Firefox screen gets light and you can't click
I work at a school district and while using Firefox for a program called "reading eggs" the kids screens will sort of "gray out" or "lighten the colors" and you can't click on anything or do anything.. and that goes for closing tabs, opening tabs, settings, etc.. it's just completely not clickable. BUT.. if you lock the PC and unlock it.. it works again? So it's not like it's actually crashing, but.... I tried searching on line and cannot find an answer. Any ideas?
All Replies (7)
That kind of display means the program is going very slow or freezing. n0useforaname said
using Firefox for a program called "reading eggs"
Is it a program or a web site? Where is it?
Start Firefox in Safe Mode {web Link} by holding down the <Shift>
(Mac Options) key, and then starting Firefox. Is the problem still there?
Firefox uses too much memory (RAM) - How to fix This article describes how to make Firefox use less memory to make it run faster and prevent crashes.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-slow-how-make-it-faster
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-uses-too-many-cpu-resources-how-fix
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-hangs-or-not-responding
It's this website here: http://readingeggs.com/
And I will try to run safe mode today and see what happens. I'll keep you updated, thanks!
I don't have an account, but the main page opened okay.
Does the site use Flash? One common cause of unresponsive script errors on Windows 7 is the protected mode feature of the Flash player plugin. That feature has security benefits, but seems to have serious compatibility issues on some systems. You can disable it using the Add-ons page. Either:
- Ctrl+Shift+a
- "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons
In the left column, click Plugins. On the right side, find "Shockwave Flash" and click the More link. Then uncheck the box for "Enable Adobe Flash protected mode" and try that for a day to see whether it helps.
Yeah, it only locks up when you use the program for awhile, and yes, it does use flash. I also tried safe mode, and it still locks up. But the weird thing is, there are no errors.. no stop scripts.. nothing. The screen just glazes over. You can still minimize, and work all PC functions.. just can't click anything on the browser. And if you lock the PC and unlock it, it starts working again.. you don't even have to close it.
I've never researched what Windows does when you lock the screen (at least it used to be called locking the screen). Perhaps it pauses or terminates some processes when it does that, or when restoring the display after unlocking.
If you call up the Ctrl+Alt+Del screen but click Cancel instead of locking, does that have any effect?
I will do some more testing tomorrow. It's a lab of 25 used by elementary kids, so they are done for the day. I'll keep everyone updated, and thanks for the replies!