In the morning, after getting home from work, my immediate schedule is something akin to; walking the dogs (assuming one of the slaves aren’t available), a bite to eat (the dogs and myself), a cup of tea (aaaahhhhh), maybe watch something on TV that I’ve either recorded or got on dvd (Battlestar Galactica series 2 just recently), and then a brief breeze around the internet before a shower and bed.

Wednesday was such a day, only when I got up several hours later (another cup of tea and brief browse around the internet, before the ironing and dinner making) I found that the browsing was off due to Firefox hanging 10/15 seconds or so after firing up. I shut it down and tried again; same thing.

Now I must confess, my immediate reaction was one of what’s that daughter of mine done now – she won’t openly admit it, but she does have something of a reputation for placing spanners in the works. After asking, however, it was plainly evident that in this instance she’d done nothing out of the ordinary, (neither does she in fact use Firefox for her browsing). Somewhat mystified I tried Firefox again; same thing. No option then other than to be a little more radical in my approach.

Since yesterday then I have:

• Checked all the firewall/antivirus/malware/spyware settings – and found nothing untoward.



• Tried uninstalling and reinstalling two different versions – several times (even to the extent of manually cleaning out the registry of anything to do with Mozilla).



• Tried different restore points. (N.B. I run XP Professional).



• I’ve even tried shutting down United Devices.

Nothing appears to work. Here, however, is the rub.

During the course of all the above I once again found myself back on my daughters login. Though she uses IE for her browsing, there is a Firefox shortcut on her desktop, so I tried it. Yes, you’ve guessed it Firefox fires up perfectly okay on her login, and I’ve also since found that that it will fire up okay on the son’s and wife’s as well.

So what’s to do? I’m no computer guru and as such I’m not ashamed to say I’m completely baffled. I was just wondering if anyone can suggest something I’ve not thought of or tried.


David

I suspect that your profile has something wrong with it, or has become corrupt as it works for the rest of the family. The profile is not deleted when you uninstall Firefox. Have you tried launching Firefox in safe made?

When installed it is an option in the Start Menu - Mozilla Firefox. If you can't find that select Run and type "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -safe-mode. The quotes are required.

You'll get a box asking you to select some resets - ignore those and continue in safe mode. If Firefox runs this probably means that some change to the tool bars, preferences or bookmarks has caused the problem. That is usually why the product hangs.

You will need to decide which things you reset – especially when it comes to bookmarks. You may need to recreate your profile, but let's try this first.

Ah yes, I forgot to mention that it also hangs in safe mode. Not to worry though, I think I've cracked it.

I downloaded an Add-on called VideoDownloader (only active on my login) which appears to have been the cause of the problem. Having got rid of it, and once again reinstalled Firefox, everything is now running smoothly again.

All the same, many thanks for your input.


David

Yep it's usually an extension that causes the hanging. I'm surprised that it did in safe mode. VideoDownloader usually works fine with Firefox so I expect that is conflicting with something else.

Still anyway at least you know

Just received from my father in law . . .



I was having trouble with my computer. So I called Harold the computer guy, to come over. Harold clicked a couple of buttons and solved the problem. He gave me a bill for a minimum service call.

As he was walking away, I called after him, "So, what was wrong?"

He replied, "It was an ID ten T error."

I didn't want to appear stupid, but nonetheless inquired, "An, ID ten T error? What's that? In case I need to fix it again?"

Harold grinned.... "Haven't you ever heard of an ID ten T error before?"

"No," I replied.

"Write it down," he said, "and I think you'll figure it out."

So I wrote down: I D 1 0 T

I used to like Harold.



I thought it somewhat apt.

LOL - I thought I had seen them all but this one is new