I think Doomed is supposed to be cleared when you exit Firefox even with normal cache settings (mine currently has two files in it).

What if you try this: Change your setting temporarily so that cache is NOT cleared automatically at shutdown, and instead clear it by hand. You can do that using

History > Clear Recent History

expand Details if needed, uncheck everything except Cache, and set the time range at the top to Everything.

Then exit Firefox and start it back up again. Was Doomed cleared?

Thank you for that. Yes that worked if I do the 'clear it by hand' the Doomed folder vanished. Though the settings you suggest do seem counter-intuitive but it works.

I then tried just closing the browser down with the red 'x' top right and it still filled up Doomed, see the attached image just to see how many files firefox is saving.

But you have shown me a way around the issue, thanks for that, however on a separate issue firefox still stays open (in task manager) after shutting it down. I've learned to live with that so I guess I'll have to learn to live with the manual 'cache clean' too.

Thank you.

Firefox's caching system changed recently, so I'm not sure exactly how it works any more, but over the years I have read that when you set Firefox to clear the cache at shutdown, Firefox doesn't even use the cache, so that might explain why whatever was there at the time you changed the setting got stranded and not purged in the normal way.

Regarding firefox.exe remaining in Task Manager: if I let my Firefox session run up past 1.5 GB of memory (Windows gets sluggish) it takes a couple of minutes to fully exit, complete its cleanup, and disappear from the Task Manager. But if yours stalls and never completely shuts down, then there is a problem, perhaps with corrupted files.

With the new cache (cache2) this no longer seems to be the case and the disk cache is working normally if you use "Clear history when Firefox closes" to clear the cache.

You can verify that on the about:cache page.

• browser.cache.use_new_backend = 0
• browser.cache.use_new_backend_temp = true

Thanks everyone for advice and comments but I have worked out a better way to stop this problem.

I just don't let Firefox create a 'cache2' folder. I did this by creating an empty 'text file' called cache2.txt then removed the .txt file extenison and made it 'read only'. I then put it in the 'Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ath38mvy.default' folder. Firefox can't overwrite this... Problem solved.

Firefox used to be the best but those days are passed but that's only my own opinion.

Thanks for help etc.

Well, I hate to be a nag, but you ARE running Windows XP, currently unsupported (by Microsoft), vulnerable to the internet in general, and old. Firefox is moving on, and Windows XP might just be having problems catching up. For the record, I don't have any problems with Firefox on 8.1.

Perhaps the process stays open in Task Manager because it's trying to clean out the cache? I normally leave the cache alone so I wouldn't know.

Which reminds me: does anyone know when Firefox wil stop supporting Windows XP? It seems to me that most problems come from people on that OS.

Hi TiredOfThisToo, does Firefox use any disk cache at all now? You can use the about:cache page (type or paste that in the address bar and press Enter) to see how much disk and memory cache Firefox is using. (Warning: If there are a lot of entries, clicking the "List cache entries" link may lock up Firefox for a minute while a huge list is built.)

Hi SuperSluether, I'm not aware of any plan to stop supporting Windows XP (Service Pack 3). It will happen someday, but as of now, it's still a popular OS in many countries.