Firefox freezes/hangs

[ebeckhusen]

I've been having trouble with Firefox ever since I installed Mint. It seems that on certain pages (I think it's either Flash or Java related, not really sure) Firefox will all of a sudden "hang" or "freeze", forcing me to kill it and restart. I've used other distros without this problem, but I really like Mint and would hate to stop using it because of a Firefox issue. (I tend to use Firefox more than any other app, and I don't really like any of the other browsers I've tried).

[Husse]

I don't think it's Mint related. Since a month or so Firefox has become unstable and really annoying - don't know what's going on but not funny at all

[Cambo105]

I can second this, firefox used to be a little buggy when browsing youtube and the like, but as of late it has gotten much worse. Yesterday during a youtube session firefox crashed on me 5 times. To me this is beyond unacceptable. I would switch over to Opera, but flash doesn't work with Linux Opera, so I'm kind of stuck.

Whats a linux user to do?

[rivenought]

For what it is worth, YouTube is notorious for crashing Firefox with Flash. I have had this exact same issue with openSUSE, PCLinuxOS, Mandriva, and Linux Mint. I do not bother with the YouTube site much, but many historical videos are in that flash format, so I can sympathize with your situation. The blame for the crashes certainly is not the fault of the Linux distro. It has to be Adobe and/or YouTube in some combination. Overall, I have found the Linux platform to be solidly reliable and stable. As for what we can do, well, restart Firefox and play it again. He, he, he...

[Cambo105]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not faulting Linux Mint, or even Linux for that matter. From what I've gathered this is the fault of flash and it not being open source. Linux is very stable, its just the beta apps (compiz) and unstable apps that cause hangups.

[red-e-made]

Boy can I relate to this. I think I may have found a solution, or it's just my imagination:

What happens to me is, when I'm watching a Flash video and want to close the tab, it just freezes, to the point where I have to force quit. But I found that if I move to another tab, and *then* close the tab with the Flash video on it, it closes fine.

Anyone have any idea why this might be?

[Husse]

When you move the flash to a hidden tab it probably stops running or at least changes the way it runs. That may be enough to salvage FF
I frequently have two or more FF running with between 10 and 40 tabs each. I think it's good that does not crash it

[red-e-made]

I frequently have two or more FF running with between 10 and 40 tabs each. I think it's good that does not crash it

At least FF has the courtesy of restoring my tabs in the event of a crash.
It's a feature; not a bug, etc, hahahaha.

[jungar]

yeah i get this freeze too .. when im working at a fast pace.. and click on lots of stuff quickly.. seems like the mint firefox cant take it. everyting must be slow and simple.

[Nomad]

Definately have to agree, firefox is unstable lately. I've had luck fixing it by installing flash player from the adobe website. Get the Tar.Gz and install it. That seems to fix it for me.

[jungar]

Definately have to agree, firefox is unstable lately. I've had luck fixing it by installing flash player from the adobe website. Get the Tar.Gz and install it. That seems to fix it for me.

what are the steps for installing a Tar.Gz file? can you provide a link or step by step example, for all us new linux converts

[Husse]

http://www.linuxmint.com/wiki/index.php ... eb_package

[Nomad]

Actually on the Flash tar.gz, just download it and unpack it. Then click the installer inside lol. Follow the directions on the Adobe site.