Does Firefox come back alive after waiting a short while or is Firefox hanging indefinitely or do you get the crash reporter?

You can create a new profile as a test to check if your current profile is causing the problems.

See "Creating a profile":

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_-_Firefox#Profile_issues

There may be extensions and plugins installed by default in a new profile, so check that in "Tools > Add-ons > Extensions & Plugins" in case there are still problems.

If the new profile works then you can transfer some files from the old profile to that new profile, but be careful not to copy corrupted files.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox

You can also try to reset Firefox:

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Basic+Troubleshooting

Hi there, Unfortunately making a new profile doesn't seem to fix the issue, nor does resetting Firefox (which I had to do quickly before it hung again!) It seems to hang indefinitely and sometimes an "unresponsive script" dialogue comes up, but stopping the script does nothing.

(The crash reporter never appears either, by the way.)

Try a clean reinstall and delete the Firefox program folder before reinstalling a fresh copy of Firefox.

• C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Installation_directory

Download a fresh Firefox copy and save the file to the desktop.

• Firefox 17.0.x: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all.html

Uninstall your current Firefox version, if possible, to cleanup the Windows registry and settings in security software.

• Do NOT remove personal data when you uninstall your current Firefox version, because all profile folders will be removed and you will also lose your personal data like bookmarks and passwords from profiles of other Firefox versions.

Remove the Firefox program folder before installing that newly downloaded copy of the Firefox installer.

• It is important to delete the Firefox program folder to remove all the files and make sure that there are no problems with files that were leftover after uninstalling.
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Uninstalling_Firefox

Your bookmarks and other profile data are stored in the Firefox Profile Folder and won't be affected by an uninstall and (re)install, but make sure that "remove personal data" is NOT selected when you uninstall Firefox.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_-_Firefox#Clean_reinstall

Try to boot the computer in Windows Safe mode with network support (press F8 on the boot screen) as a test to see if that helps.

I'll take this a step further.

1. I have this problem and then some. 2. Started last night (11.22.12). 3. FF froze (not responding...) 4. Killed with task manager. 5. Restart FF and it freezes loading home page. 6. After many attempts, uninstalled FF through Windows, rebooted and reinstalled. Same outcome--freeze on start up. 7. Uninstalled using Windows and manually trashed everything in C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox (keeping my profile and bookmarks in C:\Users\Pop-G\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla in place). Rebooted. Reinstalled. Same outcome, freeze on start up. 8. Trashed *everything* related to FF. Deleted all traces including registry. Rebooted. Reinstalled FF and using sync, loaded bookmarks. Did NOT load any extension or add-on. Same result...freeze on start up. 9. Neither Chrome or IE exhibiting this behavior. 10. FF is my favorite browser....but having to use Chrome now.

- Using Profile manager won't work as the program freezes before profile manager can be be accessed. Regardless, I trashed the profile and had FF create a new one when I reinstalled. Didn't help. -Plugins aren't the issue as I didn't load any after I did a complete, system-wide wipe of FF. -Safe mode. Didn't work. A couple of times in this process the start up in safe mode window popped up. If I chose 'start in safe mode' FF would still freeze. If I chose the 'reset' option, nothing would happen. Frozen solid. Again, extensions are not the issue (unless it's one that ships with FF. There were no third party extensions loaded and the program still froze...solid).

System: Windows 7 x64

cor-el, thanks for your reply, unfortunately that hasn't worked either and it's still exhibiting the same behaviour :( I think I'm having the same problem as you are, wnco - except I'm running Windows 7 x86...

@lottie...I think we're left out in the cold on this one. If you find a way to get it running, post it here, please. For now, I'm stuck with this nasty Chrome.

Looks like it :( It's quite frustrating, because even though I can use Chrome 23.0 without any problems, I was a Firefox user for years and I don't like not being able to use it!

Did you try to boot the computer in Safe mode (F8 on the boot screen)?

You can also do a malware check with some malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.
You need to scan with all programs because each program detects different malware.
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.

• http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
• http://www.superantispyware.com/ - SuperAntispyware
• http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx - Microsoft Safety Scanner
• http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx - Windows Defender: Home Page
• http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Spybot Search & Destroy

You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.

• http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/solutions?qid=208280684

See also:

• "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked

@cor-el. I have performed a full scan and sweep, but haven't attempted a safe boot as pinning down which system extension might be conflicting can be a real pain. Plus, if it's an extension that's needed elsewhere, I'm back to square one (ie, FF will lose that battle).

I will change my earlier comment about being stuck with Chrome, however. I've since installed Waterfox and it's working like a charm. Not one freeze, crash or hiccup. I would agree with many in the tech press that Mozilla should not have cancelled development on a 64 bit version of FF. Hopefully, the folks working on Waterfox will continue with their excellent work.

cor-el - thanks for the further suggestions. I'm not having any luck, unfortunately; in Safe Mode (with network enabled) it still crashes, and after doing various malware scans my system seems to be clean. It's all very strange and I get the feeling I might have to reinstall Windows 7 for it to work.

I'd use Waterfox myself if I wasn't running 32-bit Windows 7 (the processor is 64-bit, but for some reason the free upgrade from Vista that I got was 32-bit only), but I've heard Blue Moon and Seamonkey might be worth a go so I'll try them and see what happens.

It will be interesting to see if SeaMonkey will work for you as its engine is the same as FF and 32bit.

I'm clueless on Blue Moon, however, and can't even find a link.

So far, Waterfox is working well, but is limited by a lack of plugins and the occasion Flash hiccup.

EDIT:...ah, I see...it's "Pale Moon", not Blue Moon.

Yep, it's Pale Moon. My memory mustn't have been working properly this afternoon. :D

I'll post back when I try them out...

edit: Yep, Pale Moon seems to be working for me, but I suspect that's because it's based on Firefox 15. When Pale Moon reaches version 17 I'll just have to avoid the update, or move to SeaMonkey, or something...

firefox latest version 17.0.1 is hang when i trying to open any website, may i use to older versions for this solution?

Similar problem here: Firefox 17.0.1 on Windows 7 (x64). Though mine does not freeze, it just flat out fails. Starting it up again, though, works fine. Fails the 1st time in seconds. I've tried searching the Event logs, but can find nothing. Violated one of my long practices of saving the latest install file, before installing the next one - as 16 worked without any such problems.  :-(

I received notification of this last reply, so I thought I'd pass along an update on using Waterfox. One month out and it's working like a charm. I highly recommend Waterfox if you have a x64 system.

I was having a similar problem but my firefox would start up but as soon as I tried to go to a web page it would freeze. I ended up disabling shockwave flash which took care of the problem.