Hello,

The Refresh feature (called "Reset" in older Firefox versions) can fix many issues by restoring Firefox to its factory default state while saving your bookmarks, history, passwords, cookies, and other essential information.

Note: When you use this feature, you will lose any extensions, toolbar customizations, and some preferences. See the Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings article for more information.

To Refresh Firefox:

1. Open the Troubleshooting Information page using one of these methods:
   • Click the menu button , click help and select Troubleshooting Information. A new tab containing your troubleshooting information should open.
   • If you're unable to access the Help menu, type about:support in your address bar to bring up the Troubleshooting Information page.
2. At the top right corner of the page, you should see a button that says "Refresh Firefox" ("Reset Firefox" in older Firefox versions). Click on it.
3. Firefox will close. After the refresh process is completed, Firefox will show a window with the information that is imported.
4. Click Finish and Firefox will reopen.

Did this fix the problem? Please report back to us!

Thank you.

Tyler Downer disse

Hello, The Refresh feature [...]

This white screen is a Firefox default feature.

You will get the white screen with spinner when your tab crashes, which it shouldn't be doing, which is why I asked you to refresh.

Tyler Downer disse

You will get the white screen with spinner when your tab crashes, which it shouldn't be doing, which is why I asked you to refresh.

Firefox was recently installed here. The white screen here only flashes before showing the tab contents without even reloading the page. Are you sure Mozilla didn't implemented a tab discarding system?

No more replies and no reposting allowed? This white screen is a new feature and no one knows what it is? Is that how Mozilla forums work?

You need to create a userContent.css to change that white flash to a dark gray / almost black. This also changes the color of the brief white flash before a page loads. Perfect for night.

Go to about:support in your Firefox browser, click the button labeled "Open folder" in the Profile Directory section. A new Explorer window will open, now create a chrome folder and inside that folder, create a new text document labeled userContent.css not .css.txt. You may need to enable the File extensions type to be shown via the View panel under Show/hide section. Open the newly created .css file and paste this into it, save it, close it, restart Firefox.

.tabbrowser-tabbox { background-color: #a9a9a9 !important; }

I think that CSS code like this should be in userChrome.css and not in userContent.css since this is about the user interface part (.tabbrowser-tabbox).

.tabbrowser-tabbox { background-color: #a9a9a9 !important; }

Moses disse

You need to create a userContent.css to change that white flash to a dark gray / almost black. This also changes the color of the brief white flash before a page loads. Perfect for night. Go to about:support in your Firefox browser, click the button labeled "Open folder" in the Profile Directory section. A new Explorer window will open, now create a chrome folder and inside that folder, create a new text document labeled userContent.css not .css.txt. You may need to enable the File extensions type to be shown via the View panel under Show/hide section. Open the newly created .css file and paste this into it, save it, close it, restart Firefox. .tabbrowser-tabbox { background-color: #a9a9a9 !important; }

Thank you! This problem is now solved thanks to your answer plus the correction from the "cor-el" guy right bellow.

I'm curious whether the tab is still showing a "reloading" animation -- now on a more attractive background color -- or whether that part of the question has stopped being an issue.

As far as I know, once a tab has been loaded in the current session, its contents should not be lost or discarded -- by Firefox. Some websites may have such a behavior if they always want you to see current content. If there are particular sites where you observe this behavior, feel free to provide a link.

jscher2000 disse

I'm curious whether the tab is still showing a "reloading" [...]

The "flower" like loading thing doesn't show up anymore. The pages were not being reloaded anyway, their content was just being delayed. Now, with this fix, the screen still shows up, but without the "flower" thing and in a color that I've set. I'm satisfied. It happens with every website after some time.

jscher2000 said

I'm curious whether the tab is still showing a "reloading" animation -- now on a more attractive background color -- or whether that part of the question has stopped being an issue.

I'm having the same issue and it certainly hasn't stopped being an issue for me. Before I "upgraded" to Quantum, I used to be able to flip between tabs instantly. I'm not happy about having to sit staring at a blank screen of whatever colour, watching a spinning flower, every time I want to go back and forth. I haven't seen such a slow browser since the mid 1990s.

Hi freespirit99, could you check:

(1) Bug related to accessibility services. Please see the reply from philipp in the following thread: Firefox 57 hangs up.

(2) General performance advice:

• Quick fixes if your Firefox slows down
• Firefox uses too much memory or CPU resources - How to fix

(3) Experiment with reducing the number of content processes. See: Firefox's performance settings

I'll have to let tabs go idle longer to be sure, but this seems like it might have helped:

"go to the firefox menu ≡ > options > privacy & security panel and under permissions check the setting to prevent accessibility services from accessing your browser."

However, the first time I saw this answer, I thought it didn't apply to me because the person said you only needed to do this if Accessibility was set to True on the Troubleshooting Information page. Mine was set to False.

So maybe it's just coincidence that the tabs seem to be reloading faster now?

EDIT: No, that didn't help. As soon as I had more than 5 tabs open, the problem came right back and I'm staring at blank screens again. I'll try your other options.

It seems better if I disable all addons and restart. (I only had 3)

Is that the thing with the new Firefox? They want to make sure you can't use any addons at all, even the ones that have supposedly been developed to work with the new Firefox?

Still happening, even with all addons disabled, if I go to 15 tabs.

I guess if I limit to 5 tabs and one addon, I'll probably be okay.

Really, it is like the 1990s, when there were no tabs and we had to open separate browser windows to have several sites open at the same time. You could have about five open on most computers before it all froze.

Maybe the Firefox developers can come and set my age back 20 years, too!

freespirit99 said

Still happening, even with all addons disabled, if I go to 15 tabs.

One of the complexities is that with multiple content processes (Firefox 54+), tabs are assigned to different processes in a manner that we are not able to observe (unless there is a hidden settings screen with that information; about:memory is very hard to understand). If a content process is unloaded or killed and doesn't affect the active tab, perhaps those tabs might just sit quietly until activated, and then need to be reloaded. We're all new to multiprocess, so we're asking users to experiment with the number of content processes to see whether that makes any difference. As noted previously, you can modify that setting using the steps in this article: Firefox's performance settings.