Unresponsive plugin is crashing my Firefox and none of the recommended solutions work. Please help!
When I go to use Firefox, the following pops up: "Firefox may be busy or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the plugin now, or you can continue to see if the plugin will complete". This freezes my entire computer for about 15 seconds, and then the pop up disappears very quickly. About 5 seconds later, the entire process repeats itself and so on. I have tried to click on "Do not show me this again" but that does not work. I have tried to continue, and I have tried to stop plugin, but neither work. I've also done many other of the supposed solutions, but this continues to occur. Is there a solution, or should I use a different platform entirely?
Chosen solution
Flash is the most commonly used plugin, so let me address some possible Flash-related workarounds.
(1) To avoid unnecessary pain on sites where Flash is not actually essential, try setting Flash to Click-to-Play ("Ask to Activate"). This will delay Flash from starting on a page until you approve it.
To set "Ask to Activate", open the Add-ons page using either:
- Ctrl+Shift+a
- "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons
In the left column, click Plugins. Look for "Shockwave Flash" and change "Always Activate" to "Ask to Activate".
With this setting, when you visit a site that wants to use Flash, you should see a notification icon in the address bar and usually (but not always) one of the following: a link in a dark gray rectangle in the page or an infobar sliding down between the toolbar area and the page.
The plugin notification icon in the address bar typically looks like a small, dark gray Lego block. (If it's red, Flash needs updating.)
The delay in activating Flash can help distinguish between problems caused on initial page load, styling, and script activation vs. loading/running Flash.
If you see a good reason to use Flash, and the site looks trustworthy, you can go ahead and click the notification icon in the address bar to allow Flash. You can trust the site for the time being or permanently.
But some pages use Flash only for tracking or playing ads, so if you don't see an immediate need for Flash, feel free to ignore the notification! It will just sit there in case you want to use it later.
(2) A common cause of Flash problems on Windows Vista-10 is the protected mode feature of the Flash player plugin. That feature has security benefits, but seems to have serious compatibility issues on some systems. You can disable it using the Add-ons page. Either:
- Ctrl+Shift+a
- "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons
In the left column, click Plugins. On the right side, find "Shockwave Flash" and click the More link. Then uncheck the box for "Enable Adobe Flash protected mode" and try that for a day to see whether it helps.
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Is Firefox really crashing? Or strictly the unresponsive plugin?
If Firefox is generating Crash Reports, please see this: Mozilla Crash Reporter
Have you covered everything in this support article? Troubleshoot Firefox crashes (closing or quitting unexpectedly)
Chosen Solution
Flash is the most commonly used plugin, so let me address some possible Flash-related workarounds.
(1) To avoid unnecessary pain on sites where Flash is not actually essential, try setting Flash to Click-to-Play ("Ask to Activate"). This will delay Flash from starting on a page until you approve it.
To set "Ask to Activate", open the Add-ons page using either:
- Ctrl+Shift+a
- "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons
In the left column, click Plugins. Look for "Shockwave Flash" and change "Always Activate" to "Ask to Activate".
With this setting, when you visit a site that wants to use Flash, you should see a notification icon in the address bar and usually (but not always) one of the following: a link in a dark gray rectangle in the page or an infobar sliding down between the toolbar area and the page.
The plugin notification icon in the address bar typically looks like a small, dark gray Lego block. (If it's red, Flash needs updating.)
The delay in activating Flash can help distinguish between problems caused on initial page load, styling, and script activation vs. loading/running Flash.
If you see a good reason to use Flash, and the site looks trustworthy, you can go ahead and click the notification icon in the address bar to allow Flash. You can trust the site for the time being or permanently.
But some pages use Flash only for tracking or playing ads, so if you don't see an immediate need for Flash, feel free to ignore the notification! It will just sit there in case you want to use it later.
(2) A common cause of Flash problems on Windows Vista-10 is the protected mode feature of the Flash player plugin. That feature has security benefits, but seems to have serious compatibility issues on some systems. You can disable it using the Add-ons page. Either:
- Ctrl+Shift+a
- "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons
In the left column, click Plugins. On the right side, find "Shockwave Flash" and click the More link. Then uncheck the box for "Enable Adobe Flash protected mode" and try that for a day to see whether it helps.
If you find that you can't get the Add-ons page open quickly enough, you can start up Firefox directly to the Add-ons page. To do that, you can use the "Run" dialog or the system search box. To open the Run dialog, you can hold down the "Windows" key on the keyboard and tap the R key.
Paste the following and press Enter to run it:
firefox.exe -url "about:addons"
Firefox should load that page, and if you had to crash out of your previous session, Firefox may then load your other tabs.
Thank you for your help. I tried Jscher's "ask to activate" solution, and when I went back to the one site that was giving me problems, it worked fine. Hopefully this continues to work! Thanks for taking the time to help me.