Firefox V88/93 Issues – Won’t start

Topic

New Reply

Is anyone having issues with Firefox today? Mine – on V 88 suddenly wouldn’t load any web pages – seemed frozen, but would occasionally connect to one. My internet connection is good and Chrome is just fine.

After many tries – closed FF, reopened, restarted laptop – it just wouldn’t load anything. So, I finally clicked the update to v 93 – which it haltingly did and finally seemed to open after several tries. But now, it again won’t load anything. Everything is just a blank page. I can see bookmarks and history, but can’t access it – nor can I access anything in the settings link.

Here’s a screenshot of what I see:

I guess I need to try to save my bookmarks and passwords and then see if this can’t be remedied. Any suggestions welcome.

Or – if I roll back to my last backup with Macrium, will it restore the old FF as it was before whatever glitch fried it?

Thanks!

 

Reply | Quote

Replies

I would reboot the router and wait until tomorrow to see if it fixes itself, if it does not-

Firefox has its own refresh feature, which often will fix Firefox problems, although it does move or delete much of your Firefox extensions and settings.  First backup your Firefox stuff.  This is a free tool https://www.hekasoft.com/how-to-backup-firefox-profile/  Then maybe use the Firefox reset.  https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/refresh-firefox-reset-add-ons-and-settings.

Alternately this is a support wiki and question and answer site for Firefox:  https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new/desktop

-BB

1 user thanked author for this post.

LHiggins

Reply | Quote

Thanks! I did try that refresh idea and it doesn’t seem to have worked. I do have a folder with my old profile information, so I guess I can look into how to replace the current one with that possibly?

I just seems that there is something preventing it from actually accessing any pages. I’m really not sure what to do next – nothing so far has fixed it – refresh, restart, closing and reopening.

Thanks for the help – I’ll check out the support wiki, too!

1 user thanked author for this post.

Charlie

Reply | Quote

I’m having the same exact problems with Firefox 92.0.1 on my Win 7 computer.  Crazy thing is it was working just fine this morning.  I’m on my Linux Mint computer now running its version 92.0.1 of Firefox and it’s working fine.

The only thing that works on FF on Win 7 is the Help – Update to 93 which I have not done.  I’m at a loss too.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

1 user thanked author for this post.

LHiggins

Reply | Quote

Yes, this  is on Win 7 and it also started just this morning! Works fine on my Win 10. I thought maybe FF needed that update that I’d been avoiding for months, but that hasn’t helped.

I’m stumped and thankful that at least Chrome is working.

Hope someone has a fix! And sorry you are having the same issues, but glad I am not alone – LOL!

1 user thanked author for this post.

Charlie

Reply | Quote

FWIW – I just now updated to 93.0 on Linux Mint 19.2 and all seems fine.
Last night I updated to 93.0 from 92.0.1 on a Win 8.1 and all seemed fine then and all seems fine just now.

I won’t have a chance to update to 93.0 on Win 7 until perhaps this evening. I’ll report back how it goes if there’s been no resolution reported here.

Reply | Quote

Been on Win7/ Win8.1 and Linux with Firefox ESR 78.15 not encountered any issue today at all. This is why I stick with ESR, it’s probably a bug although not seeing anything specific to yours on the Mozilla Forums other than this thread which seems to be similar on FFv93

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

1 user thanked author for this post.

LHiggins

Reply | Quote

I’d like to point out that Firefox 92.0.1 has been running just fine on my Win 7 machine since I updated it last month.  I did not update or try to update to FF 93.  My FF 92.0.1 loads but ignores my requests to get on websites.  This includes my bookmarked sites that worked just fine this morning at around 10:00AM Eastern time, U.S.A.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

1 user thanked author for this post.

LHiggins

Reply | Quote

Just updated a Win 7 Starter (32 bit) from 92.0.1 to 93.0. Everything seems fine (as it also was before the update).

1 user thanked author for this post.

Charlie

Reply | Quote

I don’t think this  has anything to do with V93 – mine was on V88 this morning when it got glitchy, so I updated to v93 to see if that would correct the issue. It didn’t, but it happened on v88 first, so not a v93 issue as far as I can tell. More like something with Windows 7 and FF not working together for some of us.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Charlie

Reply | Quote

I always check Mozilla’s System Requirements for every FF update I do, and 92.0.1, and 93 updates both say they will run on Win 7 with the proper RAM and Hard drive space.  This is definitely something else.  I will keep checking Google for any new information coming forth on this current problem.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

1 user thanked author for this post.

LHiggins

Reply | Quote

Maybe related, and might explain my problem. The last 2 days, my v.87 on Win7 has been slow to load pages. When I click on a link to open a new page (in a new tab), or hit the back button to go back a page, the browser responds, goes to the page, but takes about 5 seconds to load the page. It doesn’t load slowly – it’s just a white page for about 5 seconds and then the full page appears.

 

2 users thanked author for this post.

Charlie, LHiggins

Reply | Quote

Well since it seems this problem is not widespread, I’m planning to do a System Restore on Win 7 and hopefully that will put things back the way they were 5 days ago when I made new restore point.  Everything was working fine then including Firefox 92.0.1.  I’ll let you know how that turns out.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

1 user thanked author for this post.

LHiggins

Reply | Quote

Well, that seems to have worked.  All is back to normal, and I’ve checked as many things as I can think of.  I can only hope this doesn’t happen again!  I was lucky to have just recently made a restore point.  You might want to try this route LHiggins.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

Reply | Quote

Great news! Glad that worked for you. I looked and have a restore point from yesterday before I upgraded to V93 – and one from last week before these major issues. I may give that a try and maybe it will fix things, too! Thanks for the tip and glad it worked in your case! Crazy these things that happen!

 

Reply | Quote

One more thing I just found out:  I had Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit. It was okay at update 407, but when it updated itself to 415 it knocked my Firefox out of whack again.  I uninstalled MB Anti-Exploit and when I tried Firefox again it was okay and back to normal.  If you have MB Anti-Exploit, I suggest you uninstall it. It’s the apparent cause of this when it updates to 415.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

2 users thanked author for this post.

DrBonzo, LHiggins

Reply | Quote

ETA: Genius!!! That worked! I didn’t uninstall MBAE, but did deactivate it for Firefox and voila – it is working!!!! The sysrestore rollback put it back to v88, which is where I wanted to stay, and that’s where it is. Thanks you, thank you, thank you for tracking this solution down and letting me know! Now, just need to keep my fingers crossed that there was no real damage done in all of the trying to fix things! Yippee!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That’s an idea to pursue as my MBAE is version 415, too.

I did roll back to yesterday using system restore and got this error: 0xc0000022, but everything came back as it was, and FF is back to v88 – but still not working. I tried to just turn off MBAE and restart FF, and that didn’t work either.

Do you know when MBAE updated to this version? And over the past couple of weeks it will have a notice bubble come up every once in a while to say that it is protecting Adobe Reader – like when you open a program and it tells you it is protecting that – but it happens when I am NOT doing anything with Adobe. If it is MBAE then reinstalling wouldn’t work either since there’d still be the same issue, I guess?

Seems to be getting further and further down this rabbit hole…

Thanks for your troubleshooting!

1 user thanked author for this post.

DrBonzo

Reply | Quote

thanks a lot Charlie,

had the same gut feeling but did not test to deactivate MBAE. i have done now an it works…

1 user thanked author for this post.

LHiggins

Reply | Quote

LHiggins,  When you rolled back to yesterday or whenever, you may have taken MBAE back to an update prior to 415 as Firefox went back to V88.  If you have a Systray Icon for MBAE, right click on it and you will get a window or box to make changes and preferences. What you need to do is uncheck the Automatic Update box. This will keep it from installing the 415 update.  This is for Windows 7.

If you plan on keeping MBAE installed then maybe the next update may not harm Firefox.  MBAE leaves its update install program in Window’s Temporary (Temp) folder. So you may be able to get an older update program from there (as I did) and install it from there.  I still have the MBAE Version 407 update install program that I’m thinking I might install, and uncheck the automatic update.  I’ve got to give that some thought.

Hope this helps and I hope I was clear enough.  Good luck!

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

1 user thanked author for this post.

LHiggins

Reply | Quote

Hi Charlie,

Thanks again for sleuthing this out! Great thinking!!

OK – when I rolled back to my recent Restore Point, MBAE was still on 415, so the rollback didn’t affect that. I deactivated Firefox within MBAE, so hopefully any new update won’t affect it.

I have a free edition, so I don’t have the options to change its update schedule or make those kind of changes, but I hope that having FF deactivated will override any further updates affecting it. If it doesn’t I may just go ahead and uninstall it.

Thanks so much again for helping me figure this all out, and keeping fingers crossed that it doesn’t happen again. But at least this gives me another thing to check in case it does!

Have a great weekend and thanks again!

LHiggins 🙂

Reply | Quote

FWIW – You probably know this but just in case you don’t…

If Malwarebytes and Win 7 won’t play nice, Microsoft Security Essentials is still being supported for Win 7. Win 7 doesn’t need 0patch, extended support, or even to be fully patched through the end of it’s original end of life date.

I’ve got 3 Win 7 computers that I keep because they have some useful software. I gave up patching them a couple months before the original end of life date. I still keep the browsers (Firefox and Opera) and MSE updated because some of the aforementioned useful software still has the occasional online update.

IIRC MS intends to update MSE for Win 7 for 3 years after the original end of life date for Win 7.

2 users thanked author for this post.

LHiggins, Charlie

Reply | Quote

Just to make sure we’re on the same page, I’ve been referring to Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit (MBAE) and it always got along well with Win 7. It also got along with Firefox up until the recent update 415. I downloaded it for free and could still make some adjustments to it that I mentioned. In addition I also have Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free (MBAM) and AVG Free is my main Antivirus program which I like and both work very well with Win 7.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

1 user thanked author for this post.

LHiggins

Reply | Quote

Yes, I have Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit Free version, too. I found a few more things about their 415 update and various browsers, and settings changes:

MBAE 415 – Acrobate Reader and Firefox do not start/hang

Problems running Firefox with MWBAE

In those they have a few suggested tweaks, and it does sound like other browsers may also be affected.In my case, I initially just deactivated MBAE for FF, which brought it back, but I also now unchecked the Detect Penetration Testing Attacks setting as suggested by Malwarebytes staff.

Just glad Charlie found the work around and FF is back!

Thanks again for all of the help!

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

Charlie

Reply | Quote

I hope Malwarebytes does something to correct this problem.  Even though Adobe Acrobat Reader is not as popular as it once was, people still use it and Firefox certainly is a popular browser.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

1 user thanked author for this post.

LHiggins

Reply | Quote

Is the ‘Exploit Protection’ setting in MBAM for MBAE? Or is MBAE a totally separate product? I have set ‘Exploit Protection: Off”. Can someone clarify? TIA!

Reply | Quote

unbob wrote:

Is the ‘Exploit Protection’ setting in MBAM for MBAE? Or is MBAE a totally separate product?

unbob, in my case, I have separate MBAM and MBAE programs. They are both free versions.   If you get the more current paid for versions I’m fairly sure both programs are combined in one program just called Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

Reply | Quote

What about those of us with MBAM Premium which has MBAE embedded in the product. I have the latest MBAM version (4.4.8.137) but no idea what MBAE version.

Thus I’m reluctant to update FF to v93.

Reply | Quote

Try going to Windows Explorer (or File Explorer) and look under Program Files for an Anti-Exploit folder or if you don’t find this, look for Mbae.exe somewhere in Malwarebytes Anti-Malware folder(s).  Right click on the Mbae.exe program, click on properties, and then click on Details.  The Version number should be there (at least it is in Win 7).

I don’t have the all in one paid version so I’m taking an educated guess at this, but you should be able to find Mbae.exe somewhere.  I don’t think you need to worry about FF 93 being the cause of this problem.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

Reply | Quote

Charlie wrote:

Try going to Windows Explorer (or File Explorer) and look under Program Files for an Anti-Exploit folder or if you don’t find this, look for Mbae.exe somewhere in Malwarebytes Anti-Malware folder(s).  Right click on the Mbae.exe program, click on properties, and then click on Details.  The Version number should be there (at least it is in Win 7).

I don’t have the all in one paid version so I’m taking an educated guess at this, but you should be able to find Mbae.exe somewhere.  I don’t think you need to worry about FF 93 being the cause of this problem.

Thanks for your reply. I checked and Mbae.exe does not exist on my system. And, again, I’m running MBAM Premium which has MBAE embedded.

I realize this does not appear to be a Firefox problem – but there’s no way I’ll be upgrading to FF v93 until this issue is resolved. I’m running FF v92.0.1 now.

Reply | Quote

I just went on the Malwarebytes forum and after many complaints they posted that they will be coming out with a fix in an update.  Meanwhile you can go to this link and see what they say about it if you haven’t already.

https://forums.malwarebytes.com/topic/279623-mbae-415-acrobate-reader-and-firefox-do-not-starthang/

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

1 user thanked author for this post.

LHiggins

Reply | Quote

Thanks Charlie! That’s the same link I posted above, but has more info now. MBAE definitely needs to address this – though I do have to say that when I open that program and look at the “general” tab – it is always 0 exploits blocked. Don’t know if I am just lucky that there really havent been any to block, or is it really working?

Just to be on the safe side, I turned off autoupdating and disabled FF in MBAE on my Win 10 laptop. too.

Reply | Quote

I reinstalled MBAE Ver. 407 on my Win 7 computer and deactivated Firefox.  Then I also checked under the Settings Tab to make sure the box for “Detect Penetration Testing Attacks” was unchecked, and it was.  So I’ve got MBAE back up and running with 415 (it updated itself) and Firefox is fine!

I did leave the auto-updating turned on because that’s how we will hopefully get the update with a fix.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

1 user thanked author for this post.

LHiggins

Reply | Quote

Thanks Charlie!

Charlie wrote:

I did leave the auto-updating turned on because that’s how we will hopefully get the update with a fix.

I left mine turned off, but if you do see it updating and things with FF remain fine, could you post back to let us know? Thanks and much appreciated!!

And just to clarify for unbob – my issue on Win 7 started when I was on FF v88 and persisted on v93 until I rolled back to v88 AND disabled MBAE. So it appears it was an issue with MBAE, not a specific version of FF. It has worked fine since then – back on v88. On my Win 10 machine, this problem never happened, even though I believe that had updated to MBAE 415.

Reply | Quote

Will do if and when one comes.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

1 user thanked author for this post.

LHiggins

Reply | Quote

I got an MBAE update 1.13.1.424 today and as soon as I saw it I reactivated the Firefox protection.  All seems well!  I even rebooted my Win 7 computer to make extra sure things would be okay tomorrow.  It looks like they fixed the problem.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

1 user thanked author for this post.

LHiggins

Reply | Quote

Hi Charlie!

Thanks so much for the update! So glad to know that MBAE seems to be fixed. I think I’ll set a restore point before I make any changes just in case, but from your experience, it sounds like they have addressed the problem.

Thanks so much for posting here to let me know! 🙂

Reply | Quote