Not sure what is going on, but over the past few weeks I’ve been having recurring issues with Firefox freezing up requiring restart (of the app).
Seems to happen when I have multiple tabs open but no particular sites that I’ve noticed. Multiple updates have come through. I’m on windows 11, using privacy badger, unlock origin, one password and the capital one shopping app (disabled most of the time).
I’m working on setting up a shop for selling my art on squarespace so I’m on there a lot. I’ll be in the middle of editing something and then it stops responding and I get the pop-up asking me to wait or close the app. Waiting has never worked so I just close and restart. It also can’t reopen my tabs when I restart so I have to do that manually.
I’ve tried reinstalling it. I’ve cleared out the cache though it’s set to do that at closing anyway. Nothing works. This happens randomly, not every time I open the browser.
Does this sound like anything you are experiencing? Any ideas on other things I should try to fix it?
From what I’ve read many people consider Privacy Badger and ublock origin redundant and typically recommend running just ubo. There’s also the risk they don’t get along and cause problems like what you’re seeing.
Do you leave gmail or google maps open all the time? Those are the only two website I’ve ever seen where Firefox will sometimes complain about the page slowing down the browser.
I don’t open anything Google unless absolutely necessary so I generally don’t have Gmail open for long but I’ll keep that in mind. Maybe I’ve forgotten about it and left it open sometimes this has happened.
I’ve also wondered about ubo and privacy badger. Wanted to try pb for a while and I’ve found I end up having more issues with ubo blocking Javascript (which is my settings not the extension I know) than I’ve noticed with pb. But I’ll try running with each one separately for a while and see if that helps.
What are your system specs?
Have you tried resetting Firefox? https://malwaretips.com/blogs/reset-firefox-settings/
Are you on Firefox version 120.0.1 (64-bit)?
Just checked… yes.
Are you on an EOLed GPU?
This has been happening to me a lot on YouTube specifically. With an i7 cpu running Win 11 & 8 gig RAM. I suspect it’s RAM related & might be upgrade time.
I’ve noticed this. Its usually after I’ve left it on overnight. I’m pretty sure it has a memory leak.
Only fix is closing Firefox and starting it again
Ugh, was afraid of that. I’ve been leaving mine on so I didn’t have to reopen a ton of tabs but I think I just need to break that habit.
You could mitigate this by going in the settings > ✅ open previous windows and tabs
By doing so firefox will open again the exact same tabs you were using when you closed it.
It should literally be the first option you see when opening the settings.
Good idea. Will try that one when I log on today. Thanks.
Glad I could help
Or you can use a session manager extension too I think.
I’ve kept Firefox running for multiple days on multiple PCs with a bunch of windows open, each with dozens of tabs, and I have not experienced anything that seems like a memory leak. Some Google sites cause it to complain about the page slowing down the browser but that’s the only slowdown issue I’ve seen. Closing and opening a new tab has been enough to resolve it for me.
I could debug it but…eh sounds efforty
The answer to your question is no, Firefox never freezes on my PC - but I do think you should say ‘on Windows 11’ rather than ‘on PC’ because you’re looking for a response tailored to your ‘PC’ and nobody should assume that all personal computers run Windows 11.
