[SOLVED] Firefox freezes/hangs

[Slowpoke47]

Moderator note: The fix for the bug described in this topic was included in Firefox 108.0 and Firefox 102.6 ESR.

---

Running Firefox v. 102 on Mate 19.2. This week started having a problem where FF randomly stops responding to most mouse input, seems more frequent the longer the system is booted up. If I restart FF, system works as expected, then eventually reverts to random freezes. Onset seems to coincide with updates installed last week including two related to FF. No other changes to system. At least one other user has had a similar problem with FF v. 102.

In Update Manager, I can display update history (see s/shot) and highlight a particular entry with a click. How can I remove the update? Also, if I do that, will the system revert to the previous FF version?

[Cosmo.]

How can I remove the update?

This is not a valid option. It would be, as if you would install security leaks by will.

I have read, that there had been reports about problems by users with FF 102. On my system this version runs since 30th June without the smallest hiccup. FF runs the complete day (more than 12 hours daily) and does not get relaunched during the day. I have 3 windows open with nearly 40 tabs. Out of this experience I doubt, that it is so simple to say, 102 is the culprit.

For investigation you could run FF in troubleshooting mode (hamburger menu -> help). Or you disable all extensions and you disable in the general settings the recommended performance settings and (if available) the hardware acceleration. If the problem should be gone you know, in which direction to search for the final solution. Otherwise we need to investigate further.

[SMG]

In Update Manager, I can display update history (see s/shot) and highlight a particular entry with a click. How can I remove the update? Also, if I do that, will the system revert to the previous FF version?

Timeshift snapshots are the only way to remove an update.

In this case, if you have the default setting for your Timeshift snapshot, when you revert Timeshift will force you to make a new profile. For security reasons, Firefox will not let you use a "newer" profile on an older version of FF. Because you have been using FF102, you have an FF102 profile. That profile can not be used on FF101 (the prior version).

Edited last "Timeshift" to Firefox. Wrong word came out of my fingers.

[antikythera]

Have you changed anything in about:config in Firefox? If so what? The browser freezing or hanging would indicate a hardware acceleration issue

[Slowpoke47]

OP here- never even looked at about:config before. had to find it. Changing any of those settings is above my pay grade. Other than the updates installed 6/29, there have been no setting or software changes to anything in this machine in this time frame. I don't have regular snapshots set up on Timeshift because I run weekly backups to an external disk using Veeam. Backups are on Mondays, so the most recent backup taken before the v.102.0 update would be one week ago today. If I restore to that image, I will lose a considerable amount of work that was done after that date. The FF updates were installed last Wednesday, so today's backup includes FF v.102.0.

I'm reasonably sure the freeze issue, which happens only on FF, coincides with those FF updates. I've seen elsewhere that I'm not the only one with this issue. I think I'll sit tight and see if there is a new update to address the problem.

[antikythera]

In the meantime open Firefox Settings, scroll down to Performance and untick use recommended performance settings. then untick use hardware acceleration when available. Afterwards Quit the browser, then open it again.

Hopefully that will stop it locking/freezing for now.

[Slowpoke47]

In the meantime open Firefox Settings, scroll down to Performance and untick use recommended performance settings. then untick use hardware acceleration when available. Afterwards Quit the browser, then open it again.

Hopefully that will stop it locking/freezing for now.

Thank you, I'll do that.

[Cosmo.]

Changing any of those settings is above my pay grade.

What is so complicated with my advice:

troubleshooting mode (hamburger menu -> help)

Alternatively:
Press F10, this opens the menu bar at the top, now open the help menu to see the troubleshooting mode.

[Slowpoke47]

Changing any of those settings is above my pay grade.

What is so complicated with my advice:

troubleshooting mode (hamburger menu -> help)

Alternatively:
Press F10, this opens the menu bar at the top, now open the help menu to see the troubleshooting mode.

I'm sure your advice is sound. I don't trust myself not to make one of my patented bonehead errors and get into more difficulty.

[Cosmo.]

The troubleshoot mode is there to investigate into your problem. This mode does not any changes. As soon as you close Firefox and launch it again you are back in normal mode. I had also described, what this mode does and how you can do the settings in single steps. But this needs more knowledge.

The point is, that we need to get some information about the circumstances of the freezes. Without this we will not get any further.

[Slowpoke47]

The troubleshoot mode is there to investigate into your problem. This mode does not any changes. As soon as you close Firefox and launch it again you are back in normal mode. I had also described, what this mode does and how you can do the settings in single steps. But this needs more knowledge.

The point is, that we need to get some information about the circumstances of the freezes. Without this we will not get any further.

Please don't conclude that I am dismissing your advice. You obviously know how to work with FF. I have learned that multiple others are having the same issues with FF 102.0 and that FF is just now releasing v.102.0.1 which may be the solution. I typically wait a few days before installing updates, and when I do that, I will post back to advise whether the freeze problem is solved or not.

[Cosmo.]

I typically wait a few days before installing updates

If you post an issue on 4th July nobody assumes, that you want help only after "a few days".

Besides that: I did never give an advice to install or update anything.

[vjayer]

I am having this exact same issue. Firefox exactly since 102 and now 102.0.1 is constantly freezing or hanging. And this is without any high cpu consumption. The firefox processes in the system monitor shows it mostly sleeping.

I have reset all custom configurations (very few to begin with) in about:config. I have also disabled all hardware acceleration.
Most add-ons are not actively running when browsing. The only real active one is uBlock Origin and I have tried with uBlock origin disabled and the hangs still occur.

This is an older Intel Core 2 system with i915 gpu, 4gb ram (memory consumption is a separate issue and this is not it). LM 20.3 Mate, kernel 5.4.0-121
On my Windows machines, Firefox 102+ is stable. From searching online, this recent hanging since the version 102 update seems to be limited to Linux. I do not know what the common factor is.. maybe gpu? certain add-ons?

[spamegg]

I have been having a ton of Firefox crashes since the most recent update (it was fine before), so the logical conclusion is that the 102 and 102.0.1 releases are buggy. We'll just have to wait for them to fix things.

[Cosmo.]

I wrote already in my 1st post, that FF 102 runs here fine. This was 7 days ago. FF did also in the last week not once hang or freeze or crash or whatever else. So I cannot reproduce the reported issues. They have most likely other reasons.

In the same post I gave an advice how to test with troubleshooting mode. Doing this is mandatory to investigate further. It does not change anything beyond the following relaunch.

[SMG]

I am having this exact same issue. Firefox exactly since 102 and now 102.0.1 is constantly freezing or hanging.

I see in the 102.0.1 Firefox Release Notes a listing in Fixes for "Various stability fixes", but apparently more are still needed.

Like you, I have an older cpu (2nd-gen Celeron) with i915 gpu and there were no issues with cpu or memory utilization. I have always had hardware acceleration disabled. The freezes did not correlate to how long the browser was open nor how many tabs I had open. I do not use add-ons, but it crossed my mind that perhaps something on a particular webpage might relate to the issue. (However, I do not have any guesses what it might be.)

What was really weird was I could change tabs at the top and while the tab would change, the rest of the page did not switch to the new tab. It was like the section of the page below the header locked up. I was even able to close tabs, although it happened verrrrrrrrrrrry slooooooooooowly. Waiting out one of the freezes for 20 minutes (while I prepared a meal) did not work.

I was losing too much work and had an old mozilla folder backup so I Timeshifted back to 101 and the freezes are gone. I have not yet had a chance to do more troubleshooting with 102 to see if I could figure out what the issue might be so I could report it.

[Slowpoke47]

With more capable users than I having problems with these updates, I'm thinking these issues are not locally fixed. I have so far resisted reverting to a weekly whole-system backup run before installing v.102.0 because of substantial saved work since then, but if I save current local files and data to a stick, I could go back to the most recent such backup and update the data saved then. Not exactly how to make that substitution, though.

In the meantime, I'll wait for further corrections from FF.

[vjayer]

@ Cosmo.
I ran it in Troubleshooting mode and the hang still occurred. I don't use themes anyways, but I can definitely rule out all add-ons as potential causes at this point ((see also SMG's equivalent stated environment of not using add-ons in the first place)

@SMG
I too get the same weird behavior with tabs when it occurs. Of course it's just a curious behavior and the session is not salvageable at that point.
I am trying to notice what I'm doing when I hit the issue and while I have encountered it in random places including Amazon during a transaction (!!), one site that does seem to trigger it more often is Yahoo Mail. Not immediately but after some use.

[Cosmo.]

Perhaps you find something useful here https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fi ... responding

[SMG]

Perhaps you find something useful here https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fi ... responding

If you have several tabs open, one is the active tab. When you click a different tab, it becomes the active tab and the page for it displays so one would assume the two of those (the tab and the page) are linked.

What is happening in our case is we can click to the different tab and the new tab becomes the active tab, but the page is still the one from the previously active tab. The new tab's page never displays. In one case, I was able to delete a tab and the tab and its associated page deleted, but only the one would delete. I was hoping it was an issue of too many tabs open (I had maybe 8 or so open at that point), but that turned out to not be the case.

Technically, the entire app is not hanging or not responding--just part of it. The repaint of the screen below the very top section is not happening.

Because it is not technically a crash, there is no crash report from Firefox, and Firefox does not produces logs. I could not open Developer mode because that happens on the lower part of the screen which was the part which seemingly was frozen.

At that point I decided to roll back until I would have more time to investigate in the hopes an update would come through in the meantime which clears the problem. I had already found the link you provided and re-installing seemed to be the next step in the investigation. I figured if I rolled back to 101 then I could verify if the change between the two versions was the issue and not something internet related on my end. There have been past problems with my building's internet provider, but all was well when I returned to 101.