I've had this problem since Firefox 6.0 came out. I reinstalled a backup disk image file from back in June, uninstalled FF, did all the updates, installed FF 3.6.21 and everything was fine. After using it for a while, I downloaded and installed FF 6.0 and the same problem is back. When I go to various websites, part of the images on the page will load, then it stalls out. Sometimes hitting stop and refresh will help, sometimes not. I've tried various patches recommended but none do anything to help.

My system is Windows 7 Pro SP1. IE works fine. I'm really getting frustrated with this and almost ready to give up and start using Chrome.

Thank you for your help!

Tried to send this to Firefox as a "sad-faced" comment, but of course I could not because my updated Firefox 6.0.2 is so unreliable. Tried to access the "sad-faced" comment part of the Firefox site through Internet Explorer, but Firefox wouldn't let me because it said that I could not access it unless I was using the latest version of Firefox, which I am trying to use but can't! (Seems sketchy that folks whose problems are so grave that they can't reliably use the software can't leave "sad-faced" comments.) I'm posting here because at least I can access this part of the site through IE. Am hoping someone from Firefox may read this. It is more of a lament than a reply, but I have nowhere else to post.

I regret the day that I updated to Firefox 6.0.2. Firefox hangs while attempting to open web pages more than 50% of the time. I can no longer view videos on Youtube. It took me 5 attempts at accessing the Firefox web site just to be able to open the page with the "sad-faced comment," and the program crashed multiple times when I tried to submit my comment. Last night I spent four hours and tonight an additional two following all advice I could find on various fora and troubleshooting recommendations to resolve these issues -- I uninstalled and reinstalled programs (Firefox, Java, Flash Player), I disabled and enabled plug-ins, I made sure that various versions of software on my computer were updated and compatible, I deleted old versions of programs, I tested Java, but NOTHING worked. I have no more time to spend on this issue and will reluctantly be switching back to Internet Explorer after many years with Firefox. At least on IE I can still browse the web, access banking and bill-paying sites, make airline reservations, and watch videos on Youtube reliably. I am might be willing to make one more attempt to resolve Firefox issues, but only if it would take less than 5 minutes to implement and were reasonably certain to work, but I have no more time to chase down solutions that do not work. BTW, I am still using Thunderbird -- I hope there are no plans to release any similarly catastrophic updates for that program.

I just did it. Fortunately, I had it still saved in in my downloads, so I removed Firefox 6, reinstalled the old version, than turned off the auto updater. Does not hang at all now.

I've been experiencing this as well (Windows 7 64-bit). I've noticed that FF 6 will start accessing the hard drive constantly, during which time FF is completely unresponsive, and system responsiveness is also severely impacted. Looking at the Windows Resource Monitor, I see FF having a total disk I/O throughput of over 1.6 GB/s to pagefile.sys.

Not sure how to reproduce this glitch, but I had been working in Adobe Lightroom 3 with FF 6 open in the background for a while (lots of tabs opened). I switched focus to FF 6 and opened a new tab - that's when it started the massive disk thrashing.

Well, I've now uninstalled everything Firefox. Moved onto Chrome. Everything is working well now. I can even upload video.

This problem has been going on for weeks I can't believe the only solution is still to downgrade to 5, it's dead obvious that it's a issue with one of the little "upgrades" Mozilla made, a simple google search brings up dozens upon dozens of posts having the same issue this isn't some isolated problem.

A search of 5 hangs mostly brings up random occurrences caused by a great number of things, 6 hangs brings up a rich tapestry of people saying it hangs for about 30 seconds randomly just like everyone in this topic.

I well say that the hangs have no impact on my system but that's likely because I have a quad core cpu and firefox isn't running on my OS HDD.

This problem really does my head in. FF will hang completely even though the rest of my system works as normal. Checking Task Manager I usually find one of two things:

1. Plugin-container.exe process hogging 99% of the processor
2. Firefox.exe process hogging 99% of the processor

Everytime I just leave it for a minute or two and FF returns to normal. The problem usually occurs when navigating web-pages/browser tabs.

You never encountered this problem with 5 right?

I have a same problem(s). I've a totally fresh-installed Firefox 6.0.2. on my win7ultimate(x86). During the browsing processes, after 5-10 min usage of FF, all opened tabs hangs. Sometimes I've crash report, but always not. In this cases when I scroll my mouse all FF tabs are working properly. When mouse not in use FF hangs constantly. My TaskManager said: plugincontainer.exe use the 90% of my total memory. Checked plugins and accesories and the result: JAVA Console 6.0.27 disabled because of incompatibility reasons. Any opinions, ideas about it?

The amount of free space on your drive is very important to consider. I find keeping at least 15% to 20% free space on my drive is conducive to good performance. Think of it this way: if you were wearing a strait-jacket and stuffed into a small closet, how well do you think you'd perform? The 3.6.22 might be ok for a system with a too-full disk, but there's just too much going on in these newer versions.

free space isn't an issue - I've got 9 gig still free.

I have this problem with latest Firefox v6. Some of my web sites load extremely slow or not at all. I re-installed Firefox 5.0.1 and everything works perfect consistently. I'm not updating until the v6 is fixed.

Addtional to my earlier post. I updated my Adobe Flash to the latest version from 10.2 to 10.3 and for a couple of days my FF behaved itself. However the problem has returned and with a vengence. Because of this:

1. I'm convinced that the issue lies with Flash and/or FF handling of it
2. I'm forced to use IE as I need a stable browser.

Come on Mozilla Get it sorted!

Now the back button on my mouse won't work with firefox either! UGH...IE here I come.

This is convincing. IE, I'm on my way, too. FF GF

Annoying ! Annoying  ! Please FireF'i'x it,This is what happens to me,if i make a google image search firefox hangs and not allowing me to enter input and the address bar is loading loading.......keep loading.my god..fru'ting.Firefox can't connect to internet when it hangs.I tried with a new tab but i doesn't work.It hangs internet too that is like HATE IT.IE is better to me now.It works perfectly.

I had the problem starting with v7.0.1. I was ready to move on to another browser permanently! Hung in safe mode too. Reinstalled v6 something and still had the problem. Found an add on to clean-up and fix the places DB. Check here: http://blog.bonardo.net/2011/09/30/is-your-firefor-freezing-at-regular-intervals Download, install and run the Places Maintenance add-on.

I added the Places Maintenance add-on to v6 and ran all the options in it under v6. No more hangs! I have reinstalled the current version (v7.0.1) and no hangs since. This fix should be an regular part of the Firefox release and automatically run on some schedule!

It is fixed and I'm happy again!

This has happened tome since updating to 8.0 a few weeks ago! Looking for alternatives to TB urgently as Firefox doesn't seem interested in fixing it i.e. Nothing but pain on forums. One solution provided by a few people is to install Formpro 6.2 but why?!! Isn't that a password remembering software?!!

I've had firefox hanging on me for several months already (From 4.0 to 8.0) and it seems to be happening mostly on my 64-bit Windows 7 machine. If it wasn't because of some useful add-ons, I'd have dumped firefox already.

But anyways, what I ended up doing was to download pskill.exe from sysinternals and then create a batch file on the desktop with the line "pskill.exe plugin-container.exe" in it. Now, whenever firefox hangs (almost always because of some flash content), I just double-click the batch file and get firefox to respond again.

It's still a big freaking hassle but it's a temporary fix that I can deal with, for now.