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Firefox crashing whole PC, needing full restart

  • 13 replies
  • 5 have this problem
  • 10 views
  • Last reply by MyPCHatesMe

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While using Firefox on my machine it randomly crashes the whole PC and the hard drive seems to stop spinning and the hard drive activity light goes out - there is no BSOD. I have to force restart the machine.

This has been happening for about 4 to 5 months now and crashes mostly every day, sometimes twice a day. I have used Firefox without problems for years on this machine.

I have refreshed Firefox, created many new profiles and changed settings, uninstalled and reinstalled, defragged the hard drive and tried almost everything I can think of. There is nothing in the event viewer or about:crashes that relates to the crash, this only happens when I use Firefox.

While using Firefox on my machine it randomly crashes the whole PC and the hard drive seems to stop spinning and the hard drive activity light goes out - there is no BSOD. I have to force restart the machine. This has been happening for about 4 to 5 months now and crashes mostly every day, sometimes twice a day. I have used Firefox without problems for years on this machine. I have refreshed Firefox, created many new profiles and changed settings, uninstalled and reinstalled, defragged the hard drive and tried almost everything I can think of. There is nothing in the event viewer or about:crashes that relates to the crash, this only happens when I use Firefox.

Chosen solution

Thanks for the suggestions, I spoke to somebody on the Vista forums who was also having this problem

We both had Avast installed and we both fixed our problem by removing Avast

Uninstalled Avast on the 15th of November and installed Avira, not had a single crash in FF yet which is great!

I will let you know if it happens again but it's probably fixed!

)
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All Replies (13)

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hello, could you go to the firefox menu ≡ > help ? > troubleshooting information, copy the contents of that page and paste them here into a reply on the forum? this might give us a clue what is going on...

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Application Basics


Name: Firefox Version: 41.0.2 Build ID: 20151014143721 Update Channel: release User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:41.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/41.0 Multiprocess Windows: 0/2 (default: false)

Crash Reports for the Last 3 Days


All Crash Reports

Extensions


Name: Adblock Plus Version: 2.6.11 Enabled: true ID: {d10d0bf8-f5b5-c8b4-a8b2-2b9879e08c5d}

Name: Avast Online Security Version: 10.2.0.187 Enabled: false ID: wrc@avast.com

Name: Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant Version: 0.0.0 Enabled: false ID: {20a82645-c095-46ed-80e3-08825760534b}

Graphics


Adapter Description: Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family Adapter Drivers: igdumdx32 igd10umd32 Adapter RAM: Unknown Asynchronous Pan/Zoom: none Device ID: 0x2a42 Direct2D Enabled: Blocked for your graphics driver version. DirectWrite Enabled: false (7.0.6002.23771) Driver Date: 2-11-2011 Driver Version: 8.15.10.2302 GPU #2 Active: false GPU Accelerated Windows: 0/2 Basic (OMTC) Subsys ID: 00000000 Supports Hardware H264 Decoding: false Vendor ID: 0x8086 WebGL Renderer: Google Inc. -- ANGLE (Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family Direct3D9Ex vs_3_0 ps_3_0) windowLayerManagerRemote: true AzureCanvasBackend: skia AzureContentBackend: cairo AzureFallbackCanvasBackend: cairo AzureSkiaAccelerated: 0 (#0) Assert: D3D11 device creation failed0x887a0004

Important Modified Preferences


accessibility.typeaheadfind.flashBar: 0 browser.cache.check_doc_frequency: 1 browser.cache.disk.capacity: 358400 browser.cache.disk.filesystem_reported: 1 browser.cache.disk.smart_size.first_run: false browser.cache.disk.smart_size.use_old_max: false browser.cache.frecency_experiment: 2 browser.download.importedFromSqlite: true browser.download.useDownloadDir: false browser.link.open_newwindow: 2 browser.places.smartBookmarksVersion: 7 browser.search.suggest.enabled: false browser.sessionstore.upgradeBackup.latestBuildID: 20151014143721 browser.startup.homepage_override.buildID: 20151014143721 browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone: 41.0.2 browser.tabs.animate: false browser.tabs.drawInTitlebar: false browser.urlbar.autocomplete.enabled: false browser.urlbar.suggest.bookmark: false browser.urlbar.suggest.history: false browser.urlbar.suggest.openpage: false browser.urlbar.trimURLs: false dom.apps.reset-permissions: true dom.mozApps.used: true extensions.lastAppVersion: 41.0.2 gfx.blacklist.direct2d: 3 gfx.direct2d.disabled: true gfx.driver-init.appVersion: 41.0.2 gfx.driver-init.deviceID: 0x2a42 gfx.driver-init.driverVersion: 8.15.10.2302 gfx.driver-init.feature-d2d: false gfx.driver-init.feature-d3d11: true gfx.driver-init.status: 2 layers.acceleration.disabled: true media.gmp-eme-adobe.lastUpdate: 1444433796 media.gmp-eme-adobe.version: 12 media.gmp-gmpopenh264.enabled: false media.gmp-gmpopenh264.lastUpdate: 1444433797 media.gmp-gmpopenh264.version: 1.4 media.gmp-manager.buildID: 20151014143721 media.gmp-manager.lastCheck: 1445130407 media.hardware-video-decoding.failed: false network.cookie.cookieBehavior: 1 network.cookie.prefsMigrated: true network.predictor.cleaned-up: true places.database.lastMaintenance: 1445132406 places.history.enabled: false places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages: 52644 plugin.disable_full_page_plugin_for_types: application/pdf plugin.importedState: true plugin.state.npctrl: 0 plugin.state.npvlc: 1 plugin.state.npwpf: 0 privacy.clearOnShutdown.offlineApps: true privacy.clearOnShutdown.passwords: true privacy.clearOnShutdown.siteSettings: true privacy.cpd.offlineApps: true privacy.cpd.siteSettings: true privacy.donottrackheader.enabled: true privacy.sanitize.migrateFx3Prefs: true privacy.sanitize.sanitizeOnShutdown: true privacy.sanitize.timeSpan: 0 privacy.trackingprotection.enabled: true storage.vacuum.last.index: 1 storage.vacuum.last.places.sqlite: 1444497714

Important Locked Preferences


JavaScript


Incremental GC: true

Accessibility


Activated: false Prevent Accessibility: 0

Library Versions


NSPR Expected minimum version: 4.10.8 Version in use: 4.10.8

NSS Expected minimum version: 3.19.2 Basic ECC Version in use: 3.19.2 Basic ECC

NSSSMIME Expected minimum version: 3.19.2 Basic ECC Version in use: 3.19.2 Basic ECC

NSSSSL Expected minimum version: 3.19.2 Basic ECC Version in use: 3.19.2 Basic ECC

NSSUTIL Expected minimum version: 3.19.2 Version in use: 3.19.2

Experimental Features


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does it make a difference when you update the graphics drivers on your system to the newest ones available?: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/22165/Intel-Graphics-Media-Accelerator-Driver-Windows-7-Windows-Vista-exe-

if this doesn't work, please disable hardware acceleration in the firefox menu ≡ > options > advanced > general (that setting will take a restart of the browser to take effect).

as this might be hardware-related as well, you might want to use a tool like www.memtest.org to check the integrity of your RAM...

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Boot the computer in Windows Safe Mode with network support (press F8 on the boot screen) to see if that helps.

If the whole PC crashes then this is caused by a problem with a driver or service that runs at kernel level, so make sure that all such software is up to date.

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Thank you I have updated from 8.15.10.2302 to 8.15.10.2869 and hardware acceleration is already turned off in the general settings.

I will let you know if it happens again.

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It has crashed again, same as before.

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I used www.memtest.org and it completed 2 passes and found no errors.

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does the pc crash produce any minidumps that could be read with a tool like http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html ? that program from nirsoft can sometimes flag certain drivers that might play a role in a crash...

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I downloaded that but it's not showing any of the crash dumps because I don't think I have had any BSOD.

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Is there anything else I can try?

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I'm not sure what else to try...

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Did you try to boot the computer in Windows Safe Mode?

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Chosen Solution

Thanks for the suggestions, I spoke to somebody on the Vista forums who was also having this problem

We both had Avast installed and we both fixed our problem by removing Avast

Uninstalled Avast on the 15th of November and installed Avira, not had a single crash in FF yet which is great!

I will let you know if it happens again but it's probably fixed!

)