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 stopping shutdown with question

  • 6 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 5 views
  • Last reply by csdaly

more options

Hello. When I go to shutdown with web pages open, Firefox produces a dialogue box asking whether I want to shutdown. Can I turn this feature off, so that Windows shutsdown Firefox without asking. Running Firefox 35.0 on Windows 8. Thanks.

Hello. When I go to shutdown with web pages open, Firefox produces a dialogue box asking whether I want to shutdown. Can I turn this feature off, so that Windows shutsdown Firefox without asking. Running Firefox 35.0 on Windows 8. Thanks.

Chosen solution

Firefox will take some time to shutdown after you quit, because of tasks it may need to complete.

I am not a Windows 8 user, but presumably the warning is generated by Windows 8 because there are still Firefox processes running. Windows Task Manger would indicate whether that is the case.

Have you tried closing Firefox using its menu option,

  • USE: Menu Button {Three bar icon) -> Shutdown {off icon)

and leaving it a minute or two before closing down Windows.

I think over recent versions Firefox may have had some issues with its closedown, but probably most have been fixed. Please etiquettedo not post in Bugzilla it is a developers workspace not a discussion forum but as potentially related background information

  • Bug 916078 - (AsyncShutdown) [meta][Async shutdown] Make asynchronous services shutdown-safe

In fact IIRC some bug fix ensures that Firefox will itself eventually close all it's processes, but I can not seem to find that bug so I have linked to one of the tracking bugs.

Read this answer in context 👍 2

All Replies (6)

more options

You've probably got this checked - Options>General>Tabs>Warn me when closing multiple tabs.

more options

You can check the 'warn' prefs on the about:config page.

  • browser.warnOnQuit
  • browser.showQuitWarning

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I'll be careful" to continue.

Modified by cor-el

more options

alan_r said

You've probably got this checked - Options>General>Tabs>Warn me when closing multiple tabs.

No, it happened today when only one window was open.

more options

cor-el said

You can check the 'warn' prefs on the about:config page.
  • browser.warnOnQuit
  • browser.showQuitWarning
You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I'll be careful" to continue.

Firstly, many thanks - a whole layer of preferencing I wasn't aware of.

I followed the suggestion. I made sure both of these settings were on false (one was already false). Restarted Firefox. Same warning. The screen says "This app [Firefox] is preventing shutdown". It's a timed warning as it continues shutting down after about ten seconds. Maybe it's Windows? To test, I had a Firefox and an IE browser window open (only one of each). The warning on shutdown only appears for Firefox.

more options

Chosen Solution

Firefox will take some time to shutdown after you quit, because of tasks it may need to complete.

I am not a Windows 8 user, but presumably the warning is generated by Windows 8 because there are still Firefox processes running. Windows Task Manger would indicate whether that is the case.

Have you tried closing Firefox using its menu option,

  • USE: Menu Button {Three bar icon) -> Shutdown {off icon)

and leaving it a minute or two before closing down Windows.

I think over recent versions Firefox may have had some issues with its closedown, but probably most have been fixed. Please etiquettedo not post in Bugzilla it is a developers workspace not a discussion forum but as potentially related background information

  • Bug 916078 - (AsyncShutdown) [meta][Async shutdown] Make asynchronous services shutdown-safe

In fact IIRC some bug fix ensures that Firefox will itself eventually close all it's processes, but I can not seem to find that bug so I have linked to one of the tracking bugs.

more options

Thanks all for suggestions.