Find Out Why Firefox Crashes 14
Tip
Hey
I like using Firefox. I think, for my tastes, it is better than Safari. But there is a few quirks. For example, it does crash quite a lot. This can be a problem. You don’t want a crashing browsers. There is a solution that can help, thats simple and easy to do. It does take a while, but I found it solved the crashing problem.
The solution is to remove plugins. Over time you end up with more and more plugins. This results in Firefox becoming bloated and slow. It is also the culprit of random crashes. With all this code running there is bound to be conflicts. To find the plugin that is causing the problem. Go to Tools > Add-On’s. From this list, it will show every plugin that is currently loaded.
To find the problem plugin, disable every single one. Also uninstall all of the ones you don’t need. The more plugin’s you have the slow Firefox is. Once as you have disabled every single one restarted Firefox, and start one at a time. Surf the web, if it survives enable the next one. So on and so forth.
You may find the application that crash. If so you can disable it or update it. If you don’t find it, something else might be to blame. I found through this method problem plugin’s as a result I uninstalled it.
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14 Responses to “Find Out Why Firefox Crashes”
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Hm.. It will be time-consuming task to test the plugins one by one. I hope people out there won’t have too many plugins installed. ^^
Anyway, it’s a nice tips. But I’ve been really fed up with Firefox crushing, now I only use Firefox for developing purpose. For being internet-slave, I prefer Safari. :)
Comment By Wendy on June 4th, at 10:18 pm
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Reminds me of the pre-OS X days of troubleshooting extension conflicts.
Comment By Karl on June 5th, at 12:01 am
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Simple solution! Get a PC! LOL. I mean my firefox rarely if ever crashes. I also don’t really see ie7 crashing either.
But seriously, what do people do when firefox or other programs really do crash on a pc? They always say, Ahh, it’s buggy, unstable, glitchy windows. Get A mac!” But when it crashes on a mac, they usually say, “That shouldn’t happen? It must be just a kernal panic. Have you called apple?”. Or in firefox’s case, they’d say, it’s just firefox causing the problem which makes sense. But on windows, they blame windows. THE BOTTOM LINE IS. – This proves that programs can and will crash on a mac from time to time. It also proves there is no way to prevent it either. Other than remove offending modules. After removing offending programs from either windows or mac, neither of them crash routinely unless they are improperly set up, or there is a conflict.
Comment By jz on February 25th, at 6:40 pm
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I have mostly Linux machines, and a couple of Windows boxes lying around. I’ve been using FF since version 1.0 with NO problems on ANY PC plaform, including Windows 2000. Firefox is probably the most stable code on the web, and if anyone says it crashes a lot because it’s “buggy” clearly knows nothing about FF.
The common denominator here is Mac. You mac people have a very bad attitude about software. You claim nothing crashes on a mac (as said above) yet when it does, you blame the software and not your own piece of junk computer. Guess what? Firefox is organic code that runs *perfectly* on Linux, Solaris, Windows, and BSD. I’ve used FF on 20+ Linux distros (both Debian & Fedora based), PCBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, OpenSolaris, Windows 2K, XP, and Vista.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but macs are the ONLY systems that regularly have problems with Firefox. I think it’s time to open your eyes and see where the bad code really is. Here’s a hint: It came with your mac.
Trash your white toy, get a PC, and slap a copy of Ubuntu on it, it’ll be an easy transition for you. Scoff now all you want, but you’ll thank me later.
Comment By Brian on April 4th, at 11:50 pm
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Thank you for the information about Firefox problems on Mac OSX.
IT works now!
Comment By Daniel LeMay on April 15th, at 2:56 am
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Jz -
I used to be a pc user, and had other issues, firefox recently started to crash on me, only very recently and the nice thing about mac is that there are easy to figure out solutions and even when firefox does crash I can load it back with the same tabs.
Mac opens firefox much faster than my pc did.
op – I don’t have too many plug ins so this was a great and easy fix, I’ll let you know if the problem persist.
ThanksComment By daka2 on May 5th, at 12:44 pm
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Disabling the plug-ins and add-ons does absolutely jack shit. I’ve tried disabling everything, I’ve tried running Firefox in safe mode, I’ve changed the proxy settings, I’ve exhausted every hint I’ve found online and it still randomly crashes, usually when I start the program up. This problem has been persistent for months now and despite submitting…oh, I’m going to go with hundreds…of crash reports and despite posting questions on the Mozilla forums, no one has given me one shred of advice on this matter.
Comment By PC812 on July 29th, at 8:34 am
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I have this problem all the time. I have no plug ins and not add ons right now. I reinstalled it a couple times, it crashes all the time. I loved firefox on my mac. what happened??
My roomate has the same computer as I do yet his never or rarely crashes. I just don’t understand it.
Comment By Andrew on July 31st, at 1:49 am
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We are having the same problems on our computers, and I think I’ve narrowed it down… it’s the 10.5.7 update. We have some systems that I haven’t updated (running 10.5.6) which never crash with firefox – but all of the 10.5.7 ones crash regularly. Unfortunately we use a CMS called RedDot which is NOT compatible with Safari… so we are going to have to buy a PC just to update our website.
Apple really screwed the pooch on this update.
Comment By Chris on August 4th, at 3:51 pm
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I’m spitting mad too!! I recently migrated from safari to firefox on the recommendation of fellow mac users. I have NEVER had a problem with safari but firefox crashes EVERYTIME I use it lately (noticed this in the last week – been using ff for about a month.)
No amount of searching for solutions has helped. All ‘solutions’ point to disabling plug-ins / add-ons…. I have NONE!!!! so now what?
I guess I’ll just been getting rid of ff and reinstalling safari.
Comment By mac-convert on September 19th, at 5:17 pm
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wow way to hate on macs
my ff keeps on crashing…its so annoying. But just know, that it crashed way more on any PC i had. Im not saying macs are > than pc’s, im just saying not to discriminate so much. I <3 my mac. Dont hate on macs if u dont have oneComment By lacy on November 14th, at 4:03 am
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i have a dream: one day apple will put on the garbage this crappy intel chips and start putting IBM chips up again.
Comment By kodrinsky on February 2nd, at 1:26 am
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I turned off my Plug-ins on my Imac 2007 computer, four or five in total, and Facebook, Myspace, and yahoo all work now. I searched around on the internet for answers yesterday evening for what seemed like forever, only finding this site today and then disregarding the turning off of plug-ins advice. Thank you :-)
As for Mac/PC social wars, guys…if you are yelling and screaming and throwing trantrums over which computer is better…maybe you are a bit too far down the rabbit hole. People are going to keep buying both and neither is flawless. People prefer either for their own reasons, and those reasons are personal. Not really going to get anyone anywhere coming to sites like this and posting angry messages.
Comment By Justin on May 21st, at 8:30 pm
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was able to find out which plug-in was causing my mac os 10.4.11 :)
i disabled the quicktime plug-in. now firefox is not crashing :)
Comment By macNcheesey on July 4th, at 11:25 pm