Strange things happening with Firefox

[Beadmaster]

I'm using Firefox 59.0.1 (64 bit) and am running Windows 10 Home. I've used Firefox under Windows 10 on a laptop computer for about a year or so. Now I'm using a desktop computer.

For the past 3-4 days or so, Firefox has started to act very, very strangely. I'm guessing all of the symptoms are related, though that could be incorrect...I don't know.

The first symptom occurred when trying to save images. I download PDF patterns from various sites and sometimes the PDFs don't have a picture of what the pattern is on page 1. So I try to download an image that tells me what the PDF is without having to open the file every time to look at it. What began happening was that sometimes I'd right-click on a picture and instead of the "save as" window opening, nothing would happen. After right-clicking and trying that a few more times I'd give up. Then after about 30 seconds to a minute later, the "save as" window would show up for as many times as I'd attempted to bring it up.

The second symptom has to do with downloading. For no known reason at all, when I may have just successfully downloaded three PDF files, suddenly, downloads won't work. I can click and click and nothing at all happens. The screen may blink a couple of times, but that's it.

The only way to resolve this problem is by completely rebooting Firefox. It's occurred multiple times in the past few days. I'd say I'm rebooting the browser at least three times per day because of this problem, and likely more.

The third symptom started just a few hours ago. My Adaware Ad Blocker suddenly stopped working. I tried to click on the icon in the toolbar. That did nothing. I couldn't bring up the program and the ads were driving me crazy, impeding the computer's performance, so I downloaded a new ad blocker, Adblock Plus this time. I don't know which one is working now, as symptom #2 started up again, so when downloads stopped working I rebooted Firefox. I have no idea if the Adaware program is working or Adblock has taken its place.

The other odd thing is that I never had these problems on the laptop computer, which was also running Windows 10 Home (Firefox was updated automatically), so why would a desktop computer have different issues?

Thanks in advance!

[DanRaisch]

Have you tried starting Firefox in Mozilla Safe Mode? http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_mode (Yes, that will temporarily disable your adblocker but it will allow you to see if the other symptoms are present in that environment.)
If no improvement using Safe Mode, do you have the same problem if you create a new profile and test it with no extensions or non-default themes installed?
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager
and
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Creating_a_ne ... on_Windows

[Beadmaster]

Thanks, DanRaisch.

I'd thought of Safe Mode, but due to the fact that the problem is intermittent, I have no way to predict when it's going to occur. It doesn't happen all the time, though it does occur at least once a day. I can go for hours with no problem at all or the problem will occur the very first time I go to download.

How does one find the root cause of a problem that is only intermittent?

Thanks!

[DanRaisch]

See the second part of my suggestions above: If no improvement using Safe Mode...
You can run in that new profile for a day or even a couple of days to see if the issue appears. If not, you can migrate data from the old profile to the new -- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_ ... _-_Firefox

[therube]

I would not have both adaware ad block & Adblock Plus running at the same time.
Disable (or remove) one, then you'll know "which" may or may not be blocking ads.

[DanRaisch]

Oops. Therube is correct. If you have a second adblocker extension installed, make sure that the first one is either disabled or removed.

[Beadmaster]

I had turned off one of the ad blockers, but had still been having problems. Today the browser went completely dysfunctional. I couldn't open anything in another tab and despite rebooting it more than a half dozen times, it still wouldn't download anything. Despite switching from one to the other ad blocker, I still got ads, no matter which ad blocker was running. So I've restarted in safe mode. Now I have a bazillion popups.

Is it better to disable everything from within the old profile or move it all to a new profile?

This is a profile that had been migrated from another computer, where it worked well. I haven't made big changes to it, other than adding the new ad blocker when the old failed.

One other thing that might be related is that despite the computer being pretty new, it has a Windows restarting problem. I'll be working and all of a sudden there will be a blue screen that says, "Restarting." Or I'll walk away for a couple of minutes, return, and there will be a blue screen that says Windows didn't load correctly and my choices are to check for a solution or to restart. Nothing will bring back what was loaded then.

I only mention the Windows issue because this is what happened immediately before Firefox went dysfunctional. And I was in the middle of using Firefox when Windows suddenly restarted. Maybe sudden, fairly frequent computer reboots are messing up Firefox? I always have it loaded, so all I can think is perhaps the fact that it suddenly reboots is messing something up, perhaps?

[DanRaisch]

so all I can think is perhaps the fact that it suddenly reboots is messing something up, perhaps?

Quite possible, and that restarting problem might be due to memory hardware issues which could also cause problems for Firefox. You should test the system's memory per this article (which refers to Win 7 but is applicable to Win 10) -- https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/lib ... 00221.aspx

Since you already have another profile, try running with that other profile for a time, after making sure that only one ad blocking extension is enabled in that profile.

[Beadmaster]

Thank you very much. The computer is still under warranty so I'm seriously thinking of having the manufacturer's tech support deal with the rebooting issue before I try to do this myself, as they'd know much more than I do. (Thank goodness it's still under warranty!) If I do contact them, I'll also send them this Microsoft link. And I'm also thinking of contacting tech before I try to mess with the browser, because if this rebooting issue isn't resolved, it could damage any profile I create in the future.

If you're talking about the original profile, there are things that have changed a bit, so I'm reluctant to use it. Nothing big, and the only add-on would be the new ad blocker when the old one quit, but there are smaller things, like new passwords, bookmarks and new tabs (and have closed old ones) since then. So starting over with the old profile would set me back quite a bit.

Once the rebooting error is repaired, is it possible to migrate only parts of what I'm guessing is a badly damaged profile over to a new one? This is starting to make sense to me now, especially the relationship of the new dysfunctional behavior of the browser immediately after the last spontaneous reboot.

Thanks again.

[LIMPET235]

Hi,
If you are going to send the PC to a dealer or Tech. Support, then I suggest that you at least,
back up your Profile to somewhere, say an external HDD.
They may format the PC.
I believe the main problem with the Windows rebooting is due to their "stuff-ups" with their frequent update upon updates.
Back up whatever you do not want to lose.

[DanRaisch]

See these links -- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup

and http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_ ... _-_Firefox