Hi, guys, Firefox closes randomly after a few hours, can you help me?

Discussion in 'Discussions' started by DavidB1111, Dec 11, 2013.

  1. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    For some reason, Firefox has started to just randomly explode and close every few hours, whether I'm doing anything in it.
    It makes watching a bunch of Youtube videos really annoying.
    Or movies, or anything.
    It's just started yesterday.
    IT seems to trigger on any video source, whether it be from Youtube, or Twitch, or Amazon, probably even Netflix.
    It's really annoying, and if I don't get this fixed soon, I'm going to start hiring Diggles to attack people.

    And Googling the problem has not helped me at all. Supposedly upgrading Flash fixes it, but that did nothing.
    This is really frustrating, and I don't know how to fix it.

    I don't know if it's some weird malware or something, but Spybot removed everything it could find earlier and that didn't help either.
    Blargh.
    Avast did a full scan and just found 5 false positives in my Diablo II mod directory/my Terraria mod directory. Go home, Avast, you're drunk.
    AVG was more tolerant of mods. :p
    Regardless, I'm at my wits in, because this is just going to be extremely problematic.
    So, if anyone can give me any help, any advice, I welcome it.
    It's just completely random, but it always does it after a few hours.
     
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2013
    OmniaNigrum likes this.
  2. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    I tried to update flash early yesterday morning on my mothers PC and it supposedly succeeded, yet the version number it reported as up to date and installed was the same as the previous version it had that supposedly needed an update.

    So I bet there will be another version in the next few days that fixes this. Adobe cannot seem to do anything right...
     
    Kazeto likes this.
  3. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    Oh, okay. :( I just don't know what is happening to cause this in the first place. It's extremely annoying.
     
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  4. Gorbax

    Gorbax Member

    Does it crash instantly when you have Flash running on a page, even if your FireFox hadn't been open for a few hours prior? Or only after a lengthy session?

    If the latter, it might just be running out of memory.
     
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  5. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    It's not a memory issue, I have 8 Gb, and Firefox hasn't done this until yesterday.
    Agh, it just did it again a moment ago, at 8:38 AM, and hasn't done it for over 5 hours. Gah.
    I don't understand this bug. IT just completely and totally shuts down, like I clicked the close button.
    If this is malware, I hope it has an unique name like, "Closeautospam"

    It's weird, though, sometimes it takes several hours, and then Firefox will just completely close. No error message, no crash report, so it doesn't even treat it as a crash, nothing. Just instantly closes.

    I watch videos just fine, and then it just closes. I leave Firefox up and running, go away, come back, and it's closed.
    I've never had this issue before.

    Youtube is annoying, with the instant shutdown.
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2013
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  6. Gorbax

    Gorbax Member

    I'm pretty sure Firefox can't just commandeer all the RAM of your system when it starts running out, so unless you're running 512 MB or anything, your total amount of RAM doesn't really matter. By which I don't mean that this is the problem, I'm just sayin'
     
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  7. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    True. I just don't know. IT seems to jump from stable to close out for no reason.
    I have no clue what to do here.
    I'll keep you all updated, and feel free to help me. But I'm just going to probably play more games than watch videos now. :p

    Well, it just closed again while trying to watch The Big Bang THeory on Amazon instant video.
    Which doesn't run Flash, so it seems like it's not a Flash issue, it's something else, some weird interaction, that explodes Firefox.
    I don't think it's memory based, but maybe it is to an extent. Like how Minecraft eventually runs out of memory if you don't allocate enough.
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2013
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  8. Daynab

    Daynab Community Moderator Staff Member

    Do you have any addons? try without addons. My second thought was also viruses but it doesn't look like it.

    Reinstall firefox I guess, though I don't see why that would do it.
     
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  9. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    Try without Add-ons? So, safe mode? I guess I could try that later.
    And then I'll try to reinstall Firefox.
    Will that save my profile though? Or do I have to back that up.

    In an unrelated note, I've played some more Dungeons of Dredmor lately. :)
     
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  10. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    If you fully backup the profile, the odds are that you will just transfer the problem to the new install.
     
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  11. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    I'm not sure exactly how though.
    And how the heck can the profile cause Firefox to just close randomly.

    I don't know what to do, but if I have to, I will reinstall Firefox.
    I just don't want to lose my bookmarks, even though 60% of them don't work due to being videos on Youtube that aren't there anymore, and the game data from a few games on Kongregate.

    I'm just nervous about this, and I don't like it.
     
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  12. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    In Firefox, press CTRL + Shift + B to open the Bookmark "Library" then click "Import and Backup" and click "Export Bookmarks to HTML" and select somewhere you can easily find it when you get things reinstalled. You can Import them back in a new profile after reinstalling without losing a single one.

    What you will lose is logins and passwords and such. But so long as you have those archived somewhere, nothing is lost besides the time to input them again and tell Firefox to remember them. (Or not, if that is what you prefer.)

    Also, just in case your build of Firefox has a different keybinding to get to the Bookmarks, you can click "Bookmarks" and then click "Show All Bookmarks" to get to the "Library" as the instructions above explain.
     
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  13. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    Also, for the record, if you think Firefox is stable and need not be reinstalled, you can start it from a modified shortcut with (For example)
    Code:
    "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -profilemanager
    (I put it in Code brackets so it shows correctly, the -profilemanager part must be at the end and outside of the quotes to work right. )

    That will pop up a little window that lets you make and delete profiles. You current profile will have a odd name that is random. DO NOT delete it. Just make a new profile with a name you can remember and it will start up as if it was a fresh install of Firefox. You can install plugins and addons and extensions and even import the bookmarks if you already exported them. If you install everything into that profile and it works without a problem, then something in the old profile is clearly the problem.

    A reinstall is much the same effect, so decide which to try. But if you try this and it fails to fix it, the next logical step is a reinstall of Firefox anyway, and it may be easier to delete profiles from the profilemanager than manually hunting them down after uninstalling.

    I wish you luck.
     
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  14. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    But the question, is do I really need to do all that? For this?
    Daynab's request is much simpler.
    Then again, it's stable enough that it seems to close every 5 hours now.

    I seriously doubt the profile is the issue. That just doesn't make sense to me.
    I mean, how does the profile cause Firefox to close randomly? Please explain this to me before I remove it.

    And removing the login and passwords for me is a big no way in hell to me. I need that intact, or I'm going to be lost as hell trying to log into to any website just about.

    So, I guess, I can first try Safe Mode for 7 hours, to see if that fixes it. If Safe Mode works with Amazon Instant Videos, that is.
    But I will not get rid of my profile, unless all other possible issues have been exhausted.
     
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  15. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    Remember I said not to delete the profile. And if I knew in what way the profile stored login information I would tell you what to do. But in my experience, once a profile or install gets messed up enough to start causing problems it is easier to start from scratch than to fix it.

    A profile contains many things, including all addons/extensions that you use. Any one or even a few in conjunction can cause all manner of baffling problems. I have no idea what is causing your problems. But I know of several ways to fix them. All result in you losing something. And in general, the more you lose, the less the chance that the issue continues to happen. But you have to decide what solution is acceptable. If you want to lose nothing, there is little that can be done to try to fix it.

    We will be available to help regardless of what you choose.
     
    Kazeto likes this.
  16. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    It just seems weird that a profile hickup can cause a random shutdown of Firefox.
    I've researched this by Google, nothing I've seen has anything to do with the profile being the root cause.
    Sure, there were add-ons that broke something, or malware, or something akin to that, but I've never seen any solution that said to delete the profile, and I'm talking from the people at Mozilla here.

    IF anything, I might have to live with this random thing, after all, it seems to take longer and longer before it shuts down. I also am getting ad issues on random websites, but No-script prevents them from showing up.
    This all started because of having to update Xvid codec, and somehow that installed some silly adware somehow.
    Or I was tricked by the most amazingly convoluted malware ever. :p
     
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  17. Daynab

    Daynab Community Moderator Staff Member

    Random question, have you updated your video card drivers recently? Cause I get driver crashes occasionally and sometimes it causes firefox to quit also. But much rarer than you.
     
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  18. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    Not recently, no, but I do get the message that new drivers are ready to be installed from time to time.
    Maybe I could try that.

    I hope some choice can fix this. I mean, the fact that it can take several hours, sometimes 6 or 7 before it does the closing makes me really confused here.
     
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