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Firefox crashes immediately on startup. Will only start in safe mode.

  • 7 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 35 views
  • Last reply by cindybert

cindybert
cindybert
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So this isn't for my personal system, but a coworker's. Our company forces installation of certain software updates, and he had a forced install happen for a Firefox ESR for version 38. The install didn't complete successfully, and he hasn't been able to run Firefox since. We have tried uninstall/reinstall to level 39 (including deleting the directory under Program Files (x86). We also tried rebooting after each step, not rebooting after each step, Refreshing Firefox doesn't help either, and "Reset" isn't available. We can open in safe mode and disable add-ons, but then it crashes again after we restart in regular mode. This morning we tried installing level 38 instead of 39, but get the same results. Help?

So this isn't for my personal system, but a coworker's. Our company forces installation of certain software updates, and he had a forced install happen for a Firefox ESR for version 38. The install didn't complete successfully, and he hasn't been able to run Firefox since. We have tried uninstall/reinstall to level 39 (including deleting the directory under Program Files (x86). We also tried rebooting after each step, not rebooting after each step, Refreshing Firefox doesn't help either, and "Reset" isn't available. We can open in safe mode and disable add-ons, but then it crashes again after we restart in regular mode. This morning we tried installing level 38 instead of 39, but get the same results. Help?

Chosen solution

You can check if Firefox can be started in Safe Mode by holding down the Shift/Options key.

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem.

  • Switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance
  • Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe Mode start window

You can try to disable hardware acceleration in Firefox.

  • Tools > Options > Advanced > General > Browsing: "Use hardware acceleration when available"

You need to close and restart Firefox after toggling this setting.

You can check if there is an update for your graphics display driver and check for hardware acceleration related issues.

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All Replies (7)

jayelbe
jayelbe
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Hi Cindy,

It sounds like your colleague's Firefox profile might be corrupted.

Usually a refresh would fix things, but as that doesn't seem to have worked, I'd suggest refreshing manually.

There are instructions in the article below. Perhaps follow the first two steps (back up the old profile and create a new one), and test Firefox out. If it works okay in the new profile, then try copying your colleagues bookmarks, passwords, etc into the profile from the backup.

Recovering important data from an old profile

Hope this helps!

the-edmeister
the-edmeister
  • Moderator
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Why don't we try a little bit more troubleshooting, first?

Open Firefox in the SafeMode and then type about:crashes in the URL bar and hit Enter. edit - big whoopsie with the uri

Starting at the top, please provide some of the Crash ID #'s that start with BP-. Copy and paste those ID #'s into the Post Reply box here. If none start with BP-, click on those reports to submit them to the Crash data collection servers and give us the resultant BP- ID #'s.

Modified by the-edmeister

cindybert
cindybert Question owner
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Well, about:sync-log doesn't give me much. See the attached picture.

cindybert
cindybert Question owner
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We actually also deleted all the old profile information and reinstalled again. Same problem. Not concerned about saving bookmarks and such at this point.

jayelbe
jayelbe
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What about on about:crashes? If you see any crash ID's beginning with BP-, plesae copy and paste them into the box below.

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Chosen Solution

You can check if Firefox can be started in Safe Mode by holding down the Shift/Options key.

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem.

  • Switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance
  • Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe Mode start window

You can try to disable hardware acceleration in Firefox.

  • Tools > Options > Advanced > General > Browsing: "Use hardware acceleration when available"

You need to close and restart Firefox after toggling this setting.

You can check if there is an update for your graphics display driver and check for hardware acceleration related issues.

cindybert
cindybert Question owner
more options

So about:crashes showed me nothing with a BP- prefix. What finally worked was to disable hardware acceleration. I told my colleague that he could try to update his graphics drivers at some point, but at least this should get him up and running for now.

Thanks for all the suggestions!