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

Unresponsive script error every time computer wakes up

more options

Lately every time my computer goes to sleep with firefox running, when I wake it up either by pressing a button on the keyboard, or pressing the start button, the computer is very slow, mouse is very unresponsive, loading circle is continuously visible etc. After a couple of minutes of this (before which I can't do anything as computer doesn't respond), firefox pops up the unresponsive script error (script is for a seemingly random webpage each time). Regardless of which option I choose on this popup, I still need to open task manager in order to close firefox and then restart it. I've tried upping the amount of time it waits for a script in config, but this hasn't assisted with the issue.

It's extremely frustrating as it's up to 5 minutes before I can actually use my computer upon it waking. I saw this same question from 2 years ago, but there don't seem to be any solutions that I can find.

Any suggestions, on how to fix this? Or do I just need to move to a different browser? I don't want to have to shut down my browser every time I stand up in case my computer goes to sleep before I'm back.

Lately every time my computer goes to sleep with firefox running, when I wake it up either by pressing a button on the keyboard, or pressing the start button, the computer is very slow, mouse is very unresponsive, loading circle is continuously visible etc. After a couple of minutes of this (before which I can't do anything as computer doesn't respond), firefox pops up the unresponsive script error (script is for a seemingly random webpage each time). Regardless of which option I choose on this popup, I still need to open task manager in order to close firefox and then restart it. I've tried upping the amount of time it waits for a script in config, but this hasn't assisted with the issue. It's extremely frustrating as it's up to 5 minutes before I can actually use my computer upon it waking. I saw this same question from 2 years ago, but there don't seem to be any solutions that I can find. Any suggestions, on how to fix this? Or do I just need to move to a different browser? I don't want to have to shut down my browser every time I stand up in case my computer goes to sleep before I'm back.

Chosen solution

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.


Boot the computer in Windows Safe mode with network support to see if that has effect in case security or other software is causing problems.

Read this answer in context 👍 2

All Replies (2)

more options

Chosen Solution

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.


Boot the computer in Windows Safe mode with network support to see if that has effect in case security or other software is causing problems.

more options

Brilliant, thank you cor-el, disabling hardware acceleration seems to have worked, very much appreciate the helpful and quick response! :)