How to Fix a Crashed Firefox

Browsing becomes impossible if the browser itself starts freezing, stuttering, crashing, or hogging RAM. Are you experiencing something like this on your Firefox? Read this article to learn some troubleshooting tricks for Firefox.

Find the Problematic Add-On

We usually check the installed add-ons the moment we experience issues with Firefox. While most of the other websites ask you to disable the add-ons one by one to find the culprit, we have another way. Although the standard method mentioned above is helpful, it could take a lot of your time, especially if you have a long list of installed add-ons. The other way to detect the problematic add-on is to disable them in batches and then split them into subgroups. Follow the steps below:

Step 1: Go to Firefox’s menu and click on the “Add-Ons” option. Alternatively, go to the URL bar in Firefox and enter about: add-ons. Both of these methods will bring up the add-on management page for Firefox.

Step 2: Towards the left of this page, you will find the “Extensions” entry. Click on it to access the list of add-ons installed.

Step 3: Then, disable half of these installed add-ons.

Step 4: Now, restart Firefox to check if the problem still exists. If it doesn’t, that means the problematic add-on is in the other batch. So repeat the same process with the add-ons in the next batch enabled and the ones in the current batch disabled.

Step 5: If the problem exists with the add-ons in the new batch enabled, then split the add-ons in this batch into half. Enable half of them and repeat the process.

This approach will help you find the problematic add-on in a significantly lesser amount of time. Because if the problem exists in one batch, you don’t have to check the other.

Get Information from the “About” Pages

In case the reason behind a crashed Firefox is something other than a misbehaving add-on, then you can check the performance information provided by Firefox to get an idea of what might have gone wrong. That’s not always the case. And even if it is, you might want more information about it. Below are some URL and information they can provide in Firefox:

about: cache

Use this to check the storage space occupied by Firefox consuming your hard disk drives, RAM, and SSDs

about: crashes

Use this to check the submitted and pending crash reports regarding all the small or big issues experienced by the browser

about: memory

Use this to obtain a report on the memory used by the browser.

about: networking

Use this “about page” all obtain the information concerning anything that Firefox has ever connected to. This about page will also provide you data on the actively visited web pages, plus the network locations where your add-ons or browser can connect.

about: performance

Access this “about pages” to check the resources used by individual pages/tabs and add-ons.

about: profiles

This is one of the most important “about pages” that can inform you if there is anything going wrong with your Profile on Firefox or if it has been corrupted.

If the troubleshooting method mentioned above didn’t help you solve the problem with Firefox, or if the URL codes laid didn’t help you determine the reason, then the only option left is to reinstall Firefox from scratch. Before taking this step, consider updating your operating system and all the installed applications. This will drop the rare possibility of a conflict between software.

Source: Fix a Crashed Firefox