Firefox problem on Windows 7

On 30-Mar-2015 17:53, Nil wrote:
On 30 Mar 2015, Disguised wrote in
alt.windows7.general:

I know the moon is blue but the browser is called Palemoon. :-)

Oops! I had my web browser and last night's beer all mashed up in my
brain. No wonder the bartender was looking at me funny.


lol

On 30/03/2015 22:53:03, Disguised wrote:
On 30-Mar-2015 17:44, mick wrote:
On 30/03/2015 22:24:51, Disguised wrote:
On 30-Mar-2015 17:13, mick wrote:
On 30/03/2015 21:48:41, Disguised wrote:
On 30-Mar-2015 16:32, mick wrote:
On 30/03/2015 21:23:00, Char Jackson wrote:
On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 20:40:04 +0100, mick wrote:

On 30/03/2015 19:47:13, Fokke Nauta wrote:
On 30/03/2015 20:07, Mike Paff wrote:
On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 12:39:57 -0500, Char Jackson

wrote:

On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 13:21:39 -0400, "dadiOH"
wrote:

choro wrote:
Recently Mozilla Firefox has started misbehaving on my
Windows 7
Pro
machine. Both Windows and Firefox fully updated.

Firefox will function normally until it is x'ed off. After
that it
refuses to restart and although it is my default browser when I
tick a
link it refuses to start and link up. I have a sneaking
suspicion that
this is a clash between the latest updates of Windows 7 and
Firefox
because until recently everything ran very smoothly and
suddenly
Firefox started refusing to re-start. It won't even start
when I
click my desktop shortcut let alone start when I click a
link on
the
Usenet.
Any others with this problem? Firefox is OK after I first
start the
machine or do a restart. But once I click Firefox off, that's
it. It
will NOT come up again until a Restart or until I turn my
mahine
off
and then on again.

Have you checked Task Manager to see if FF is still active after
you "click
it off"? If so, perhaps it (FF) won't allow two instances.

That was my thought, as well. If he kills it in Task Manager it
should
restart without issues. The question, then, is why isn't it fully
exiting in
a timely manner? I assume it will eventually drop off, but not as
quick as expected.

Maybe an FF update is in progress? I've had a few cases where the
update took an unexpectedly long time.


I use FF 36.0.4 on W7 64b Pro fully updated. No problems here.
In a rare occasion FF crashed and I was not able to start it
until I
killed FF in the Task Manager. So FF won't let 2 instances run at
the same time

I have just tried multiple instances of FireFox on Win 7, I got
bored
after opening seven. Photo here http://micklord.com/testpage/

For me on Win 7, I have 6 instances of Firefox on the Taskbar and
combined
they have about 45-50 tabs open, but Task Manager shows just a single
instance of Firefox running. That's how Firefox has always worked
here. With
Firefox running, if I try to start it again I just get another window
and of
course another Taskbar icon. It's still just a single instance of the
running program, however, or at least that's how it looks here. The
Task
Manager pic in the link above seems to show the same thing,
although it
looks more like Win 8 in the pic.

I would conclude that Firefox only allows a single instance of the
program
to run at a time. You can stack multiple windows (tabbed or not) on
top of
that one instance, but I'd say it's still a single instance. Try this
as an
experiment: kill the one instance of Firefox in Task Manager and see
if all
of your Firefox windows don't all collapse at once. They do, here. If
multiple instances of the program were running, some windows would
survive.

I did just that when I had multiple instances running. Closed one and
the other six were still running, closed another and five instances
remained running. If you look in Task manager it shows the number of
FF's open in brackets.


In Win8, right click the firefox.exe instead of individual and they
will all close.

Agreed.

In Win7 you can have 15 open and only 1 firefox.exe is showing in task
manager.

????
Each instance running shows, or am I not looking in the right place, see
my screen shot http://micklord.com/testpage/


If you look under process there should be only 1 showing. It does in
mine.

That was interesting. I closed FF in the process tab of task manager
and it shut all four instances that were open. I then clicked the FF
icon on the task bar and it opened all four instances again with the
same web pages showing in each window. I was only expecting a new FF
window to open. Learn something new every day :-)


That's the auto recovery part of FF when it's not shut down properly (crash).

There will always be only 1 process running what you see in Applications are
off-shout of the firefox.exe process.

Like having a main folder with sub-folders. You can delete the sub-folders
individually but if you delete the main folder then all the subs are gone.

Thanks for the explanation.

--
mick

On 30/03/2015 17:38, choro wrote:
Recently Mozilla Firefox has started misbehaving on my Windows 7 Pro
machine. Both Windows and Firefox fully updated.

Firefox will function normally until it is x'ed off. After that it
refuses to restart and although it is my default browser when I tick a
link it refuses to start and link up. I have a sneaking suspicion that
this is a clash between the latest updates of Windows 7 and Firefox
because until recently everything ran very smoothly and suddenly Firefox
started refusing to re-start. It won't even start when I click my
desktop shortcut let alone start when I click a link on the Usenet.

Any others with this problem? Firefox is OK after I first start the
machine or do a restart. But once I click Firefox off, that's it. It
will NOT come up again until a Restart or until I turn my mahine off and
then on again.
--
choro
*****


The latest version of Firefox is a complete mess. I haven't read all the
replies, so I don't know what has been offered.

The staying active thing is a known problem. End all the running
occurrences of Firefox in Task Manager. This is not a new problem, and
has been going on for ages, though it used to clear itself within 30
seconds or so.

Several of the add-ons won't work or screw up Firefox completely.
Disable those you aren't using. Some add-on authors have already updated
their software, so trial and error will tell you which are causing problems.

Flash Player is a right pain in the rump, and if you don't need it,
disable it. It generally crashes of its own accord anyway.

Mozilla have been informed of the problems, and so far have failed to
address them.

If all else fails, use another browser.

jim

mick wrote:
On 30/03/2015 21:23:00, Char Jackson wrote:
On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 20:40:04 +0100, mick wrote:

On 30/03/2015 19:47:13, Fokke Nauta wrote:
On 30/03/2015 20:07, Mike Paff wrote:
On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 12:39:57 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 13:21:39 -0400, "dadiOH"
wrote:

choro wrote:
Recently Mozilla Firefox has started misbehaving on my Windows 7
Pro
machine. Both Windows and Firefox fully updated.

Firefox will function normally until it is x'ed off. After that it
refuses to restart and although it is my default browser when I
tick a
link it refuses to start and link up. I have a sneaking
suspicion that
this is a clash between the latest updates of Windows 7 and Firefox
because until recently everything ran very smoothly and suddenly
Firefox started refusing to re-start. It won't even start when I
click my desktop shortcut let alone start when I click a link on
the
Usenet.
Any others with this problem? Firefox is OK after I first start the
machine or do a restart. But once I click Firefox off, that's
it. It
will NOT come up again until a Restart or until I turn my mahine
off
and then on again.

Have you checked Task Manager to see if FF is still active after
you "click
it off"? If so, perhaps it (FF) won't allow two instances.

That was my thought, as well. If he kills it in Task Manager it
should
restart without issues. The question, then, is why isn't it fully
exiting in
a timely manner? I assume it will eventually drop off, but not as
quick as expected.

Maybe an FF update is in progress? I've had a few cases where the
update took an unexpectedly long time.


I use FF 36.0.4 on W7 64b Pro fully updated. No problems here.
In a rare occasion FF crashed and I was not able to start it until I
killed FF in the Task Manager. So FF won't let 2 instances run at
the same time

I have just tried multiple instances of FireFox on Win 7, I got bored
after opening seven. Photo here http://micklord.com/testpage/

For me on Win 7, I have 6 instances of Firefox on the Taskbar and
combined
they have about 45-50 tabs open, but Task Manager shows just a single
instance of Firefox running. That's how Firefox has always worked
here. With
Firefox running, if I try to start it again I just get another window
and of
course another Taskbar icon. It's still just a single instance of the
running program, however, or at least that's how it looks here. The Task
Manager pic in the link above seems to show the same thing, although it
looks more like Win 8 in the pic.

I would conclude that Firefox only allows a single instance of the
program
to run at a time. You can stack multiple windows (tabbed or not) on
top of
that one instance, but I'd say it's still a single instance. Try this
as an
experiment: kill the one instance of Firefox in Task Manager and see
if all
of your Firefox windows don't all collapse at once. They do, here. If
multiple instances of the program were running, some windows would
survive.

Well spotted Char, it is indeed win 8.1. I forget which computer I'm on
sometimes.
I have done your experiment on my Win 7 machine. I opened four
instances of FF. Each one was listed in Task Manager. If I close one
instance in task manager the other three remain open.
I have amended the link to show both windows versions.
http://micklord.com/testpage/


That depends where you look in Task Manager; Applications or Processes tab.
The many versions show in the former, but only one in the latter.
Close the one in Processes and they all go from Applications, but not
vice versa.

Ed

On 30/03/2015 21:51, Nil wrote:
On 30 Mar 2015, choro wrote in
alt.windows7.general:

I believe the problem arises because my Firefox does not fully
shut down when it is X'ed off even though it is not shown as a
running program in Task Manager.

I would disable all add-ons. If it behaves properly, I would enable
them again one-by-one until I discovered the problem one.

Cleared F/Fx cache first. It still refused to start after sex. ;-) (I
mean x off!). I feel at this stage I should have restarted the machine
and try F/Fx again but I didn't.

Anyway, then I disabled all add-ons and enabled more or less all the
add-ons one by one. Everything seems to be running smoothly for the time
being. Though I believe all the add-ons that I have re-enabled had been
enabled earlier when F/Fx was misbehaving. One or two add-ons are still
disabled but I think those were actually disabled to begin with.

Problem soved but the enigma remains! So I decided not to trouble
trouble any further.

All's well that ends well, as they say. Thanks to everybody for all your
helpful suggestions.

--
choro
*****

On 30/03/2015 21:44, VanguardLH wrote:
choro wrote:

Recently Mozilla Firefox has started misbehaving on my Windows 7 Pro
machine. Both Windows and Firefox fully updated.

Firefox will function normally until it is x'ed off. After that it
refuses to restart and although it is my default browser when I tick a
link it refuses to start and link up. I have a sneaking suspicion that
this is a clash between the latest updates of Windows 7 and Firefox
because until recently everything ran very smoothly and suddenly Firefox
started refusing to re-start. It won't even start when I click my
desktop shortcut let alone start when I click a link on the Usenet.

Any others with this problem? Firefox is OK after I first start the
machine or do a restart. But once I click Firefox off, that's it. It
will NOT come up again until a Restart or until I turn my mahine off and
then on again.

Add-ons you install will affect the parent process. If an add-on hangs
or crashes when it loads, it will hang or crash Firefox. If an add-on
hangs or crashes when unloaded, it will hang or crash Firefox. Chromium
circumvented this dependency by using separate processes for each tab;
however, that means reloading the same add-on for each tab so if you
have a lot of add-ons and a lot of tabs then they consume memory for all
the duplicate instances of the add-ons. Still, Google Chrome will
likely only crash a tab's process instead of the web browser itself. (I
don't care for Google Chrome and it still has security features missing,
like disabling meta-refresh and letting me see to where a site wants to
redirect me. Both Firefox and Internet Explorer are susceptible to
crappy add-ons either because of poor coding or eventual incompatibility
with newer versions of the web browsers.

More likely you left old versions of add-ons installed as you progressed
through multiple newer versions of Firefox. Add-ons test during their
install if they are within a version range, not after they have been
installed. Do an update check on your add-ons to find out if there are
newer version of them. Else, disable all add-ons by using Firefox's
safe mode and retest. If Firefox behaves after disabling add-ons then
you'll have to disable them all and reenable them one at a time to
retest when the bad behavior returns and then get rid of that add-on.
Although Mozilla claims to review the code for add-ons they proffer at
their add-on site, there are still a ton of crappy add-ons and lots of
add-ons that conflict with each other plus those that don't work under
later versions of Firefox.

See if Firefox's safe mode eliminate the problem. If so, you have your
clue as to the culprit.

Thanx for your detailed explanation which I found useful. I have finally
sorted things out and my F/Fx seems to be behaving at least for the time
being. Here is what procedure I followed which I posted in response to
another suggestion. It may be a duplication but I'll post it here as well.

Remainder of my message is a Copy and Paste job from a bit higher up the
thread..

Cleared F/Fx cache first. It still refused to start after sex. ;-)
(I mean x off!). I feel at this stage I should have restarted the
machine and try F/Fx again but I didn't.

Anyway, then I disabled all add-ons and enabled more or less all the
add-ons one by one. Everything seems to be running smoothly for the time
being. Though I believe all the add-ons that I have re-enabled had been
enabled earlier when F/Fx was misbehaving. One or two add-ons are still
disabled but I think those were actually disabled to begin with.

Problem soved but the enigma remains! So I decided not to trouble
trouble any further.

All's well that ends well, as they say. Thanks to everybody for all
your helpful suggestions.
--
choro
*****

On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 17:53:03 -0400, Disguised wrote:

There will always be only 1 process running what you see in Applications
are off-shout of the firefox.exe process.

Like having a main folder with sub-folders. You can delete the
sub-folders individually but if you delete the main folder then all the
subs are gone.

Thanks for the explanation (I'm purposely quoting mick because I agree).

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On 30/03/2015 22:14, mick wrote:
On 30/03/2015 20:53:21, Fokke Nauta wrote:
On 30/03/2015 21:47, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 20:40:04 +0100, mick wrote:

On 30/03/2015 19:47:13, Fokke Nauta wrote:
On 30/03/2015 20:07, Mike Paff wrote:
On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 12:39:57 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 13:21:39 -0400, "dadiOH"
wrote:

choro wrote:
Recently Mozilla Firefox has started misbehaving on my Windows
7 Pro
machine. Both Windows and Firefox fully updated.

Firefox will function normally until it is x'ed off. After that it
refuses to restart and although it is my default browser when I
tick a
link it refuses to start and link up. I have a sneaking
suspicion that
this is a clash between the latest updates of Windows 7 and
Firefox
because until recently everything ran very smoothly and suddenly
Firefox started refusing to re-start. It won't even start when I
click my desktop shortcut let alone start when I click a link
on the
Usenet.
Any others with this problem? Firefox is OK after I first start
the
machine or do a restart. But once I click Firefox off, that's
it. It
will NOT come up again until a Restart or until I turn my
mahine off
and then on again.

Have you checked Task Manager to see if FF is still active after
you
"click
it off"? If so, perhaps it (FF) won't allow two instances.

That was my thought, as well. If he kills it in Task Manager it
should
restart without issues. The question, then, is why isn't it fully
exiting
in
a timely manner? I assume it will eventually drop off, but not as
quick as
expected.

Maybe an FF update is in progress? I've had a few cases where the
update took an unexpectedly long time.


I use FF 36.0.4 on W7 64b Pro fully updated. No problems here.
In a rare occasion FF crashed and I was not able to start it until
I killed
FF in the Task Manager. So FF won't let 2 instances run at the same
time

I have just tried multiple instances of FireFox on Win 7, I got bored
after opening seven. Photo here http://micklord.com/testpage/

I didn't believe you, so I tried it.

But I stopped after only two windows :-)

Task Manager show two instances of Firefox, so now I believe you.


Yes, FF allows you to run multiple instances, but what I tried to say
is this: When it exites in a normal way, you can restart it again. But
when it crashes and an instance is still running in the Task Mgr, it
will not start again. Only when that instance that runs in the Task
Mgr is killed, you can start FF again. I've been there.

Fokke

Ah yes Fokke, I have been there and now understand what you meant to say
originally. If one instance of FF crashes you cannot open another until
that instance it is killed in Task Manager. :-)


Yes, exactly. I guess I wasn't clear enough :-(

"choro" wrote in message ...

On 30/03/2015 21:44, VanguardLH wrote:
choro wrote:

Recently Mozilla Firefox has started misbehaving on my Windows 7 Pro
machine. Both Windows and Firefox fully updated.

Firefox will function normally until it is x'ed off. After that it
refuses to restart and although it is my default browser when I tick a
link it refuses to start and link up. I have a sneaking suspicion that
this is a clash between the latest updates of Windows 7 and Firefox
because until recently everything ran very smoothly and suddenly Firefox
started refusing to re-start. It won't even start when I click my
desktop shortcut let alone start when I click a link on the Usenet.

Any others with this problem? Firefox is OK after I first start the
machine or do a restart. But once I click Firefox off, that's it. It
will NOT come up again until a Restart or until I turn my mahine off and
then on again.

Add-ons you install will affect the parent process. If an add-on hangs
or crashes when it loads, it will hang or crash Firefox. If an add-on
hangs or crashes when unloaded, it will hang or crash Firefox. Chromium
circumvented this dependency by using separate processes for each tab;
however, that means reloading the same add-on for each tab so if you
have a lot of add-ons and a lot of tabs then they consume memory for all
the duplicate instances of the add-ons. Still, Google Chrome will
likely only crash a tab's process instead of the web browser itself. (I
don't care for Google Chrome and it still has security features missing,
like disabling meta-refresh and letting me see to where a site wants to
redirect me. Both Firefox and Internet Explorer are susceptible to
crappy add-ons either because of poor coding or eventual incompatibility
with newer versions of the web browsers.

More likely you left old versions of add-ons installed as you progressed
through multiple newer versions of Firefox. Add-ons test during their
install if they are within a version range, not after they have been
installed. Do an update check on your add-ons to find out if there are
newer version of them. Else, disable all add-ons by using Firefox's
safe mode and retest. If Firefox behaves after disabling add-ons then
you'll have to disable them all and reenable them one at a time to
retest when the bad behavior returns and then get rid of that add-on.
Although Mozilla claims to review the code for add-ons they proffer at
their add-on site, there are still a ton of crappy add-ons and lots of
add-ons that conflict with each other plus those that don't work under
later versions of Firefox.

See if Firefox's safe mode eliminate the problem. If so, you have your
clue as to the culprit.

Thanx for your detailed explanation which I found useful. I have finally
sorted things out and my F/Fx seems to be behaving at least for the time
being. Here is what procedure I followed which I posted in response to
another suggestion. It may be a duplication but I'll post it here as well.

Remainder of my message is a Copy and Paste job from a bit higher up the
thread..

Cleared F/Fx cache first. It still refused to start after sex. ;-)
(I mean x off!). I feel at this stage I should have restarted the machine
and try F/Fx again but I didn't.

Anyway, then I disabled all add-ons and enabled more or less all the
add-ons one by one. Everything seems to be running smoothly for the time
being. Though I believe all the add-ons that I have re-enabled had been
enabled earlier when F/Fx was misbehaving. One or two add-ons are still
disabled but I think those were actually disabled to begin with.

Problem soved but the enigma remains! So I decided not to trouble
trouble any further.

All's well that ends well, as they say. Thanks to everybody for all
your helpful suggestions.
--
choro
*****
FF 37.0 is now the latest version. Just installed it a few minutes ago. I
have FF set for Manual Update.
--
Buffalo

On 31/03/2015 00:37:38, choro wrote:
On 30/03/2015 21:51, Nil wrote:
On 30 Mar 2015, choro wrote in
alt.windows7.general:

I believe the problem arises because my Firefox does not fully
shut down when it is X'ed off even though it is not shown as a
running program in Task Manager.

I would disable all add-ons. If it behaves properly, I would enable
them again one-by-one until I discovered the problem one.

Cleared F/Fx cache first. It still refused to start after sex. ;-) (I mean x
off!). I feel at this stage I should have restarted the machine and try F/Fx
again but I didn't.

Anyway, then I disabled all add-ons and enabled more or less all the add-ons
one by one. Everything seems to be running smoothly for the time being.
Though I believe all the add-ons that I have re-enabled had been enabled
earlier when F/Fx was misbehaving. One or two add-ons are still disabled but
I think those were actually disabled to begin with.

Problem soved but the enigma remains! So I decided not to trouble trouble any
further.

All's well that ends well, as they say. Thanks to everybody for all your
helpful suggestions.

Glad to hear it looks to be sorted.
Your problem turned into an interesting thread :-)

--
mick

On Tue, 31 Mar 2015 09:16:19 -0600, Buffalo wrote:

"choro" wrote in message ...

On 30/03/2015 21:44, VanguardLH wrote:
choro wrote:

Recently Mozilla Firefox has started misbehaving on my Windows 7 Pro
machine. Both Windows and Firefox fully updated.

Firefox will function normally until it is x'ed off. After that it
refuses to restart and although it is my default browser when I tick a
link it refuses to start and link up. I have a sneaking suspicion that
this is a clash between the latest updates of Windows 7 and Firefox
because until recently everything ran very smoothly and suddenly Firefox
started refusing to re-start. It won't even start when I click my
desktop shortcut let alone start when I click a link on the Usenet.

Any others with this problem? Firefox is OK after I first start the
machine or do a restart. But once I click Firefox off, that's it. It
will NOT come up again until a Restart or until I turn my mahine off and
then on again.

Add-ons you install will affect the parent process. If an add-on hangs
or crashes when it loads, it will hang or crash Firefox. If an add-on
hangs or crashes when unloaded, it will hang or crash Firefox. Chromium
circumvented this dependency by using separate processes for each tab;
however, that means reloading the same add-on for each tab so if you
have a lot of add-ons and a lot of tabs then they consume memory for all
the duplicate instances of the add-ons. Still, Google Chrome will
likely only crash a tab's process instead of the web browser itself. (I
don't care for Google Chrome and it still has security features missing,
like disabling meta-refresh and letting me see to where a site wants to
redirect me. Both Firefox and Internet Explorer are susceptible to
crappy add-ons either because of poor coding or eventual incompatibility
with newer versions of the web browsers.

More likely you left old versions of add-ons installed as you progressed
through multiple newer versions of Firefox. Add-ons test during their
install if they are within a version range, not after they have been
installed. Do an update check on your add-ons to find out if there are
newer version of them. Else, disable all add-ons by using Firefox's
safe mode and retest. If Firefox behaves after disabling add-ons then
you'll have to disable them all and reenable them one at a time to
retest when the bad behavior returns and then get rid of that add-on.
Although Mozilla claims to review the code for add-ons they proffer at
their add-on site, there are still a ton of crappy add-ons and lots of
add-ons that conflict with each other plus those that don't work under
later versions of Firefox.

See if Firefox's safe mode eliminate the problem. If so, you have your
clue as to the culprit.

Thanx for your detailed explanation which I found useful. I have finally
sorted things out and my F/Fx seems to be behaving at least for the time
being. Here is what procedure I followed which I posted in response to
another suggestion. It may be a duplication but I'll post it here as well.

Remainder of my message is a Copy and Paste job from a bit higher up the
thread..

Cleared F/Fx cache first. It still refused to start after sex. ;-)
(I mean x off!). I feel at this stage I should have restarted the machine
and try F/Fx again but I didn't.

Anyway, then I disabled all add-ons and enabled more or less all the
add-ons one by one. Everything seems to be running smoothly for the time
being. Though I believe all the add-ons that I have re-enabled had been
enabled earlier when F/Fx was misbehaving. One or two add-ons are still
disabled but I think those were actually disabled to begin with.

Problem soved but the enigma remains! So I decided not to trouble
trouble any further.

All's well that ends well, as they say. Thanks to everybody for all
your helpful suggestions.
--
choro
*****
FF 37.0 is now the latest version. Just installed it a few minutes ago. I
have FF set for Manual Update.

I thought I set FF to tell me, but it didn't. You led me to look, and it
seems 27.0 is ready for me.

While I'm at it, I'll check my settings too :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Tue, 31 Mar 2015 14:50:52 -0700, Gene E. Bloch wrote:

FF 37.0 is now the latest version. Just installed it a few minutes ago. I
have FF set for Manual Update.

I thought I set FF to tell me, but it didn't. You led me to look, and it
seems 27.0 is ready for me.

While I'm at it, I'll check my settings too :-)

The choices are limited. Auto update, Check but let me decide, and Don't
check.

The middle one is what I had (and still have) checked. Apparently it
does *not* include "notify me" :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

PROBLEM I REPORTED WAS SOLVED CROPPED UP AGAIN AND WITH A VENGEANCE!!!
Read on...

After I reported problem solved, it came back with a vengeance only a
few hours later. Forget about it not responding AFTER I had turned
Firefox off, Firefox (latest edition) refused to open any URL from
newsgroups EVEN WHILE it was up and running. Cost me a lot of time and
wasted effort trying anything I could think of. The only way I could get
Firefox to start again after being turned off was EITHER to reinstall it
OR Restart the computer. But I need Firefox for running a program that
Google Chrome has banned! It just won't allow IDM to run off Google
Chrome with Google accusing IDM of everything that Google is so famously
notorious about -- spying on users!!!

Finally I decided that the culprit must be the latest versions of
Firefox. SO, I installed version 34 instead and for the time being it is
working perfectly. No misbehaving! But I'll keep my fingers crossed.

So much for the so-called updates that tend to mess things up. I have
naturally configured Firefox NOT to update in any shape or form.

--
choro
*****

On 31/03/2015 00:44, choro wrote:
On 30/03/2015 21:44, VanguardLH wrote:
choro wrote:

Recently Mozilla Firefox has started misbehaving on my Windows 7 Pro
machine. Both Windows and Firefox fully updated.

Firefox will function normally until it is x'ed off. After that it
refuses to restart and although it is my default browser when I tick a
link it refuses to start and link up. I have a sneaking suspicion that
this is a clash between the latest updates of Windows 7 and Firefox
because until recently everything ran very smoothly and suddenly Firefox
started refusing to re-start. It won't even start when I click my
desktop shortcut let alone start when I click a link on the Usenet.

Any others with this problem? Firefox is OK after I first start the
machine or do a restart. But once I click Firefox off, that's it. It
will NOT come up again until a Restart or until I turn my mahine off and
then on again.

Add-ons you install will affect the parent process. If an add-on hangs
or crashes when it loads, it will hang or crash Firefox. If an add-on
hangs or crashes when unloaded, it will hang or crash Firefox. Chromium
circumvented this dependency by using separate processes for each tab;
however, that means reloading the same add-on for each tab so if you
have a lot of add-ons and a lot of tabs then they consume memory for all
the duplicate instances of the add-ons. Still, Google Chrome will
likely only crash a tab's process instead of the web browser itself. (I
don't care for Google Chrome and it still has security features missing,
like disabling meta-refresh and letting me see to where a site wants to
redirect me. Both Firefox and Internet Explorer are susceptible to
crappy add-ons either because of poor coding or eventual incompatibility
with newer versions of the web browsers.

More likely you left old versions of add-ons installed as you progressed
through multiple newer versions of Firefox. Add-ons test during their
install if they are within a version range, not after they have been
installed. Do an update check on your add-ons to find out if there are
newer version of them. Else, disable all add-ons by using Firefox's
safe mode and retest. If Firefox behaves after disabling add-ons then
you'll have to disable them all and reenable them one at a time to
retest when the bad behavior returns and then get rid of that add-on.
Although Mozilla claims to review the code for add-ons they proffer at
their add-on site, there are still a ton of crappy add-ons and lots of
add-ons that conflict with each other plus those that don't work under
later versions of Firefox.

See if Firefox's safe mode eliminate the problem. If so, you have your
clue as to the culprit.

Thanx for your detailed explanation which I found useful. I have finally
sorted things out and my F/Fx seems to be behaving at least for the time
being. Here is what procedure I followed which I posted in response to
another suggestion. It may be a duplication but I'll post it here as well.

Remainder of my message is a Copy and Paste job from a bit higher up the
thread..

Cleared F/Fx cache first. It still refused to start after sex. ;-)
(I mean x off!). I feel at this stage I should have restarted the
machine and try F/Fx again but I didn't.

Anyway, then I disabled all add-ons and enabled more or less all the
add-ons one by one. Everything seems to be running smoothly for the time
being. Though I believe all the add-ons that I have re-enabled had been
enabled earlier when F/Fx was misbehaving. One or two add-ons are still
disabled but I think those were actually disabled to begin with.

Problem soved but the enigma remains! So I decided not to trouble
trouble any further.

All's well that ends well, as they say. Thanks to everybody for all
your helpful suggestions.
--
choro
*****

choro wrote:

PROBLEM I REPORTED WAS SOLVED CROPPED UP AGAIN AND WITH A VENGEANCE!!!
Read on...

After I reported problem solved, it came back with a vengeance only a
few hours later. Forget about it not responding AFTER I had turned
Firefox off, Firefox (latest edition) refused to open any URL from
newsgroups EVEN WHILE it was up and running. Cost me a lot of time and
wasted effort trying anything I could think of. The only way I could get
Firefox to start again after being turned off was EITHER to reinstall it
OR Restart the computer. But I need Firefox for running a program that
Google Chrome has banned! It just won't allow IDM to run off Google
Chrome with Google accusing IDM of everything that Google is so famously
notorious about -- spying on users!!!

Finally I decided that the culprit must be the latest versions of
Firefox. SO, I installed version 34 instead and for the time being it is
working perfectly. No misbehaving! But I'll keep my fingers crossed.

So much for the so-called updates that tend to mess things up. I have
naturally configured Firefox NOT to update in any shape or form.

When I used to use Firefox (or Thunderbird), I never updated
immediately. I disabled auto-updates. Mozilla was still an asshole
back then and just "checking" if there was an update resulted in
*installing* the update. Mozilla doesn't understand the difference
between the work "check" (they used for the option title) and "get".

I would watch the Firefox and Thunderbird newsgroups to see what new
problems cropped up. **** with add-ons were unimportant because they
were way too often crappy code, not responsive to new product updates,
and rarely considered compatibility with other add-ons. I just watched
for complaints about just Firefox and Thunderbird. Eventually I'd see a
lull in complaints after a new version came out and perhaps some posts
about problems getting fixed.

Not every version shoved out by Mozilla is good. You have to watch for
those plateau versions where they fixed some nasty problems in prior
versions without adding more nasties in their new version.

Same goes for Windows Updates: wait awhile before installing to see what
damage they may cause for others well-trained in the mantra of "new is
better". They're the same ones that install driver updates and burn new
BIOS firmware just because a new version came out despite everything was
working just fine.

On Mon, 06 Apr 2015 02:47:43 +0100, choro wrote:

After I reported problem solved, it came back with a vengeance only a
few hours later. Forget about it not responding AFTER I had turned
Firefox off, Firefox (latest edition) refused to open any URL from
newsgroups EVEN WHILE it was up and running.

If I fill in the missing pieces of the story, is it safe to assume that
Firefox is working perfectly well for you in every way EXCEPT integration
with your Usenet newsreader?

If so, it doesn't sound like a Firefox issue at all.

Cost me a lot of time and
wasted effort trying anything I could think of. The only way I could get
Firefox to start again after being turned off was EITHER to reinstall it
OR Restart the computer.

By "start again", are you still referring to its integration with your
newsreader, or is the problem bigger than that? And what do you mean by
"turned off"? Are you using File-Exit, the X in the right corner, or Task
Manager to kill its process? How are you turning it off?

But I need Firefox for running a program that
Google Chrome has banned! It just won't allow IDM to run off Google
Chrome with Google accusing IDM of everything that Google is so famously
notorious about -- spying on users!!!

The only IDM I know about is Internet Download Manager, but that's not a
program. It's only a download manager, one of many, I might add, so I assume
you must be talking about something else.

Finally I decided that the culprit must be the latest versions of
Firefox. SO, I installed version 34 instead and for the time being it is
working perfectly. No misbehaving! But I'll keep my fingers crossed.

So much for the so-called updates that tend to mess things up. I have
naturally configured Firefox NOT to update in any shape or form.

So far, it doesn't look like a Firefox issue, but I may be missing some key
info.

--

Char Jackson