Firefox Crashings

[chazus]

I have a peculiar issue with my girl's system.

Recently, her system seems to be unable to do things like run youtube, gmail, and have a game open at the same time without one or all of them crashing. It has something to do with firefox, as the issue more or less doesn't exist in chrome as far as I can tell. Switching to Chrome isn't an option, but I also don't feel like "Its Firefox" is a good explanation of the problem.

SPecs: 4690K (Was OC'd to 4.2 fine, I have since undone the OC to defaults, hoping that might help, no luck) 8gb RAM, nvidia 750ti, 500gb Crucial MX300 SSD.

Temps are all fine (sub-50c on both GPU and CPU). The only notable thing is that running creativerse + 10 Youtube videos + 10 gmail tabs goes to 100% CPU. Obviously this is a non-standard situation, but it's what I've been using to reproduce the crashes. The system performs perfectly otherwise, but given that most of what she does is play games, have gmail open, and listen to youtube, it's semi-crippling. It will get a Memory error, pages will crash and ask to reload, and occasionally even a bluescreen (Win8.1)

Newest drivers all around, newest version of FF. I've even gone so far as to do a complete uninstall and iobituninstaller to clear out registry and folders, still no luck.

Her research indicates it may be a memory issue, or motherboard issue, however again issue doesn't exist in Chrome. I have yet to run a memtest (which Ill do so in the morning)

[Eldar45]

I was actually having a similar problem with Firefox a couple of years ago. It made me switch to Chrome. I never did figure out why though.

[MrPaladinGuy]

Sounds like you've tested most variables except for a memtest.

How large is the pagefile for the Windows drive?

Edit - The times I suffered frequent FF crashes were back when I had Flash installed.

[Twoddle]

Tried twiddling the Content process limit value under Performance in options?

[chazus]

How large is the pagefile for the Windows drive?

I removed the pagefile a long time ago, when it was still a 256gb SSD. It's a 500 now, but I tried adding it back in (8gb), no luck, so I removed it again. I actually think it created a new and different error (WHEA_Uncorrectable_error).

Tried twiddling the Content process limit value under Performance in options?

At first I thought I had it licked by changing this for 4 to 7, but it's still crashing.

I've even tried running the windows 8.1 Media Creator Tool reinstall/repair that I often use on Win10 to fix obscure stuff. No luck there. Also tried Firefox 56, in case Quantum broke it.

Honestly, at this point, we're thinking about upgrading to Win10 on a cloned drive to test out (she doesn't want to go to Win10, but apparently that's a lesser evil than switching to Chrome.)

[Sykol]

I've had so many problems with every iteration of Firefox that I just up and quit using it to switch to Chrome about a year or so ago, and I'd been using FF exclusively since it was a baby. I know that doesn't help you here, but I think if you figure out this problem you'll just wind up with 98 more down the road.

[MrPaladinGuy]

I've had so many problems with every iteration of Firefox that I just up and quit using it to switch to Chrome about a year or so ago, and I'd been using FF exclusively since it was a baby. I know that doesn't help you here, but I think if you figure out this problem you'll just wind up with 98 more down the road.

I used to flip flop between Chrome and FF every year when one gave me too many issues, but I've stuck with FF for the last 3 years since nearly every issue vanished when I quit installing Flash.

[lloose]

I used to HATE chrome. I tried to avoid anything google when possible since I'm not huge on the idea of data mining. I used to post in every thread asking which browser people use, or which ones is best and I would bash chrome for posts and posts. A few years later, Im posting on Chrome and I dont even know how I got here. I do know that for convenience, it has its hooks in me. The biggest thing is multiple profile switching. I have an account for personal use with all kinds of extensions and bookmarks on a bookmark bar. I have another for work with all of my work bookmarks and addons there. I can even run different accounts of last pass on each profile. When I switch profiles or when I sign into chrome, it puts installs all the extensions and puts everything right where I like it. Firefox is getting closer to that, but not quite there yet.

OP, try manually reinstalling flash. If that doesn't work, delete the pluginreg.dat file. Type in %APPDATA% in windows search and go to the Mozilla or Firefox folder (I dont remember which one its called);

[chazus]

My personal main 'beef' with Firefox, honestly, is just that I work with sooooo many customers in a week, and it's always Firefox having issues. Or IE/Edge, but mostly Firefox. Chrome people never have issues nearly as often (I have found plenty of bugs, like downloading files with a "," in them). But for some reason, especially Version 57, just... tons of issues. I don't know if it's a case of 'those' people are just using firefox, and thats the problem, but I find so many more issues that way.

I'm trying without Flash right now, to see if that does anything. This may be a reason to stop installing Flash whenever I do 'general updates'

[lloose]

My personal main 'beef' with Firefox, honestly, is just that I work with sooooo many customers in a week, and it's always Firefox having issues. Or IE/Edge, but mostly Firefox. Chrome people never have issues nearly as often (I have found plenty of bugs, like downloading files with a "," in them). But for some reason, especially Version 57, just... tons of issues. I don't know if it's a case of 'those' people are just using firefox, and thats the problem, but I find so many more issues that way.

I'm trying without Flash right now, to see if that does anything. This may be a reason to stop installing Flash whenever I do 'general updates'

I wanted to like 57 so bad. I thought it was going to be the version that finally welcomed me back to Firefox. If it helps at all, I didn't have flash installed when I had Firefox installed. It worked great for me. Maybe its a conflict of flash player and whatever Firefox is using.

[chazus]

Uninstalling Flash was a no-go as well. My co-worker even suggested installing Waterfox, and see if that worked. No dice there, either.

How long would I last if I installed Chrome, and just tweaked it so it looked like Firefox, until she murdered me?

[MrPaladinGuy]

Uninstalling Flash was a no-go as well. My co-worker even suggested installing Waterfox, and see if that worked. No dice there, either.

How long would I last if I installed Chrome, and just tweaked it so it looked like Firefox, until she murdered me?

Make a very nice dinner for her, then afterwards do the dishes, then gently channel your inner Locutus and tell her "resistance is futile" as a whisper into her ear and present her with her new browser.

[Denpepe]

Does it have to be Firefox, or anything but chrome, I have been using opera as a second browser for a while now and it runs quite nicely.

[chazus]

Does it have to be Firefox, or anything but chrome, I have been using opera as a second browser for a while now and it runs quite nicely.

It's more a case of "I don't want to have to set up all my bookmarks, passwords, themes, etc" than Chrome specifically. Yes, I know I can set all of those or import them easily. That's not really a 'technical' obstacle >________>

[Kagthul]

Uninstalling Flash was a no-go as well. My co-worker even suggested installing Waterfox, and see if that worked. No dice there, either.

How long would I last if I installed Chrome, and just tweaked it so it looked like Firefox, until she murdered me?

Curiously, what's her beef with Chrome?

She's already tied into Google's infrastructure if she's using Gmail, so it shouldn't be "i dont want Google spying on me (too late!)."

With themes you can get Chrome pretty close to looking exactly like Firefox's newest iteration (or at least what i assume is the latest iteration, ive been using Developer Edition for over a year now as an alt browser when needed).

Edit: i see you answered my question while i was posting. =P

AFAIK, Chrome can import everything from Firefox with one or two clicks.

[chazus]

Curiously, what's her beef with Chrome?

AFAIK, Chrome can import everything from Firefox with one or two clicks.

Honestly, it's not beef with Chrome. It's more the 'act of having to transfer everything over'. As I said, this isn't a technical hurdle.

At this point I'm more interested in fixing the issue to ensure it isn't some obscure hardware problem, and just to fix it. If I really wanted to I could probably just set up Chrome with all her stuff and just say "CHRIST, JUST TRY IT FOR FIVE MINUTES" and that would be the end of it.

Also if I stop replying on here, it's because she's seen this post, and I am currently the main entree of christmas dinner.

[Logwyn]

When you say crashing... what do you mean? Just shuts down, blue screen, computer shuts off, error box pops up? Does the windows log say anything?

Just a couple of things.... two anti-virus? (doubt it but hey never know). Did you default fire fox? Did you completely uninstall remove everything from %APPDATA% and reinstall.

[chazus]

When you say crashing... what do you mean? Just shuts down, blue screen, computer shuts off, error box pops up? Does the windows log say anything?

Just a couple of things.... two anti-virus? (doubt it but hey never know). Did you default fire fox? Did you completely uninstall remove everything from %APPDATA% and reinstall.

Various results, actually. Sometimes the game crashes. Sometimes the game gets an 'out of memory' error but continues. Sometimes Firefox just closes. Sometimes all the Firefox tabs get a 'gah, an error occured' thing and has to be reloaded. I think the blue screens have stopped since I turned off the paging file again.

And no, just one AV (McAfee, I can't do anything about it. They work for the ISP and I think are required to have it to get the special employee discount or something. You know, I haven't tried disabling it... to test...)

[chazus]

So, just an update. I'm hoping I've resolved it, with a somewhat frustrating solution.

I bought another 8gb of ram. First, I tried replacing the current one to test if it was an actual Bad Stick. Still had the same issue, so that specific stick isn't bad (Unless its a slot issue). I then added the stick to the original, with 16gb running now. I've got 10 Youtube and 10 Gmails open, Creativerse, and WoW all running at once. So far it's been running normally.

So here's my question... It APPEARS to simply be a 'not enough ram' issue. Creativerse even crashed without Firefox running, which somehow rules out Firefox. WoW crahed too sometimes, with Firefox. So that leads me to believe it's not a program specific issue.

So, my question is this... What the hell was the problem? Creativerse can't possibly need more than 8gb of ram (and it doesnt in resources). But the problem isn't Creativerse in theory, since WoW crashed too with Firefox.

[Evildeffy]

So, just an update. I'm hoping I've resolved it, with a somewhat frustrating solution.

I bought another 8gb of ram. First, I tried replacing the current one to test if it was an actual Bad Stick. Still had the same issue, so that specific stick isn't bad (Unless its a slot issue). I then added the stick to the original, with 16gb running now. I've got 10 Youtube and 10 Gmails open, Creativerse, and WoW all running at once. So far it's been running normally.

So here's my question... It APPEARS to simply be a 'not enough ram' issue. Creativerse even crashed without Firefox running, which somehow rules out Firefox. WoW crahed too sometimes, with Firefox. So that leads me to believe it's not a program specific issue.

So, my question is this... What the hell was the problem? Creativerse can't possibly need more than 8gb of ram (and it doesnt in resources). But the problem isn't Creativerse in theory, since WoW crashed too with Firefox.

Ah you might've stumbled on the rare but extremely annoying Virtual Memory Pool (page file) issue where Windows Vista/7/8/8.1 (have seen it here but not on 10 yet, could be seeing it anytime now) where no matter what you set or change in that regard it is locked to 4GB and crashes your applications even though it says it has plenty left.

I've seldom had this issue but each time it was indeed a PITA to find since it says nothing is wrong.

My occurrences with this have almost never in a quick fix.
Like you stated, setting the page file again and disabling etc. did not fix it then either... BUT.

In rare occurrences (I've seen this issue maybe 6 times in a total of .... a long ass time) it was fixed with using a programme that clones everything BUT the dynamic system files so they are automatically regenerated by Windows upon next boot after restoring the clone. (as in out of the 6 times this fixed it once)

The other times I've had it was a question of indeed "CBA fixing really, just upgrade RAM and move on, if it happens again deal with it then." or "Reinstall that PoS!".
I quantify it as the same PITA level of "GODDAMNIT WHY CAN'T I FIX YOU!" as the bug with all Windows versions where it says "16G installed, 8GB usable".

Guess what happened in my cases 4 out of 6 times? (MOAR RAM, CBA REINSTALLING!)