Firefox 73 not responding [solved by re-installing LM]

[zebbeman]

Since Firefox 73 update, my browser hangs all the time. It stops responding. When I close it it has several processes running that I have to kill one by one. Has anyone experienced the same problem?

I have reinstalled it a couple of times, including removing local profiles and /urs/lib/firefox, firefox-addond, mozilla

[karlchen]

Hello, zebbeman.

Please, post an inxi -Fxxxz report. We need to have some technical details in order to have any idea why Firefox 73 might fail on your system.
By the way, unlike on Windows, uninstalling and re-installing Firefox several times is unlikely to improve anything.
As a rule, the cause of trouble resides inside the Firefox profile in most cases: $HOME/.mozilla.
To check out whether this is the case, the steps would be:

• close Firefox
• execute the terminal command killall firefox. Maybe you will have to kill some left behind processes nonetheless. Make sure all Firefox related processes are gone.
• Command: mv $HOME/.mozilla $HOME/.mozilla.bak
• Launch Firefox again.

Provided Firefox works now without trouble (and the new profile, which it will create on first startup), then the root cause was in your old Firefox profile.
Else you may as well terminate Firefox again (and all Firefox related processes), remove $HOME/.mozilla and rename back the old profile mv $HOME/.mozilla.bak $HOME/.mozilla

Best regards,
Karl

[zebbeman]

Hello karlchen, thanks,
I did remove .mozilla and it did not help. Should I post everything in the report or just parts of it?

[zebbeman]

It was already filtered, I missed that:

Code: Select all

System:    Host: krieger Kernel: 4.15.0-76-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 7.4.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 4.4.8 
           wm: muffin 4.4.2 dm: LightDM 1.26.0 Distro: Linux Mint 19.3 Tricia base: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic 
Machine:   Type: Desktop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP Elite 7500 Series MT v: 1.00 serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 3 
           serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: PEGATRON model: 2AD5 v: 1.03 serial: <filter> BIOS: AMI v: 8.14 date: 12/17/2012 
CPU:       Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-3770 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Ivy Bridge rev: 9 L2 cache: 8192 KiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 27138 
           Speed: 3891 MHz min/max: 1600/3900 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 3888 2: 3890 3: 3887 4: 3893 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd Gen Core processor Graphics vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: i915 v: kernel 
           bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:0162 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.6 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
           resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz, 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Ivybridge Desktop v: 4.2 Mesa 19.2.8 compat-v: 3.0 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
           bus ID: 00:1b.0 chip ID: 8086:1e20 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.15.0-76-generic 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: e000 
           bus ID: 02:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:8168 
           IF: enp2s0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Ralink RT5390R 802.11bgn PCIe Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: rt2800pci v: 2.3.0 
           port: e000 bus ID: 03:00.0 chip ID: 1814:539b 
           IF: wlp3s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-3: Qualcomm Atheros AR8161 Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: alx v: kernel port: d000 
           bus ID: 04:00.0 chip ID: 1969:1091 
           IF: eno1 state: down mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 1.14 TiB used: 76.89 GiB (6.6%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Seagate model: ST1000DM003-9YN162 size: 931.51 GiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s rotation: 7200 rpm 
           serial: <filter> rev: HP16 scheme: MBR 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Samsung model: SSD 850 EVO 250GB size: 232.89 GiB speed: 3.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> rev: 1B6Q 
           scheme: MBR 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 219.77 GiB used: 76.74 GiB (34.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-1 
           ID-2: /boot size: 703.5 MiB used: 152.3 MiB (21.7%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb1 
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 7.87 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/dm-2 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 29.8 C mobo: 27.8 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:      Processes: 219 Uptime: 34m Memory: 7.66 GiB used: 1.26 GiB (16.5%) Init: systemd v: 237 runlevel: 5 Compilers: 
           gcc: 7.4.0 alt: 7 Shell: bash v: 4.4.20 running in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.0.32

[karlchen]

Hello, zebbeman.

Nothing obvious in your inxi -Fxxxz report, which youlg give a hint why Firefox 73 should not work on your machine.
Side note:
Received Firefox 73.0 on my LM 19.2 Cinnamon only yesterday and have not observed any problems so far (last night).

Would have sworn the root cause must be inside the existing (old) Firefox profile. - OK. Seems I was wrong.
Had to re-create all my Firefox profiles around version 70 (if I remember right), because older FF versions had left something behind inside the profiles, which made FF 70 stumble.
Also in most cases, the root cause for FF trouble can be found inside the profile. Frequently some add-ons.
Not so here then, it seems.

Let use hope some other user will have a different idea, what could cause trouble with FF 73, and chime in soon.

You might try this in order to come closer to the root cause:

• you might create another additional Mint user account and see whether the new user can use Firefox without issues.
  In case the new user can, something else in your user profile causes the issue.
• you might download the genuine Mozilla 73 64-bit installation tar.bz2 file from Mozilla and install it in addition to the repo version.
  In case the genuine Mozilla Firefox 73 works without trouble, then the repo version might be considered faulty.*

Best regards,
Karl
--
* I observe this issue on 32-bit systems only: genuine Mozilla Firefox 70 to 73 32-bit works, whereas the repo version reproducibly crashes regularly.

[zebbeman]

Thanks a lot Karl, I will try the new user profile as well.

[zebbeman]

Tried a new profile as well, no luck, went for a reinstall (closing)

[Flemur]

Tried a new profile as well, no luck, went for a reinstall (closing)

So it's fixed...or not.

[cheZ]

not sure why this thread was closed frankly. at any rate, i just wanted to mention (for anyone out there who may have also had an issue with this latest Firefox 73 upgrade) that i too also suffered a major issue when updating (thru Firefox's built-in auto-updater) to Firefox 73. the upgrade was prompted by Firefox's auto-updater ...so i downloaded the update (which then gets installed once you close down & re-start Firefox) and planned to go thru with the easy install once re-starting Firefox ....but to my surprise, when i re-started Firefox (the 73 update now fully installed), Firefox refused to open, all that came up on screen was the Mozilla Crash Reporter (death screen)
.

so, after my initial panic subsided, and after researching for a day or so to see if others possibly had the same (or similar) issue after updating to FF 73 (could not really find much on forums etc, other than this thread), and after trying a few various potential solutions based on basic FF trouble-shooting ....i simply said the hell with it, and decided to simply do a fresh re-install of Firefox 73. so i backed-up my Firefox Profile (,mozilla) ...and then ran the terminal commands to completely remove Firefox (and remove my old profile too). i then downloaded the tar file of FF 73 ....did a fresh install ...and to my surprise, the same thing happened again ...crashed as soon as i opened FF 73. so long story short ...even though i never did figure out why FF 73 refuses to run on my laptop (i am running MINT 15 ..yes, i checked running safe mode too, still FF 73 would not run), i decided that the best course of action for the time being (other than updating Mint to a newer version) was to wipe FF 73 off my laptop again ...download the last working version of Firefox (on my laptop) which was Firefox 72.02, and see if that works. so that is what i did ...and alas, thankfully that did the trick ...the older version Firefox 72.02 is now installed and working fine, and i extracted my important data (bookmarks & passwords, etc) from my old FF profile (that i had backed up to a desktop folder before wiping FF 73 off my computer) and then copy/pasted my old bookmarks & passwords, etc to the new profile that the install back to FF 72.02 created. the upshot being i guess that i will NOT be updating Firefox any time soon ...will simply have to live with this (older) Firefox 72.02 version for a while at least ...that is, until i decide to update Mint to a newer version like Mint 19 (where the newer FF 73 version probably runs just fine im guessing).

[zebbeman]

Hi cheZ,
Sorry, I closed it because I gave up and reinstalled Mint, I thought it would be nice to say that I am no longer following this. In my case I went from 19, 19.1, 19.2, 19.3, so I thought that might have been a factor. A lot of things look different after a fresh 19.3, including FF menu, so perhaps there is some truth in it. Also, I found nothing similar in this forum, so I thought I just had some bad luck with an update.

Bottom line, I did not fix the error, hence not solved, but my FF 73 works fine with my fresh Mint 19.3

[Moem]

Your problem is solved, though... It doesn't mean solved for everyone in the whole world, it means it's solved for you. It's your thread, after all.

[cheZ]

hi zebbeman ~ thank you for offering a bit more clarity on what the eventual outcome was for you, much appreciated. for the sake of others who may encounter this random issue with a Firefox 73 auto-update whilst still using an older version of Mint, your revised information will be helpful i am sure. you may want to change your title on this thread to "Solved" possibly, that is, since you did "solve" your particular issue (somehow/some way ...in your case by simply updating Mint) as that may encourage others with this Firefox 73 issue (as this is a relatively new issue that is a current problem others may face in the short term) to take a look at this thread. at any rate,whatever you choose to do, thanks very much for clarifying ...your very last post was indeed helpful (for me at least).

[zebbeman]

Point taken, removed [closed], thanks for correcting my behavior.