Start Firefox in Safe Mode to Troubleshoot the issue and to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance).

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-using-safe-mode
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Safe+Mode
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes

Okay. I ran through everything, checked everything, nothing worked.

HOWEVER...I now see that if I click the Search button with my mouse cursor, I don't have the problem; if I type in a search term and simply hit the Enter key, that's when I get the lock-up, crash, and the above error message.

So I guess I have to stop using Enter in my searches.

We're sorry to hear that Firefox is crashing. In order to assist you better, please follow the steps below to provide us crash IDs to help us learn more about your crash.

1. Enter about:crashes in the Firefox address bar and press Enter. A Submitted Crash Reports list will appear, similar to the one shown below.
2. Copy the 5 most recent Report IDs that start with bp- and then go back to your forum question and paste that into the "Post a Reply" box.

Thank you for your help!

More information and further troubleshooting steps can be found in the Troubleshoot Firefox crashes (closing or quitting unexpectedly) article.

bp-60ba5023-59cf-4124-a4cf-ec83c2140531 5/31/2014 4:01 PM bp-607ee1a0-74b9-4f66-9bdd-dcd452140531 5/30/2014 7:20 PM bp-3bc1527f-a022-4f66-a1f3-fd77b2140530 5/30/2014 6:16 PM bp-faa3ad8b-0871-469f-908c-c9f432140530 5/30/2014 11:43 AM bp-2fcd58e4-e6b3-420a-865a-fd83e2140525 5/24/2014 8:09 PM

Give this a try;

SearchReset {web link} This add-on is very simple: on installation, it backs up and then resets your search preferences and home page to their default values, and then uninstalls itself. This affects the search bar, URL bar searches, and the home page.

Didn't work. But thanks for trying.

I'm not 100% clear on where the problem occurs. Is it on Firefox's built-in home page (about:home) with Yahoo or Bing selected, or using the search box on www.yahoo.com or www.bing.com ?

Yahoo on Firefox (I have no idea what you mean by Firefox's 'built-in home page). I type into the Search Box, hit the Enter key, and I get the error message; if I click on the Search button instead, it works.

NateInWisconsin said:

bp-60ba5023-59cf-4124-a4cf-ec83c2140531 5/31/2014 4:01 PM bp-607ee1a0-74b9-4f66-9bdd-dcd452140531 5/30/2014 7:20 PM bp-3bc1527f-a022-4f66-a1f3-fd77b2140530 5/30/2014 6:16 PM bp-faa3ad8b-0871-469f-908c-c9f432140530 5/30/2014 11:43 AM bp-2fcd58e4-e6b3-420a-865a-fd83e2140525 5/24/2014 8:09 PM

All of those crash reports are being caused by the Shockwave Flash plug-in (the crashing module is NPSWF32_13_0_0_214.dll) Try disabling Hardware Acceleration.

1. Go to this Adobe Flash Player Help page.
2. Right-click on the Flash Player logo on that page.
3. Click on Settings in the context menu. The Adobe Flash Player Settings screen will open.
4. Click on the icon at the bottom-left of the Adobe Flash Player Settings window to open the Display panel.
   
   The image "fpSettings1.PNG" does not exist.
   
5. Remove the check mark from Enable hardware acceleration.
6. Click Close to close the Adobe Flash Player Settings Window.
7. Restart Firefox.

This Flash Player Help - Display Settings page has more information on Flash Player hardware acceleration, if you're interested.

I've attached a screen shot of the built-in home page for reference. Probably not relevant.

For scripts stalling out due to Flash, try disabling the Flash plugin's protected mode feature. This involves creating or editing a settings file. 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?

• Manual steps: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/968190?page=5#answer-509209

• 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.

Moses - didn't work, but thanks.

jscher - one problem: I haven't got the program to open the mms.cfg file to modify it.

guys, seriously, thanks for all your efforts. I'll just make sure not to hit ENTER when I want to search for anything.

Usually, .cfg is not associated with a specific program.

To edit mms.cfg, you can use Notepad. Start Notepad first, then use File > Open and change the filter to show all files instead of just .txt files.

If you are using Notepad to edit the mms.cfg file in its normal location you need to open Notepad specially: right-click the shortcut (on the Start menu) and Run as administrator. Otherwise, you won't be able to save your changes.

Do a malware check with several malware scanning programs on the Windows computer. Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware. All these programs have free versions.

Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.

• Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:
  http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
• AdwCleaner:
  http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/
  http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Removal-Tools/AdwCleaner.shtml
• SuperAntispyware:
  http://www.superantispyware.com/
• Microsoft Safety Scanner:
  http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx
• Windows Defender:
  http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/using-defender
• Spybot Search & Destroy:
  http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
• Kasperky Free Security Scan:
  http://www.kaspersky.com/security-scan

You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.

• Anti-rootkit utility TDSSKiller:
  http://support.kaspersky.com/5350?el=88446

See also:

• "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked