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 won't load pages or process anything UNLESS the mouse is moving!

  • 8 iimpendulo
  • 337 inale ngxaki
  • 1 view
  • Impendulo yokugqibela ngu Blue_Lotus

more options

Ever since the latest Firefox upgrade (Firefox 4 I believe), my pages will not load unless the mouse is moving! It's very strange, but the moment I stop the mouse the progress of loading freezes, and the moment I move it again it will resume and continue for as long as the mouse is moving.

I've never experienced anything like this before. I've uninstalled and reinstalled, and that looked like it solved the problem, but then it came back a few hours later. It makes watching any videos impossible, or sometimes will keep playing the sound but freeze the video image until I move the mouse and the image catches up with where the sound is at. Every page I'm on I have to keep the mouse scrolling around in a freaking circle just to keep it from freezing!

I'm so disappointed as Firefox used to be perfect to me. Is there any solution to this out there? (or am I better off with Chrome...)

Ever since the latest Firefox upgrade (Firefox 4 I believe), my pages will not load unless the mouse is moving! It's very strange, but the moment I stop the mouse the progress of loading freezes, and the moment I move it again it will resume and continue for as long as the mouse is moving. I've never experienced anything like this before. I've uninstalled and reinstalled, and that looked like it solved the problem, but then it came back a few hours later. It makes watching any videos impossible, or sometimes will keep playing the sound but freeze the video image until I move the mouse and the image catches up with where the sound is at. Every page I'm on I have to keep the mouse scrolling around in a freaking circle just to keep it from freezing! I'm so disappointed as Firefox used to be perfect to me. Is there any solution to this out there? (or am I better off with Chrome...)

All Replies (8)

more options

Start Firefox in Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode to check if one of the extensions is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Tools > Add-ons > Appearance/Themes).

If it does work in Safe-mode then disable all extensions and then try to find which is causing it by enabling one at a time until the problem reappears.

  • Use "Disable all add-ons" on the Safe mode start window to disable all extensions.
  • Close and restart Firefox after each change via "File > Exit" (Mac: "Firefox > Quit"; Linux: "File > Quit")

In Firefox 4 you can use one of these to start in Safe mode:

  • Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled
  • Hold down the Shift key while double clicking the Firefox desktop shortcut (Windows)
more options

I had the same problem as Blue_Lotus above. I closed Firefox and reopened in Safe Mode. The problem had vanished. I thought I'd try to help everyone by trying to reproduce the issue outside of Safe Mode. So, I closed Firefox again, reopened in regular mode (not Safe Mode) and everything was working again.

Hopefully it's that easy for others with this problem.

Dev team: sorry. I tried to give you a failing case, but I couldn't repro it. I know it's no fun to fix intermittent problems.

more options

I had the same problem. I cleared all cache, closed and reopened the browser, that didn't work. I closed and reopened in safe mode. Then I closed and reopen in regular mode and voila!

more options

I ran CCleaner 3.07 and it went away...and also Firefox is now much faster than recently. My story: I had problems with streaming videos stopping and starting on their own, after a week or so they just wouldn't play at all unless I moved the cursor, and then for the final stage Firefox itself started freezing up unless I moved the cursor constantly. Weird symptoms. I have recently updated to Flash 10.3.181.14, which seems to be in common with a lot of problem reports I've seen. That may be the cause, but I don't really know what got fixed. But who cares, right?!

more options

I re-downloaded and re-installed Firefox and that seems to have fixed the problem. If you go to this page http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/fx/?ref=logo there is a link on the bottom left corner of the page that says "If you need a fresh new copy of Firefox, you can get it here". Everything has been working better since I did this.

more options

I also have this issue. to cure it I have to reboot. eventually it starts again.

more options

I'm on Firefox 7.0.1 and Windows 7 with all updates. This thing happened since I was using XP and Firefox 5.x. It's really annoying. I don't even remember how many times I have reported this to Firefox but nothing has been done. I guess I'll switch to another browser for good.

more options

So after months of this ridiculous problem not improving after endless cache clears, reboots, safe modes, extension deactivations, re-downloads, and anything else I could think of, I lost my patience and switched to Chrome for good. This is the only effective and lasting solution I have personally found.