a problem with firefox

Mostly Firefox will run slow,then slower, then prog "not responding" pops up on the top, then Firefox just shuts its self off. And I can't restart Firefox without 1st doing a warm restart on the laptop. Internet Explorer did it 1 time.

Steve

Callender said:

reble said:

What about the fact that internet Explorer is doing the same thing now.

You mean freezing?

I opened Firefox in safemode. I held the shift key down, dbl clicked the icon and the box opened. I clicked on "start in safe mode" Firefox was working fine.i was typing in the url for this form manually and Firefox stopped working again and shut down again in safemode. Now what? Dump the whole Firefox profile and then del Firefox again?

MoxieMomma said:

Hi,

In addition to the excellent advice already offered...

You wrote:

I tried uninstalling Firefox and got the following message bellow in the screen capture. I had to go into safemode to del Firefox. But the cookies, history, bookmarks (bookmarks are backed up) weren't del. And were still in place when I reinstalled Firefox.

Your bookmarks, history, preferences, etc. are stored in your profile, not in the program.
So simply uninstalling Firefox itself will not necessarily remove those items.
Moreover, most problems with Firefox originate in the user's profile.

I agree with @Layback Bear's suggestion to try Firefox with add-ons disabled. This is called Mozilla Safe Mode (not to be confused with Windows Safe Mode). It's a temporary, non-destructive means to troubleshoot. If Safe Mode resolves the issue, then the problem is likely with a Firefox add-on or extension.

The following articles explain how to proceed logically through diagnostic steps, from "least invasive" to "most aggressive", starting with Mozilla Safe Mode:

Firefox - Standard Diagnostic
Firefox - Fix slowness, crashing, error messages, and other problems

>>It's a good idea to backup either your entire profile, or at least critical data (e.g. bookmarks) before undertaking major work, just in case.

Please let us know how it goes, so that we can all learn.

MM

How can I use the FEBE add-on when Firefox won't even stay runing long enough to let me log into lets say this forum. I am on Internet Explorer right now. Other then that 1 time Internet Explorer is working fine. I think the IE upgrade to IE 11 helped that out. I probably will have to do a complete manual dump of the Firefox profile. Then reinstall Firefox. The bookmarks are already backed up on my D HDD in the external USB case.

Callender said:

No. Just try backing up your profile using FEBE but store the backup away from Program Files, Program Files x86 or your AppData directories. Backup to a folder on your desktop would be okay.

Then fully remove Firefox including the manual check for leftovers as described and delete manually where needed.

Reboot. Reinstall Firefox. Add the FEBE extension. Import bookmarks and extensions.

EDIT: You could try MozBackup instead of FEBE but last time I tried the developer states that it no longer works with latest versions of Firefox.

MozBackup is not being developed anymore. There are known issues and there is no time on my side to fix all issues and develop new features. Use MozBackup only on your risk.

MozBackup - Backup tool for Firefox and Thunderbird

Yes I ran Firefox in it's safe mode (by the way this is Firefox v47). Firefox ran slowly for about 3 to 4 minutes then the "stopped responding" showed up in the top bar then Firefox shut it self off. I tried the diag and the stuff in the "fix slowness" link. Nothing works. If the manual dump of Firefox's profile and clean reinstall doesn't work. I can't think of anything else to do other then wipe the partition clean on the C hard drive and reinstall everything clean. What bugs me is I just installed this new HDD in, about a week or 2 ago and Firefox has only been installed for a short time. It seems to me Firefox is acting like it has been installed for a long time and has clected a lot of junk.

By the way I also have a text file with the name and link of every web page stored in the bookmark. I did this after the current bookmark backup got ceruped and I had to rebuild the bookmark from a file stored on a USB thumb drive and that file was 7 months old.

MoxieMomma said:

Hi:

Yep, @Callender's outstanding tutorial for FEBE won't work if you cannot run Firefox.
I would be leery of relying on Mozbackup with current versions of Firefox, as Mozbackup was abandoned in 2012 and no longer works reliably.

Did you try any of the steps in these tutorials, starting with Mozilla Safe Mode?

Firefox - Standard Diagnostic
Firefox - Fix slowness, crashing, error messages, and other problems

----------------------
If you want to cleanly reinstall Firefox....
And if you are comfortable with your bookmarks backup as the only data you want to save, you are probably OK to fully uninstall Firefox AND all the profile data.

If you want to backup everything before proceeding, just in case, you can do this:

1. CLOSE Firefox completely (from the Windows Task Manager if necessary).
2. Click the Windows7 start orb and then type "%appdata" (without the quotes) into the search box.
3. Locate the entire "Mozilla" folder and copy it to your desktop or another location.

At that point, you can probably completely uninstall Firefox and then delete all remaining associated folders and files manually, if necessary. It might not be a bad idea to reboot the computer after doing that.


Then, you can download a fresh copy of the Firefox installer here: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/


HTH,
MM

You sead in #2 "start orb" what is "orb"?

MoxieMomma said:

Hi:

Yep, @Callender's outstanding tutorial for FEBE won't work if you cannot run Firefox.
I would be leery of relying on Mozbackup with current versions of Firefox, as Mozbackup was abandoned in 2012 and no longer works reliably.

Did you try any of the steps in these tutorials, starting with Mozilla Safe Mode?

Firefox - Standard Diagnostic
Firefox - Fix slowness, crashing, error messages, and other problems

----------------------
If you want to cleanly reinstall Firefox....
And if you are comfortable with your bookmarks backup as the only data you want to save, you are probably OK to fully uninstall Firefox AND all the profile data.

If you want to backup everything before proceeding, just in case, you can do this:

1. CLOSE Firefox completely (from the Windows Task Manager if necessary).
2. Click the Windows7 start orb and then type "%appdata" (without the quotes) into the search box.
3. Locate the entire "Mozilla" folder and copy it to your desktop or another location.

At that point, you can probably completely uninstall Firefox and then delete all remaining associated folders and files manually, if necessary. It might not be a bad idea to reboot the computer after doing that.


Then, you can download a fresh copy of the Firefox installer here: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/


HTH,
MM