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

Firefox does not start on kitkat

  • 9 replies
  • 4 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Kevin

more options

Hello,

I have an ugly problem with firefox under android 4.4 on a Iconia A1-840 FHD (Intel): After downloading it, I can start the program, browse around, adapt the settings and so on, everything works fine. After I closed firefox once, I cannot restart it, however. I always only see a message ("Firefox wurde beendet", i.e. firefox was closed - I've got a german system) and nothing else. I do not use any add-ons at the moment; the problem is reproducible for firefox versions 34.0/35.0/36.0 (from f-droid).

Any ideas what I could do?

Thanks!

Hello, I have an ugly problem with firefox under android 4.4 on a Iconia A1-840 FHD (Intel): After downloading it, I can start the program, browse around, adapt the settings and so on, everything works fine. After I closed firefox once, I cannot restart it, however. I always only see a message ("Firefox wurde beendet", i.e. firefox was closed - I've got a german system) and nothing else. I do not use any add-ons at the moment; the problem is reproducible for firefox versions 34.0/35.0/36.0 (from f-droid). Any ideas what I could do? Thanks!

Chosen solution

Does the Firefox Beta on the Play Store? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.firefox_beta

If you have installing from 'unknown sources' enabled. Trying the Android (x86) apk http://nightly.mozilla.org/ may be a useful test.

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (9)

more options

Can you try wiping the device cache?

more options

Wiping the device cache does not help. If I remove all data for firefox, it starts again, but then of course all my settings are gone :-(

Is there any system app which should be running to use firefox? I deactivated a lot of stuff (the tablet is almost unusable with the factory defaults, bloat ware everywhere), but I did not encounter problems with any other application.

more options

Chosen Solution

Does the Firefox Beta on the Play Store? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.firefox_beta

If you have installing from 'unknown sources' enabled. Trying the Android (x86) apk http://nightly.mozilla.org/ may be a useful test.

more options

Well, the beta version is a bit better, it starts ...sometimes (one out of ten or so). I looks a bit like a race condition, because I see parts of my windows come up, and it does not look the same all the time, but nevertheless it crashes at some point. I will check the nightly build tomorrow...

Ah, looking under about:buildconfig I see "target: arm-linux-android". That's probably not optimal for a Intel device.

more options

Aaaahhh, the nightly build works - if I take the x86 version.

@kbrosnan THANKS!

more options

Sounds like you device is not properly downloading the x86 build from Google Play. We don't have much control over that process. I'll file a bug and see if there is anything we can do from our end.

more options

Just checking you have not modified the Android OS that is running on the device. This device is running the stock Android ROM from Acer?

more options

I think it is partly my fault... Just to summarize:

I run the stock Android OS from Acer, only deactivated a lot of stuff. Then I tried to download firefox from f-droid (I do not like Google). None of this versions there started after the first time, but I have no idea if they were built for intel or for arm devices - they did not live long enough that I could look into it.

When I tried the firefox beta, I downloaded it from Goggle Play, but not with the Iconia tab (I had no net access at the time), but with another computer, so it might be understandable that the version was compiled for arm devices. Sorry, my fault.

For the nightly built I used the x86 version, which (of course) worked.

So my guess is, that f-droid only has the arm-version of firefox, which is nothing we can mozilla blame for...

more options

Thank you for clarifying.