Firefox won't open
When doing some online homework in Firefox, my computer froze. I couldn't move my mouse or open task manager or do anything. I had ~12 tabs open to my online homework and Discord and TextMaker (a free Word alternative) running as well. I hard shut off my PC by holding down the power button. Upon startup, FF won't open. I click the shortcut and my computer has the little loading circle next to the mouse for a second, but then it disappears and nothing happens. If I try to open a PDF in FF or click a link to open in FF, the same thing happens; a loading circle next to my mouse cursor and nothing. I refreshed FF to no avail. I reinstalled FF, and nothing. I restarted my PC, and still no dice. FF doesn't appear in my task manager when I click it.
I tried running the firefox.exe -P command in the run menu and the start menu to manage my profiles and the same thing happens, I get a loading circle by my mouse and nothing happens.
I really like FF and use it for my schoolwork. Can anyone help me troubleshoot?
Chosen solution
Update- I performed a system restore from before the crash which made some progress- FF opened but immediately had an error saying "Couldnt load XPCOM." I used a 3rd party uninstaller called iobit to completely remove all FF files from my PC and reinstalled it. This worked, and so far no more crashes. A reddit user suggested my PC may be dirty or too hot, so I'll look into that. But it's fixed now!
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Hi
for starters can you tell us more about the hardware you use and the operating system (like what version of Windows or Linux) do you use? Does the hanging/freezing only happen only when you use firefox or does it happen more often?
Ray
I'm on Windows 10 version 22H2 on a PC I built a few years ago. It's running an Intel i5-6500 @ 3.2 GHz with 16 gigs of RAM. I have an SSD and disk drive. FF has never done this to me before, and none of my other programs are currently doing this. I came back today and it still doesn't work.
Update- I just redownloaded Chrome for an alternative in the meantime, and Chrome is giving me the same response. No one else on my wifi network is having this issue. The only browser I can use is this Avast Secure Browser I never deleted. Discord and Steam work too, but I am so lost :(
Did you recently uninstall an application that was using Visual C+ runtime components?
You can check for issues caused by a corrupted or incomplete Visual C++ installation that is missing runtime components (Redistributable Packages) required by Firefox, especially VCRUNTIME140_1.dll.
See "Visual Studio 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2022":
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist
- https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x64.exe
- https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x86.exe
You may also have to install the Visual Studio 2013 Redistributable Package. You need to reboot the computer.
Try to start Firefox in Troubleshoot Mode to see if that works.
- Windows: hold down the Shift key while starting Firefox
- Mac: hold down the Options key while starting Firefox
Chosen Solution
Update- I performed a system restore from before the crash which made some progress- FF opened but immediately had an error saying "Couldnt load XPCOM." I used a 3rd party uninstaller called iobit to completely remove all FF files from my PC and reinstalled it. This worked, and so far no more crashes. A reddit user suggested my PC may be dirty or too hot, so I'll look into that. But it's fixed now!