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Can't browse because of infinite "Connecting..." message on tabs after using google search.

  • 4 replies
  • 4 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by cor-el

dcapit8
dcapit8
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After a while browsing, I'll use the google quicksearch bar and search for something. Instead of instantly taking me to the google search results page, it just says "Connecting..." with the green circle, and hangs there.

I've waited two hours once for it to actually FINISH CONNECTING. Never happened. I come back, it still has that green circle and the "Connecting..." message.

I've tried a fix suggested to others who might have had the same issue. They suggested going to about:config and changing the "network.http.max-connections" line value from 256 to 48 or 30. This did not fix the problem.

The only thing that works (temporarily) is going to the Task Manager and manually killing the firefox.exe process, and then reopening the browser. And when I go to do that, it lists as "firefox.exe*32" signalling to me that it's frozen or sucking up a crapload of resources.

After a while browsing, I'll use the google quicksearch bar and search for something. Instead of instantly taking me to the google search results page, it just says "Connecting..." with the green circle, and hangs there. I've waited two hours once for it to actually FINISH CONNECTING. Never happened. I come back, it still has that green circle and the "Connecting..." message. I've tried a fix suggested to others who might have had the same issue. They suggested going to about:config and changing the "network.http.max-connections" line value from 256 to 48 or 30. This did not fix the problem. The only thing that works (temporarily) is going to the Task Manager and manually killing the firefox.exe process, and then reopening the browser. And when I go to do that, it lists as "firefox.exe*32" signalling to me that it's frozen or sucking up a crapload of resources.

All Replies (4)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance).

  • Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe Mode start window or otherwise make changes.
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Hi dcapit8, couple questions:

  • Is the Google quicksearch bar the built-in Firefox search bar or something different?
  • Does Firefox hang completely while this is happening, or do other tabs still work?
dcapit8
dcapit8 Question owner
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By the quicksearch bar, I mean the search bar in the upper right hand corner. I use Google, instead of bing or yahoo.

And when this happens, every new webpage I try and open does the same thing: infinite "Connecting..."

cor-el
cor-el
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  • Top 10 Contributor
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Try to delete the search.json file and possible search-metadata.json and search.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder to reset the search engines to the default.

Firefox will rebuild the search.json file from the default search engines in the "browser\searchplugins" folder in the Firefox program folder and the searchplugins folder in the Firefox profile folder.

Do a malware check with some malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.
Please 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.

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

See also: