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My Firefox 4 browser "freezes" for several minutes (yes, minutes) between mouse clicks. All other applications work fine (even while Firefox is "frozen"). How can I fix this?

I've fought this for over a month. If I can't get this resolved, I'm abandoning Firefox. I think it's some kind of upgrade/corruption problem, or possibly some kind of buffering/memory management problem in Firefox. Other browsers work fine (IE, Chrome, etc.), even while Firefox is "frozen".

Possibly relevant:

  • Win7-64bit, Intel Core2-quad @ 2.66GHz, 8GB RAM
  • Firefox 4, Beta-10 (I've auto-upgraded since Beta-3)
  • 37 windows, 164 tabs (yes, a heavy load) <==Firefox can't handle?
  • Firefox Process usage about 1100-1200 MB, not much CPU
  • Only a few basic Firefox plugins (Flash, PDF, etc.)
  • Running AVG-antivirus (Free) and SuperAntiSpyware (Licensed)

Should Firefox be able to handle this load, so there is something for me to fix, or can I simply not do this load with Firefox? (It used to work.)

EDIT-- Sorry, I am running Firefox 4.0.1 (not Beta-10).

charley
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  • Voting to close, because this doesn't belong on SO. However, I too am suffering with this (sometimes with only one or 2 tabs open), so I'll follow any answers wherever this question ends up. I can rule out AV, because I don't run any. – spender May 23 '11 at 12:53
  • Firefox 4 was released a while ago. I suggested you move off the beta and go to the full version, and see if your issues persist there. http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/fx/ – Simon Sheehan May 23 '11 at 13:01
  • When it freezes see if your CPU usage for Firefox is high. Are you running your own project or site? – Ravi Parekh May 23 '11 at 13:03
  • Running Firefox 4.0.1, when Firefox freezes, no, CPU is low/very-little. I'm guessing memory management problem? A few pages are to YouTube, so maybe the buffer is just really big, and that's a problem? – charley May 23 '11 at 15:44

3 Answers3

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If upgrading to the latest version as Simon Sheehan said does not help, I had similar (but not the exact) problems on Firefox on my netbook.

I went in to options > Advanced and disabled Use hardware accelration when available, if this does fix it for you, you may want to try upgrading your graphics drivers and re-enabling it.... for me, there were no upgrades available and disabling fixed it.

William Hilsum
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I too am having similar problems and have had to switch browser and i'm(was) running the full version of Firefox 4. I get similar Process usage as already mentioned then i get Not responding and am forced to kill the process.

I'm leaning to the buffering/memory management problem side of things.

Paul
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  • possibly related to this post http://superuser.com/questions/35437/how-to-fix-the-firefox-using-max-cpu-problem – Paul May 23 '11 at 16:16
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As i suggested in the comments, you may want to move to the full version of Firefox 4., released about a month ago.

The biggest issue I see here is

Firefox Process usage about 1100-1200 MB, not much CPU

That's an awful lot. I'm using 200mb right now. Are you running a lot of plugins or addons?

Type in about:addons in your address bar, and try disabling a bunch if you are using any.

Also as Wil said, leaving Firefox open for extended periods of time will begin to rack of some memory usage.

Simon Sheehan
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