This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Firefox causing system slowdown?

  • 4 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by R.Z.

more options

The past few weeks my system has been slowing down/lagging after a period of time. It usually gets so bad that it affects Chrome as well. Usually when this happens Firefox either crashes or has problems with a script. At first I thought this was due to having three windows with multiple tabs open, but even with one window with multiple tabs opens I'm still having slowdown issues. I need to know what is causing these slowdowns so I can fix them.

Recent crash reports:

https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/96c29177-2202-4827-8d54-769182140508

https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-b99d7db3-a376-4173-8539-3d2d52140508

https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-afa9104b-f937-416c-afeb-11a442140505

https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-207c4315-0208-40c9-abbb-9a2fb2140504

https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-bd4373ff-b38c-48f8-82ff-1169b2140504

https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-0f54af0a-1b8e-4285-aded-375cb2140504

The past few weeks my system has been slowing down/lagging after a period of time. It usually gets so bad that it affects Chrome as well. Usually when this happens Firefox either crashes or has problems with a script. At first I thought this was due to having three windows with multiple tabs open, but even with one window with multiple tabs opens I'm still having slowdown issues. I need to know what is causing these slowdowns so I can fix them. Recent crash reports: https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/96c29177-2202-4827-8d54-769182140508 https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-b99d7db3-a376-4173-8539-3d2d52140508 https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-afa9104b-f937-416c-afeb-11a442140505 https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-207c4315-0208-40c9-abbb-9a2fb2140504 https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-bd4373ff-b38c-48f8-82ff-1169b2140504 https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-0f54af0a-1b8e-4285-aded-375cb2140504

Modified by R.Z.

All Replies (4)

more options

Hi,

There's two problems here, maybe, just one. Your crash signature is caused by either hardware acceleration or Firefox ran out of memory because your System Memory percentage is at 96-98 in your reports, that's high.

Try each solution and tell me which one works.


Firefox has hardware acceleration set to "on" by default, but it's still young, which means some video cards or drivers might have problems with it. You can try to disable hardware acceleration to see if that alleviates your problems.

You might need to restart Firefox in order for this to take effect, so save all work first (e.g., mail you are composing, online documents you're editing, etc.).

Then perform these steps for Firefox version 29.0 and above:

  • Click the menu button New Fx Menu and select Options for Windows or Preferences on Mac or Linux. For Firefox 28.0 and previous versions, click the orange Firefox button at the top left, then select the "Options" button, or, if there is no Firefox button at the top, go to Tools > Options.
  • In the Firefox options window, click the Advanced tab, then select "General".
  • In the settings list, you should find the Use hardware acceleration when available checkbox. Uncheck this checkbox.
  • Now, restart Firefox and see if the problems persist.

Additionally, please check for updates for your graphics driver by following the steps mentioned in the following Knowledge base articles:


This also looks like out-of-memory crashes where something is using up all available memory.

more options

I've turned on hardware acceleration, disabled quicktime plugin, and turned off the classic theme restorer, IE, and gmail extensions. The problem still persists. Here is the report from the most recent crash:

https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/da0d5ee0-5695-4a55-aba2-c3eec2140518

more options

That are all out-of-memory crashes where all available memory is used up and causes Firefox to crash.

more options

I get that, my question is how can I get Firefox to not use so much memory without having to reset it, and why these slowdowns and crashes are only happening now.