Hello,

Try Firefox Safe Mode to see if the problem goes away. Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode, which disables most add-ons.

(If you're not using it, switch to the Default theme.)

• You can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the Shift key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
• Or open the Help menu and click on the Restart with Add-ons Disabled... menu item while Firefox is running.

Once you get the pop-up, just select "'Start in Safe Mode"

If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode, your problem is probably caused by an extension, and you need to figure out which one. Please follow the Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems article for that.

To exit the Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.

When you figure out what's causing your issues, please let us know. It might help other users who have the same problem.

Thank you.

A possible cause is security software (firewall,anti-virus) that blocks or restricts Firefox or the plugin-container process without informing you, possibly after detecting changes (update) to the Firefox program.

Remove all rules for Firefox and the plugin-container from the permissions list in the firewall and let your firewall ask again for permission to get full unrestricted access to internet for Firefox and the plugin-container process and the updater process.

See:

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Server+not+found
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Firewalls

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

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

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

I've Also noticed another problem, When i do a Google Images search A blank google page opens for no reason?

Hi,

I have the same problem with twitter (I don't use facebook) and instagram. Twitter is slow or freezes most of times. On Instagram, when I click on an image it opens in a new tab and right after I can't open any other image, I have to refresh the page, it's also impossible to add a comment or like a photo! try that here for example http://instagram.com/instagram I've already tried restarting in safe mode, disabling anti virus and firewall, creating a new profile, but the problem still persists :(

In IE, they work properly.

Hi. I had a similar problem with a site I'm developing. It has lots of images that are loaded in the background and it started to freeze in Firefox after I updated to v23 (from v15 I think...oops). Anyway the site ran fine in the earlier version and runs fine in Chrome, Opera, even IE and Safari but the latest Firefox was choking. I tried the usual things - safe mode, disabling firewall/antivirus, re-installing but to no avail. Finally I did a complete uninstall - i.e. by ticking "Remove my Firefox personal data and customizations" when uninstalling - after backing up bookmarks of course. Reinstalling after that seems to have done the trick. It's still not as zippy as chrome but at least not freezing like it was.

Maybe worth a try anyway.

This is a widespread problem impacting ALL instances of Firefox 23.0.x I tested, including 6 windows machines and a Linux VM on 3 different locations (1 office, 2 homes). This problem is not impacting older versions of Firefox. Right now, I'm able to type this on Firefox 17 because this is Ubunutu 11.

Also, we had one laptop that was immune to the problem until it updated to Firefox 23 yesterday. Then, it became as unusable as the others.

Starting in safe mode does not resolve it.

Is there a way to roll back to a prior version and prevent it from upgrading to version 23 so we can use FF again? Some of us depend on it for things like WebDriver (Selenium).

There is the Install an older version of Firefox article you may want to take a look at.

so far on the machines I have tried it on resetting firefox does nothing, the only thing that seems to work is to completely uninstall, delete the folders, and then reinstall from scratch and then reinstall all the same plugins and add-ons, then it seems to work OK again for awhile.

How has a solution that doesn't involve reinstalling everything not yet been found?

Don't seem to have this problem on Chrome. or IE.

Yet Firefox: Can't "Follow" anyone on Instagram. Can't COMMENT or LIKE any picture.

I really don't want to go through the hassle of reinstalling everything for just one website. My bookmarks are very well organized, as is, and I don't want to lose that. Or, at the very least, can someone tell me how to do a clean install without losing all my bookmarks and those on my bookmarks toolbar?

Hi angelrodriquez, I replied in your thread here: Can't comment on Instagram. Spoiler alert: don't bother reinstalling Firefox. Most likely this is a change Instagram needs to make to account for a change in Firefox 23.