Rather than trying to figure out a user's problem by yourself every time, try these suggestions.

Find answers to support questions

The support question may already have an answer that you simply have to find. Try the following resources.

Knowledge Base articles

Use Knowledge Base articles before anything else. These articles have been quality-reviewed and have information for all supported systems. Remember, you're not only helping the person who's asking the question, you're helping people who read the thread in the future.

You can use one of these methods to link a Knowledge Base article:

• Put the article name within double brackets. For example, [[Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode]] becomes Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode.
• Use the Post a Reply box "Insert a link..." tool to find and post links to support articles:
  1. Click the "Insert a link..." icon.
  2. Start typing the article name in the Link Target section under Support article. The autocomplete feature should find the article.
  3. Select the article from the drop-down list and click Insert Link.

Common responses

Sometimes, some questions are very common that there are saved responses for them. To post one of the available common forum responses, use the "Common responses" tool in the forum reply box.

Other resources

An important rule to remember when posting in the forum is “refer to Knowledge Base articles” before anything else. If you can't find the answers you are looking for in the Knowledge Base, here are some alternative resources for troubleshooting information:

• Support forum threads
• SUMO Questions Advanced Search
• Bugzilla
• mozillaZine Forums
• Firefox subforum on Reddit

If you find yourself using external resources, consider adding their information to an existing article or proposing a new article – see About the Knowledge Base. Because this site is the first line of Mozilla support and a Knowledge Base search is the first thing most users will do, having the information in a Knowledge Base article will let the user find the info more easily by themselves.

Investigate an issue

If you can't find previous cases of the issue happening, here are some tips on figuring out the problem yourself.

Note: If you need more help investigating Firefox issues, see the Firefox Support troubleshooting guide article.

• Consider the user's operating system and version of Firefox or Thunderbird.
• Please look carefully at the product. For example, questions about Firefox for Android or Firefox for iOS will need different answers than Firefox desktop questions.
• Take a look at the user's add-ons. In particular, watch for extensions that are known to cause problems.
• Try to isolate the cause of the problem.
  • Does the problem happen on your computer? This is useful for determining whether it's a problem with the user's setup.
  • Does the problem happen in Firefox Troubleshoot Mode or Thunderbird Safe Mode? See Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode and Troubleshoot Mode Thunderbird.
  • Does the problem happen when security software is temporarily disabled?
  • For Firefox issues, does the problem happen in another browser, such as Internet Explorer for Windows or Safari for Mac users? If so, it's a problem on the system, not Firefox.
• In case of crashes, see Helping with crashes.

Again, if you find out the solution, consider adding it to the Knowledge Base.

Complete Forum Support Guidelines

Are you interested in supporting Firefox (and other Mozilla's products) users by answering support questions? Please follow these guidelines that will help explain how we do things:

• Mozilla Support rules and guidelines - Make sure to read the rules and guidelines first
• Support forum - Find support questions — Learn how to find support questions
• Support forum - Find support answers — Learn how to find answers to support questions (You're here!)
• Support forum - Post replies — Learn how to post replies to support questions
• Support forum - How to escalate — Learn how to escalate an issue
• Support forum - How to follow up — Learn how to follow up on an issue
• Support forum - Offtopic and duplicate questions - What to do with offtopic and duplicate questions?
• For more guidelines on Support Forum contribution, see these articles.