Firefox Freeze, Force Minimize, and Restore

[DartMan 68]

This happens almost every time I have more than 3, sometimes 4 tabs open. It has happened in the last 2 versions of FF on my laptops. This happens whether I'm using the Samsung mechanical or the Samsung ssd. Can anyone shed some light on this? I would hate to give up using the browser I have used as my main one since version 3.5.3 but this is so frustrating.

ThinkPad R500 MTM 2714CTO, Core2 Duo T9800, 8GB DDR3, 80GB Samsung mechanical / 128GiB Samsung SSD, Windows 7 Pro 64bit, Firefox version 45.0.1. with Adblock Plus, Adblock Plus Pop-up Addon, NetVideoHunter, Password Exporter, Personas Plus, and Redirect Remover and with hardware acceleration disabled.

Ideapad G580, MN 20157, PN 59344054, Core i7-3610QM, 8GB DDR3, 500GB WD mechanical, Windows 8.1 64bit, Firefox version 45.0.1 with the same addons and hardware acceleration disabled. (For Sale as well).

Latitude D830, Core2 Duo T6400, 4GB DDR2, 250GB Toshiba mechanical, Windows 7 Pro 64bit, Firefox version 45.0.1 with the same addons and hardware acceleration disabled.

[DaveLembke]

All 3 systems with this issue?

I have noticed that Firefox 45.0.1 lately for 2 systems that I use most have had where I go to launch the browser after it was closed by myself or the result of being closed out by the shutdown of system, and when launching Firefox the next time it gives me a message suggesting the browser crashed and wasnt gracefully closed. I simply have ignored it and the browser works fine. The options given for me are to restore the prior session or start fresh and I start fresh. It is random and not every time the browser is opened and closed. I havent kept track of how many tabs I have open but it is usually less than 4.

Systems I have had this problem on:

Athlon II x4 620 2600Mhz, 4GB RAM, 3 Hard Drives ( 750GB, 300GB, 164.7GB ), GeForce 730 GT 2GB Video Card, Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium SP1
Intel Atom 1.66Ghz, 2GB RAM, 40GB SSD, Integrated Intel GPU as part of the Atom APU, Windows XP Home SP3 patched to end of XP

Both systems use AdBlock Plus and both systems not every time but i'd say it feels like 50% of the time show that Firefox didnt gracefully close and it offers to restore the prior session.

Maybe others will have this issue and they will perform a bug fix and bring it to 45.0.2.

Have you disabled AdBlock Plus and seen if that corrects it?

I havent tried to figure it out myself as for its not that much of a problem for me. When the browser is running its flawless, its just the initial start of it after a shutdown or when starting browser again.

[DartMan 68]

Thank you for your response. Yes, on all 3 systems. FF opens and closes with no errors on my systems. I have tried both Restart with Add-ons Disabled and Refresh Firefox. This still happens even then. It appears to have something to do with the way FF manages memory... I think. It happens most often when I switch back and forth between tabs a few times. It does it at some point in every browsing session I have and sometimes more than once in a session. I do use CCleaner daily.

[Calum]

Adblock Plus is known to cause high memory usage, try disabling this for testing or using an alternative such as uBlock Origin instead.  I switched from Adblock Plus to uBlock Origin myself about 6 months ago and have had fewer issues with Firefox stuttering or responding slowly since then - it didn't cause crashes for me, but it's certainly worth trying.

[patio]

I'm convinced after the last 3 updates or so FFox is back to a years old issue where it wasn't releasing memory...so it hangs.
They don't address this issue at all...then somehow fix it again magically.

Just sayin it ain't your imagination...

[DartMan 68]

Thank you, Calum. I will try that and see how it goes. If it works, I will mark this as solved.

[DartMan 68]

Thank you, patio. I appreciate it. I will try Calum's suggestion.

[DartMan 68]

Calum. Should I also remove Adblock Plus Pop-up Addon?

[DartMan 68]

Calum. I have installed uBlock Origin and removed both Adblock Plus and Adblock Plus Pop-up Addon. FFox has improved. But twice now in this session, the problem repeated. I think patio is right. It's down to how FFox handles/releases memory. Do you have any other suggestions I might try?

[Calum]

Calum. Should I also remove Adblock Plus Pop-up Addon?

I'm not aware if this causes the same issues as Adblock Plus itself, I suspect not.

Calum. I have installed uBlock Origin and removed both Adblock Plus and Adblock Plus Pop-up Addon. FFox has improved. But twice now in this session, the problem repeated. I think patio is right. It's down to how FFox handles/releases memory. Do you have any other suggestions I might try?

When it does hang, what memory usage is Firefox sitting at?  I have been troubleshooting, on and off, an issue on my own system where Waterfox (a branch of Firefox) eventually gets up to around 2GB of RAM usage and then behaves very oddly, usually takes 5-7 days for it to get there, then closing and re-opening it resolves the issue for a while.  For me the issue isn't add-on or profile related, I've tried with all addons disabled, and tried with a clean profile, but no difference.  A different branch of Firefox, Pale Moon, had intense stuttering issues on my machine so I gave up on that although it didn't exhibit the same memory issues - from what I understand though, Waterfox is much closer than Pale Moon to the "base" of Firefox.

[DaveLembke]

Same crash ... now today on work computer. Sharing screen shots to show info on this. Right at launch of Firefox 45.0.1 greeted with this. It was closed out properly day before. 

Additionally the only tab open when exiting yesterday was computer hope. I have also had this condition at home with out computer hope tab ever being open when exiting browser... just to state that its nothing to do with computer hope and firefox when the screenshot shows CH as being last tab open at crash event.   

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[patio]

Inexcusable how quiet Mozilla is being about this latest go-around...

[DartMan 68]

Calum. It hasn't done it yet in this session. Based on what you asked about memory usage, I opened taskmgmt.msc. Currently, FFox is ranging between 322k and 340k. Significantly more memory use than anything else in the Processes tab. All I have open is FFox and only 3 tabs at the moment. I'll keep watching it. I didn't know there were other branches of FFox.

[DartMan 68]

Dave. That's curious. FFox opens and closes with no errors for me. It just hangs and force minimizes to the taskbar for a few seconds, then maximizes. Based on Calum's question, I have taskmgmt.msc open and on the Processes tab. I also have Event Viewer open. If it repeats, I want to see if it shows in the log.

[DartMan 68]

Calum, Dave. Update. It did it again. I had taskmgmt.msc open, on the Processes tab. FFox was at almost 400k memory use. I closed and reopened FFox. So far, it hasn't done it yet. I may end up switching browsers until FFox straightens this out. I've used it so for long that I haven't really kept up with other browsers. Good suggestions?