Major Problem: "Firefox... not responding" Message

[Sandy Beagurrah]

yes. I've decided to remove FF, and keep all the other programs that it conflicts with, and just use IE.

Hassled, you are going through the same thing as me.

I installed some Vista updates yesterday and FF3 has been doing the following:
- Stops loading websites.
- Close FF and then try to restart and get the infamous, illogical error message
- Try to delete parent lock file and get told that it is not possible because it is still being used by the (phantom) FF
- Reboot machine (which, due to this problem takes about 10mins) and then become able to delete parent lock, but completely pointless because rebooting machine appears to kick FF back into shape anyway.
- 30mins later F stops loading websites
- Repeat ad nauseum forever
-OR-
- switch to the far inferior but reliable IE
-OR-
- go to forums where you are constanstly directed to an ancient site which instruct you to do things that you have already done and which have not worked.

Turns out that many, many people have been affected by this and are either silently switching back to IE, or are contacting Mozilla, of course to no avail. The fanfare of the record breaking download seems pointless in the face of the silence regarding this problem.
I have tried everything. I am going to delete the whole thing from my computer and check the Mozilla forum in a few weeks to see if Mozilla have bothered to deal with this problem.

Cheers
Seamus

[Guest]

Hello, I also updated to FF3 and have gotten the Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system. It will not show up in task manager and would not change with a restart... The only way to effect it was to delete the C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox folder folders and files. I think the programmers should find a way to show the conflict and create a window with options to solve for the non-expert user... I think it is a great program and will lose alot of novice user which will become frustated and a window command option window with option to select to solve could solve this issue or create a dumby novice user auto applied solution...
Thanks for listening and the hard work and help and wonder programming.

[Guest]

Hello, I also updated to FF3 and have gotten the Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system. It will not show up in task manager and would not change with a restart... The only way to effect it was to delete the C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox folder folders and files. I think the programmers should find a way to show the conflict and create a window with options to solve for the non-expert user... I think it is a great program and will lose alot of novice user which will become frustated and a window command option window with option to select to solve could solve this issue or create a dumby novice user auto applied solution...
Thanks for listening and the hard work and help and wonderful programming.

[Guesticular]

After wasting a week of my life trying to sort this out I saw the light, laughed at myself, and shoved all my bookmarks into Internet Explorer. Trust me on this people, nothing actually works. Well, if you are happy to carry out various run systems to kill firefox or reboot your computer 18 times a day then I guess that 'works' for you. For me, all I want is a browser that works at least as well as Netscape did in 1996. Firefox 3 is not that browser. It is a heap of shart.
I tried everything, and believe none of them actually solve the problem. Save yourself some time folks and do not bother, unless Mozilla are prepared to actually deal with this problem then none of these fixes will work satisfactorily. I am not even that much of a fan of IE or Microsoft. I use a PC simply because I prefer the way it orders folders, in every other way I prefer Macs, and, if working properly, I also prefer Firefox.
I am not prepared to spend my time grappling with a duff browser.

IE it is.

Goodbye Mozilla, it's been real.

[schapel]

Hello, I also updated to FF3 and have gotten the Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system. It will not show up in task manager and would not change with a restart... The only way to effect it was to delete the C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox folder folders and files. I think the programmers should find a way to show the conflict and create a window with options to solve for the non-expert user...

If Firefox is not responding, how can Firefox respond?

The problem here is not that Mozilla developers are unwilling to fix a problem. It's that no one knows what the problem to fix is. Has anyone actually followed <i>all</i> of the instructions on http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_hangs? If you have, you can at least name the thread that Firefox is hanging in or you have generated a crash report showing where Firefox is hanging. Without that information or any instructions for how to reproduce the problem, how do you propose we find where the problem is?

[Guesticular]

Schapel, perhaps we just cannot be f***ed giving information and leading Mozilla by the hand. A short glance across the many forums on the net regarding this problem should be enough. I think we would rather use a browser that does not take up a week of our lives.

Back to IE.

[xed]

Back to IE.

Oh, please don't go, we'll be lost without your helpful input.

[Turkish-serdar]

its problem of downloadhelper %100. trust me dude. remove your firefox with everythings (add-ons, history, ....). and than re-install. but do not install downloadhelper. firefox will work very stable.

[schapel]

Schapel, perhaps we just cannot be f***ed giving information and leading Mozilla by the hand. A short glance across the many forums on the net regarding this problem should be enough.

If you think it's enough to determine what the problem is, then go ahead and enlighten us all. If you cannot, there is no point in posting more comments. We already know some people see this problem, and the advice given in the Knowledge Base doesn't seem to help. Tell us something we don't know, or simply be content with IE. Continuing a rant serves no purpose.

[Dartman]

*Watching*

[Guesticular]

Tell us something we don't know, or simply be content with IE.

Sure.

Continuing a rant serves no purpose.

Agreed. So why continue it?

Bye.

[FirefoxBugOn]

its problem of downloadhelper %100. trust me dude. remove your firefox with everythings (add-ons, history, ....). and than re-install. but do not install downloadhelper. firefox will work very stable.

I N-E-V-E-R downloaded or installed that Downloadhelper, dude.


This problem came with Firefox only when Firefox got updated from 2.3 to 3.0


All the 12 years I m active on PCs I N-E-V-E-R got that annoying "not responsing" bug on other softwares except Firefox.

12 years in PC and when i updated to Firefox 3, i got that strange bug for first time...

NOTE: Updated Firefox 3.0 ---> 3.1 and bug still NOT SOLVED.

[schapel]

Did you try the suggestions at http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_hangs?

[Guesticular]

its problem of downloadhelper %100. trust me dude. remove your firefox with everythings (add-ons, history, ....). and than re-install. but do not install downloadhelper. firefox will work very stable.

I N-E-V-E-R downloaded or installed that Downloadhelper, dude.
This problem came with Firefox only when Firefox got updated from 2.3 to 3.0
All the 12 years I m active on PCs I N-E-V-E-R got that annoying "not responsing" bug on other softwares except Firefox.
12 years in PC and when i updated to Firefox 3, i got that strange bug for first time...
NOTE: Updated Firefox 3.0 ---> 3.1 and bug still NOT SOLVED.

Yep, firefoxbugon. It is not something that can be fixed or sorted until Mozilla actually realise that people are binning their browser in droves and are switching back to IE and Safari.

However, if you have nothing else to do in your life, please feel free to do Mozilla's job for them for free by trying many of the pointless fixes. It should only take up a few days, or perhaps just a weekend. Then you can feedback to them for free that none of the fixes work. It's fun.

[schapel]

No, people are not binning the browser in droves. A relatively tiny percentage of Firefox users (out of many millions) have the problem. Since none seem to be sharing any useful information about what the problem is, nothing can be done about it. This has been explained many times.

The fixes in the article we keep linking to really do work most of the time. If they do not work for you, there are instructions at the bottom for how you can help find what the problem is. I see no one following those instructions, so those of us who don't experience the problem know nothing other than some small percentage of Firefox users are experiencing hangs that those instructions don't fix.

Feel free to switch to whatever browser you like if you're having problems with Firefox. I've used Opera when I've had problems with Mozilla. Enjoy IE!