Frequent crashes when tabs load web pages
For several weeks now, Firefox has been crashing randomly, multiple times a day when tabs load data. It could be new tabs for a website or pre-existing ones from a previous session that are clicked. It always crashes within a second (if not immediately) of data being loaded on the tab. I haven't noticed a pattern with a particular website and I can visit the exact webpage immediately after the crash and it's fine.
It only happens when a webpage is loading on a tab - I don't recall it ever happening when switching to a tab that had completed loading.
I first noticed it around the time Firefox 29 was released. I rolled back to 28 but the crashes continued (I rolled back because the Session Manager addon didn't work with 29 at the time and Firefox's crash recovery didn't save sessions when the whole computer crashed), upgraded to 30 - same problem. Completely uninstalled Firefox (deleting all personal data) and reinstalled - same problem.
I have not tried using it in safe mode yet, but the first crash after the fresh install happened when I didn't have many addons.
I only found out about viewing the submitted crash reports yesterday. I've submitted a ton over the past few weeks, but don't know what they are now, since I reinstalled Firefox.
So far it has crashed 6 times in the past 25 hours. The crash reason is always EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION_READ.
Please help me figure this out!
Modified by PositronicTomato
Chosen solution
Disable the HTTPS Everywhere add-on and see if the incidence of crashing decreases.
Read this answer in context 👍 0All Replies (8)
Sorry your Firefox is crashing. Here are quick fixes to prevent this from happening again
Could you disable Firefox's use of hardware acceleration of graphics, which is a workaround for possible incompatibility with your graphics card driver software, and also the HTTPS-Everywhere extension, which seems to be causing a variety of issues lately.
(1) Hardware acceleration:
"3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Options > Advanced
On the "General" mini-tab, uncheck the box for "Use hardware acceleration when available"
This takes effect after you exit and start Firefox up again.
(2) Disabling an extension
You can open the Add-ons page using either:
- Ctrl+Shift+a
- "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons
In the left column, click Extensions. Then find and disable HTTPS-Everywhere, and anything else you can live without for 24 hours.
Usually a link will appear above at least one disabled extension to restart Firefox. You can complete your work on the tab and click one of the links as the last step.
Any improvement in stability?
Chosen Solution
Disable the HTTPS Everywhere add-on and see if the incidence of crashing decreases.
Since Flash is pervasive, and some systems suffer Firefox crashes due to the Flash player plugin's protected mode, you may want to disable that. The following pages/posts provide different ways to do that:
- Adobe support article under the heading "Last Resort": Adobe Forums: How do I troubleshoot Flash Player's protected mode for Firefox?
- Batch file to automate the manual steps: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/982093#answer-518078
Flash needs to completely unload from memory (restarting Firefox might help) before this would take effect.
Thank you so much for the suggestions!
I've disabled hardware acceleration, HTTPS-everywhere, and Flash's protected mode.
Other general stuff: OS, anti-virus, firewall, video card and printer drivers are all up-to-date. AV scan was clean and plugins seem ok.
I'll give an update tomorrow.
No crashes!
Over the next few days I'll try to figure out what it is. Once I pinpoint it, I'll post an update.
I suspect it's HTTPS-Everywhere.
It's taking longer than I thought to figure out what caused it. After my last message I re-enabled hardware acceleration and protected mode, used it for a day - no crashes (that was 2 days of heavy use without crashes, so I was sure at that point it was HTTPS-everywhere). Re-enabled HTTPS-everywhere and still haven't had any crashes since (light use throughout the week though).