Firefox keeps crashing

[Deith]

There's just no way you should be running out of resources with that system.

I ran some tests and here's what I came up with.

I opened 60 tabs of a heavy on graphics and flash and ads website in Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox.

Running on Firefox with Separate Processes set to true resulted in:
FF TRUE
4.9 GB RAM Used
CPU 60%

Running FF with Processes turned off:
FF FALSE
5.7 GB RAM Used
CPU 55%

For Chrome:
Chrome
5.6 GB RAM Used
CPU 30%

For Internet Explorer:
IE
5.5 GB RAM Used
CPU 20%

There was no significant difference on tabs performance except in Firefox with Flash.

In all test in Firefox Flash was simply dead after 60 tabs.
By dead I mean Youtube movies ran at less than 1 frame per second.
And it didn't matter if Separate Processes was enabled, or if Hardware Acceleration was enabled, Flash was simply dead.

In contrast, Flash worked perfectly fine under IE and Chrome, as if there were no 60 tabs open.

You can also see that Firefox uses significantly more CPU.

In short I think Flash is causing your troubles for now.
I need to go to work now, but when I get back I will give AVG Internet Security a spin to see what happens.

[Kay]

Thanks for all your help, Dei.

Although I know nothing about this, it seems to me that Firefox isn't compatible with how I work. If that's the case, then it seems like a simple choice of either changing browser or changing the way I like to work (with all my tabs open).

BUT.

I'm doing the same thing on my laptop and not having the same problems. And my laptop is being worked much harder. I have the full verision of PhotoShop on, plus Kindle, as well as Firefox and Thunderbird. Plus my laptop is often being 'borrowed' to watch TV programmes in the other room, via various different providers, eg Amazon Prime videos. (I don't know how it works but Dave uses my laptop to show films and telly programmes on the television set.)

What I don't understand is how come the laptop is working fine 90% of the time and Firefox on the desktop keeps crashing.

[Deith]

Hi Kay!

In my experience, I've had two identical machines, both in hardware and
software, both fresh installs, yet both had different issues.
One of them refused to Update with a corrupt Windows Updates database, while the other refused to run the Point Of Sale software.
Couldn't believe my eyes!
I used to think that it's all Ones and Zeros, but real life has got me doubting

In my Firefox test, the browser didn't crash.
I'm just baffled why do you feel that your experience with IE is very slow because my machine is very similar to the one you have there and it's blazing fast with IE and Chrome.

Testing if AVG has something to do with it, but so far there's nothing...

[Deith]

Well, I can't find any fault in AVG, they've gotten better, if anything, from the last time I've used them.

Can you guys answer a few more questions please?

1. Have you updated Windows, Video Drivers, Motherboard chipset drivers, Sound drivers, Firefox?
2. Although you mentioned that you terminate Firefox using Task Manager, could you type "about:crashes" in the address bar of Firefox and see if there are any crash reports generated?

[Dave]

1. Windows is up to date (I did that yesterday morning). Since then I've been along to the Hewlett-Packard website and installed video and sound drivers. I've just updated Firefox, too.

2. There are about a dozen crash reports, most of them in July and August - the most recent is dated 20 September.

Now that we've done those updates, it might be worth Kay trying to use her desktop computer to see whether that's resolved the problem. Fingers crossed.

[Deith]

Best of luck Dave!

If this doesn't help I can't think of much else to do but to turn to the crash reports, maybe run malwarebytes, or the heavy stuff of re-installing and resetting everything, which I don't think is worth it.

One time I had problems downloading Windows 8 from the MS website and contacted support. Their guy literally destroyed my system and failed to fix the problem so I'm not a big fan of those procedures.

[Kay]

Dei, I think we might have some good news!

After all this process we've been through, I tried my desktop today and gave Firefox a good hammering without trying to hold back on anything I wanted to do.

So far, it hasn't crashed once! That's a record. It looks as though you've guided us through the problem. Well done!

It was kinda sad having the big computer sitting there unused but I just didn't like using it because it was too much hassle.

Is this how you earn a living or is it just a hobby for you? Whatever, I'm impressed and thanks for your help in getting my computer working again when I had pretty much given up on it.

[Dave]

Thanks from me too, Dei.

I'm not sure exactly what it was that resolved the problem, but if I had to put money on any of them I'd guess it was the video and sound drivers. Windows assured me the drivers were all up to date, but like a fool I believed it without going along to the HP website to double-check. Even when I did, I couldn't get their "Check your system" tool to work properly - I ended up having to download and install the drivers manually.

[Deith]

That is correct Dave!

Microsoft Windows will install "basic" drivers for your system, that will provide limited functionality for your hardware.
If you don't install drivers yourself, you will be stuck with what Microsoft gives you and often times this means limited functionality.

This is especially true for HP imho.
Since my laptop is HP and has Switchable Graphics, the only drivers that work for the dual graphics system are the drivers provided by HP. Not even drivers from AMD will work.
Microsoft does install AMD drivers on my system, after a fresh install of Windows, but those simply don't work because they are not designed for Switchable Graphics and are "in general" drivers.
So people need to be careful.
Although it will say that I have AMD Drivers installed, I really don't have the functionality for my hardware which is really bad if someone is unaware of how their hardware is supposed to work.

The HP update tool is indeed problematic. For me it stopped working after upgrading to Windows 8.
Although there are drivers on HP's website for Windows 8 and 8.1, the HP Update tool always reports that I don't need to install any drivers at all and that all my drivers are up to date, which is false.

I had better luck with their "HP SoftPaq Download Manager" tool, which correctly identified my OS and lacking drivers, downloaded and installed them.

But in my opinion it is always best to do these manually, since you can never be sure.
1. Find your motherboard model and search for it on the internets, install all the drivers from the manufacturer's website.
2. Find Graphics card's model and install drivers for it and check in Device Manager for other missing drivers.

I really hope this fixed your problem because there's no reason why you shouldn't have a blazing fast experience on that system.
I'm still a bit concerned because on my system I did all the tests on my primary card which is the unimpressive Intel HD 3000, due to lack of drivers for Windows 10 from HP, and I still couldn't get Firefox to crash.
Which means that Firefox will not crash even on a low performance video card.
This leaves me to believe that either Microsoft provided a really bad basic driver for your card, or that maybe the problem was fixed with the updated Firefox.
Either way I hope the problem is resolved!

To answer Kay, it's just a hobby.
Maybe I should write a short intro thread to introduce myself properly.
And to be honest I did a bad job in guiding you guys since the first thing I do when troubleshooting a system is to install all the drivers, because only then do you get the true performance from the hardware.
I was just afraid to do the standard things here because sometimes people get really offended when you propose things to them (I really don't know why) and when I'm fixing stuff on my own there's no chance of offending anyone.

[Kay]

Well, I think you did a fantastic job! Thank you!

I now have confidence in using this machine. You've improved the quality of my life.

Erm, I don't suppose you are a PhotoShop expert too? (Don't admit to that or I'll be asking you questions every five minutes.)

[Deith]

I'm glad that your PC is working fine now
I can't call myself a Photoshop expert, but I would be happy to help with whatever I can.