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Firefox freezes overnight, then won't resume in the morning

  • 5 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by shrubear

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I also can't Force Quit it and it doesn't show up in Activity Monitor. Firefox also doesn't recognize this as a crash - I don't get a crash reporter screen and there's nothing in about:crashes.

I can't update to the latest build, our IT department takes to release updates.

I also can't Force Quit it and it doesn't show up in Activity Monitor. Firefox also doesn't recognize this as a crash - I don't get a crash reporter screen and there's nothing in about:crashes. I can't update to the latest build, our IT department takes to release updates.

All Replies (5)

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In recent Firefox versions (including Firefox version 44) there is an issue where some users using Firefox on a Mac are not able to shut down their computers after updating to version 45.

For an immediate work around while we work on a fix please follow the instructions below, please take note that this will require a little technical knowledge:

  1. From the Spotlight Search on a Mac search for Terminal
  2. This will open up a new window with ":~ <username>$"
  3. Type in, or paste, the following and press enter to complete a shut down:
 sudo killall launchservicesd && sudo killall Dock

Please report back the results and wait for an update to fix this issue. Thank you!

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Hi shrubear, My last reply was a brand new standard answer.

This is a more personalised reply. This issue is something a few people have been seeing. We do have Firefox developer looking into this but it has only very recently been brought to their attention. I know their initial attempts to reproduce the problem failed. Once they are able to re-produce the problem they will be able to study it and possibly fix it in Firefox, or report it to Apple to fix if more appropriate.

We do know this issue does not only seem to affect Firefox. We are aware of other reports where different software is involved. Hopefully one of the first things to be discovered will be what steps can be taken to prevent the issue.

If you watch threads found by this link you will be able to discover any useful workarounds posted.

There will also be reports and discussions of this elsewhere. This is one:

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Thank you, I'll try that command next time.

I am on Firefox 41.0.2 though, not 44. I did see that this has been going on for months, so maybe that build is indeed affected?

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The common factor so far seems mainly to be the use of El Capitan OS X 10.11 rather than any version of Firefox or even Firefox at all.

Apparently it seems (if I understand it correctly) the Firefox Developers have noticed something in how Firefox handles file permissions and the Mac updater. They have a bug fix for that problem being worked on because of other issues (bug 394984) but they hope that may resolve or improve this situation with Firefox.

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Got it, thanks!