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Windows 10: Alt-tabbing sometimes causes Firefox to freeze momentarily

  • 2 replies
  • 0 have this problem
  • 220 views
  • Last reply by Arcotash

Arcotash
Arcotash
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As far as I can tell, this has something to do with Firefox aggressively offloading stuff from memory to storage. When I alt-tab at times, Firefox completely freezes. Every Firefox window hangs on a single image and I am unable to interact with anything for a few seconds. During these seconds, I can see the memory % in the Windows Task Manager slowly climbing until Firefox unfreezes itself, so it seems to be loading stuff back into memory. For example, it'll climb from 55% to 70%, taking its sweet sweet time. I also see some disk usage with 'System' during this time.

This behavior occurs even when I'm active on the browser and at 50% memory. It seems to occur more often once I hit the 60% memory mark.

I'm almost certain that this is a Firefox-specific issue, because I can interact with any other program during this period. It is only Firefox that stops dead in its track.

Is there a way to make this behavior less aggressive? I'd rather not have my alt-tabs freeze every few minutes.

As far as I can tell, this has something to do with Firefox aggressively offloading stuff from memory to storage. When I alt-tab at times, Firefox completely freezes. Every Firefox window hangs on a single image and I am unable to interact with anything for a few seconds. During these seconds, I can see the memory % in the Windows Task Manager slowly climbing until Firefox unfreezes itself, so it seems to be loading stuff back into memory. For example, it'll climb from 55% to 70%, taking its sweet sweet time. I also see some disk usage with 'System' during this time. This behavior occurs even when I'm active on the browser and at 50% memory. It seems to occur more often once I hit the 60% memory mark. I'm almost certain that this is a Firefox-specific issue, because I can interact with any other program during this period. It is only Firefox that stops dead in its track. Is there a way to make this behavior less aggressive? I'd rather not have my alt-tabs freeze every few minutes.

Chosen solution

I've narrowed the problem down to my integrated GPU. Turning hardware acceleration off fixes the problem of freezing, but now I lose the benefits of my GPU. Regardless, it's better than having it freeze all the time. It's not an ideal solution, but I suppose it supposes the title of this post.

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All Replies (2)

Arcotash
Arcotash Question owner
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And I forgot to mention that this occurs on a laptop (Acer Swift X SFX14-41G), and it's unlikely to be an addon problem (Dark Reader, uBlock Origin, Youtube Enhancer, & LocalCDN). I've had this problem for a while, and it's occurred even while on a (relatively) fresh windows 10 install.

Given that I don't see this problem elsewhere on the forum, perhaps it's related to my hardware?

Another thingy is that I often use Firefox as a PDF reader or to browse online textbooks, and I use OneNote to take notes. This means that my focused window is almost always OneNote, even though I'm interacting with Firefox using the scrollwheel.

Modified by Arcotash

Arcotash
Arcotash Question owner
more options

Chosen Solution

I've narrowed the problem down to my integrated GPU. Turning hardware acceleration off fixes the problem of freezing, but now I lose the benefits of my GPU. Regardless, it's better than having it freeze all the time. It's not an ideal solution, but I suppose it supposes the title of this post.

Modified by Arcotash