 64-bit version of Windows can run 32-bit programs. On 32-bit computers programs get installed in C:Program Files but on a 64-bit machine the 64-bit programs are installed in C:Program Files while 32-bit programs go into the C:Program Files (x86) Folder. As far as I can find out Mozilla hasn’t released a final version of 64-bit Firefox.

Side note: only the Professional version of WinXP was available as either 32-bit [most common] or 64-bit. There weren’t many 64-bit applications back then.

As far as I know, the majority of browsers are default 32 bit but the version that is downloaded is OS platform specific as in the case of IE and would think FF is the same.

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This morning I reset FF. It started fine and I thought problem was solved, but as soon I tried to go to another website, it crashed. Then I tried opening it again, crashed immediately. Tried many times again, it either crashed immediately or when I tried to do something like “customize” or look at troubleshooting information, or go to any website, etc. Now it’s useless at all times, not just when clicking a link in Outlook!

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See what it’s like in Safe Mode with Networking as per my Post #25

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What’s that “opene3d” ?

Edit – if you can get it opened in Safe Mode again can you try resetting it to defaults https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-firefox-easily-fix-most-problems

I don’t think I’ve suggested for you using this tool but give it a go http://www.anvisoft.com/browser-repair-tool.html

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What’s that “opene3d” ?

Edit – if you can get it opened in Safe Mode again can you try resetting it to defaults https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-firefox-easily-fix-most-problems

I don’t think I’ve suggested for you using this tool but give it a go http://www.anvisoft.com/browser-repair-tool.html

Just tried safe mode with networking….. all worked fine. I had reset FF earlier today. I left add-ons disabled. Then rebooted, opened FF, it crashed immediately before home page opened!
I’ll try the anvisoft repair tool next.

Thanks!!

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downloaded anvisoft repair tool – the free version for now. It went through the repair process, clicked finished, then the “repair” screen came back. I clicked it and the same number of “errors’ for each browser was shown and supposedly fixed….
Just opened FF, worked fine. Then closed it an clicked a link in Outlook to make FF open…. all OK!!!
Maybe that worked?? I’ll enable the plug-ins one by one and see. More news later.

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When you click on the FF icon in the left pane, you will see that it deals with two Flash problems, either of which could have been the cause of the problem – but will be keeping fingers crossed that Anvi did it for you.

I only use the free version of anything

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When you click on the FF icon in the left pane, you will see that it deals with two Flash problems, either of which could have been the cause of the problem – but will be keeping fingers crossed that Anvi did it for you.

I only use the free version of anything

It looks like Anvi took care of the problem! I have enabled four of the plug-ins without problems. The other ones can stay disabled.
You mention the FF icon in the left pane… do you mean in the Anvi app?

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It looks like Anvi took care of the problem! I have enabled four of the plug-ins without problems. The other ones can stay disabled.
You mention the FF icon in the left pane… do you mean in the Anvi app?

Yes, there’s one for each browser it repairs and you can choose which options you want it to take care of by clicking on each icon.

I think it would be best to enable all of the add-ons except Java just to eliminate them.

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Yes, there’s one for each browser it repairs and you can choose which options you want it to take care of by clicking on each icon.

I think it would be best to enable all of the add-ons except Java just to eliminate them.

One of the plug-ins is “Shockwave for Director”….. described as “Adobe Shockwave for Director Netscape plug-in version 12.1” I don’t have Netscape, do I need this plug-in?

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Yes I have that one enabled and without it you could have images missing in web pages.

An example is instead of an image you would only see a cross in a small black box.

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OK, all except Java enabled, no problems encountered. Thanks for everything!
I’ll be posting something new in a few days… a teaser:… CVE-2013-3893

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I’ll be posting something new in a few days… a teaser:… CVE-2013-3893

Hmm..I spy with my little eye…IE?

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OK, all except Java enabled, no problems encountered. Thanks for everything!
I’ll be posting something new in a few days… a teaser:… CVE-2013-3893

That looks like a driver update but would have to check – and you’re welcome

Edit – Ah, that’s what it is – thought it looked familiar http://blogs.technet.com/b/srd/archive/2013/09/17/cve-2013-3893-fix-it-workaround-available.aspx

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That looks like a driver update but would have to check – and you’re welcome

Edit – Ah, that’s what it is – thought it looked familiar http://blogs.technet.com/b/srd/archive/2013/09/17/cve-2013-3893-fix-it-workaround-available.aspx

I did the “fix-it” a few weeks ago. The CVE item still shows in Control Panel|Programs and Features in both laptops. I only did the “enable fix-it”, not the “disable fix-it”. Should I? Should I delete this in Control Panel? Does it affect anything if it is there? Should I just ignore it?

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I still have it showing in my Programs and Features from 17th Sept. last year and didn’t bother with the Disable-fixit, but as there have been a number of WUs since then, I assume it will have been overwritten and I haven’t noticed any adverse effects.

I’ll probably just leave mine as it is.

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OK, thanks! I still wonder what happens if I delete that?

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As I applied the Fixit last September, what prompted you to apply it just a few weeks ago ?

If you can still find the MS article then you could use the Unfix box which should remove it for you, as subsequent Windows Updates since that was released will have addressed that problem.

That was only released at the time as an emergency patch.

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I only noticed the item in Programs and Features not so long ago. I have now disabled it and now it’s not there.

Thank you again!

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Can you post the URL for the disable and I may as well do mine.

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It’s the URL you gave me in post #44, just click the “unfix” box.

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I’ll have to start reading my links properly – but have had a lot going on lately – done it and Thanks.

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Are you running some sort of anti-malware or anti-phishing “protection” software? Norton was (is?) notorious for sticking its fingers into the gears when you click on a link in an email, causing exactly this behavior.

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Are you running some sort of anti-malware or anti-phishing “protection” software? Norton was (is?) notorious for sticking its fingers into the gears when you click on a link in an email, causing exactly this behavior.

Thanks for your ideas…. as you can see from post #38, the problem was solved with the ANVI software. I do have anti-malware now, though I did not a few months ago, but the problem existed even then. Now it was solved even with the anti-malware installed and running.

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