FireFox loosing focus - how to diagnose?

[pokeefe0001]

3 or 4 times in the last 2 weeks FireFox has lost focus. There is no way to bring it to the foreground. (I cannot guarantee there is not a 1-pixel FireFox window the is in the foreground, I guess.) No problem switching between other running programs; no problem starting new programs. If I bring up Process Explorer (or probably Task Manager) and kill all FireFox process, FireFox will restart and run fine.

Each time I've experienced this I have been running a .bat file containing a VereCrypt mount command. The mount completes but the command does not terminate. I think this implies that FireFox is a victim rather than the culprit but I don't know for sure. I suspect that both FireFox and VeraCrypt are victims but I don't know how to verify this. I don't recall seeing anything suspicious in the Windows Event logs (but I can't be sure I looked).

Any suggestions on where I should begin debugging this?

BTW, I'm running FF 60.0.1 on Win10 1803.

[Brummelchen]

provide information please (text, not raw)
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/us ... ix-firefox

is firefox acting same in safe-mode?
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tr ... -safe-mode

Mozilla Crash Reporter
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/mo ... shreporter

The Mozilla Crash Reporter dialog box appears when Firefox crashes and lets you send a crash report. Learn how it works and how to access your crash reports.

[therube]

What are the contents of your .bat file?

Is FF running from a VC container?

I take it, in these situations, in Process Explorer, FF shows as a process with no associated window (that can be brought to foreground)?
(I have seen that, from time to time, when FF hangs on a Quit.
One time, the last actually, once I realized that this happened, FF did eventually crash - on its own, just from the process hang & then once it actually crashed, it then exited from memory - on its' own.
https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/ ... 3dc0180610.)

[pokeefe0001]

What are the contents of your .bat file?

"C:\Program Files\VeraCrypt\VeraCrypt.exe" /q /v d:\VC_Container /l M

Is FF running from a VC container?

No.

I take it, in these situations, in Process Explorer, FF shows as a process with no associated window (that can be brought to foreground)?

Uhh, I don't know how to tell which FF process (if any) has an associated window. Right now I have 2 open FF windows. Process explorer shows 5 FF processes. Obviously, two of them have associated windows but I don't know how to tell which.

(I have seen that, from time to time, when FF hangs on a Quit.
One time, the last actually, once I realized that this happened, FF did eventually crash - on its own, just from the process hang & then once it actually crashed, it then exited from memory - on its' own.
https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/ ... 3dc0180610.)

I don't know if I waited long enough, but thee was no FF crash.

Based on Brummelchen's post I took a look at the FF diagnostic data. I notice it says I have both Windows Defender and Kaspersky Internet Security active. I thought Kaspersky was supposed to inactivate (to the extent possible) Windows Defender. (FF diagnostic data on another PC shows just Kaspersky.) There are all sorts of warning about running multiple antivirus programs on the same computer. I'm going to look into that before I do any more checking into FireFox.

[therube]

In Process Explorer, if you right-click on the 'firefox.exe' process (the head of a particular FF "tree", I guess it would be, in the case of FF w/multi-process), there is the Window-> context-menu item (Bring to front, Restore, Minimize...).

If FF has "lost it's window", Window or all the items therein, are grayed out, that is what you'd want to look for. No method to bring it to front, to restore it... It is "running", but dead to you.


As far as I understand, in Win10, "Windows Defender" is an actual "antivirus" program (less so in earlier Windows versions), so yes I would think you should not be running Kaspersky & Windows Defender simultaneously.

[BobbyPhoenix]

You could try something like this to see what takes focus: http://www.happydroid.com/focus

[pokeefe0001]

Now that I've got my antivirus software squared away I think I'll just wait and see if the problem happens again.