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

In Firefox 31.0 a bug makes the browser freeze, and then I can't close tabs anymore, what may solve this?

  • 3 replies
  • 12 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by Le_Neko

more options

Good afternoon. With the newest update of Firefox for PC (31.0), I have a problem that occurs almost every time I use the browser.

When trying to close a tab, it sometimes cause the browser to freeze during one minute.

Then a dialog-box appears on the screen. It says that the script "chrome://browser/content/tabbrowser.xml:2004" may be busy.

I can choose between two buttons in this dialog-box.

"Continue" which keeps the script running, in theory; though it just closes the dialog-box, makes the browser freeze again, and then the same dialog-box shows up.

"Stop the script" which ends the freeze; but then I'm unable to close tabs (I can still close the browser).

I also noticed that, when the freeze occurs, the content of the tab I tried to close changes to "New Tab".

When I restart the browser, I am able to close tab again, until the freeze shows up again.

The problem started to appear only when I updated Firefox to the 31.0 version (and I didn't add any browser extension in the meanwhile).

Does anyone have an idea of what I could do to avoid the problem? Thank you very much and have a good day!

Good afternoon. With the newest update of Firefox for PC (31.0), I have a problem that occurs almost every time I use the browser. When trying to close a tab, it sometimes cause the browser to freeze during one minute. Then a dialog-box appears on the screen. It says that the script "chrome://browser/content/tabbrowser.xml:2004" may be busy. I can choose between two buttons in this dialog-box. "Continue" which keeps the script running, in theory; though it just closes the dialog-box, makes the browser freeze again, and then the same dialog-box shows up. "Stop the script" which ends the freeze; but then I'm unable to close tabs (I can still close the browser). I also noticed that, when the freeze occurs, the content of the tab I tried to close changes to "New Tab". When I restart the browser, I am able to close tab again, until the freeze shows up again. The problem started to appear only when I updated Firefox to the 31.0 version (and I didn't add any browser extension in the meanwhile). Does anyone have an idea of what I could do to avoid the problem? Thank you very much and have a good day!

All Replies (3)

more options

Hi i have this exact problem, when you updated your firefox to 31.0? i can't find a solution yet, what about you?

Thanks i will notice you if i found something =)

more options

In the immediate future you can try noscript or flashblock addons to block that script.

However upon more research in searching the current Firefox codebase: http://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-centra.../search?q=tabbrowser.xml&case=false it seems to be referenced in there, but I do not see a reference to the port associated. The port is usually used for media. I would not know how to start to troubleshoot this, but are there any consistent steps/webpages that cause this to start?

Does this happen in Safe Mode, please see Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode? And does it happen in a fresh install?

more options

Good morning Guigs2. I noticed that my problem occurs most frequently when I try to close the homepage of the blogging platform Tumblr.

I tried Chrome for this page, and this problem never occurs with Chrome.

I didn't try Firefox's Safe Mode yet. What is a fresh install? Thank you.