Hello Dorothy.

You may be having a problem with some extension or plugin that is hindering your Firefox's normal behavior. Have you tried disabling all add-ons (just to check), to see if Firefox goes back to normal?

The first thing I tried and have tried it on a daily basis since it first accured. This computer has been in to a tech. twice now and it works fine on broad band but when I get it home on my dial-up system in no longer works. Does this mean Fire Fox no longer is useable on Dial-up? Where I live I have 2 choices. Dial-up on get off the Web.

Does this also happen on other browsers (if you have any)?

Be sure that you also check for faulty plugins. If this start happening when you installed/udated Flash, it's possible that that plugin is the culprit. Do try disabling the plugins to see if they are the ones causing this problem.

Also, Dorothy, I will remind you that Firefox Support is run by the community, much in the same way Firefox is developed by the community, following an open source development process (although Mozilla does lead the development, of course). I hope you aren't expecting me to be a Mozilla employee. I'm just a Firefox user like you, trying to help.

I have checked my plug-ins and Mozilla plug-in check says that they are all running fine and are up to date. How do I go back to the old plug-in (before I up-dated it) where I could serf the web with ease and it did not take 2o min to 5 hours to load a web site or page from that site. I am at wits end on how to get this fixed and those who are trying to help have been giving me the same answers every time I get a response. I may not be all that computer literate but surly there is someone in this community whose knows something and does something more than take an educated guess on how to fix the problem. Do not tell me to try live chat as we have went that way too. The only time I was able to get on live chat. I worked with 5 different agents and as soon as I ask my question they would leave the room with no response. Any suggestion on where I should try now for some help that will finally correct my problem with Fire Fox

If running Firefox with the plugins disabled didn't fix your issue, downgrading to a previous version will do nothing. This is something else, Dorothy.

Please try creating a new profile ( Managing Profiles ) and see if the problem persists. This is just for diagnostic purposes.

As for the method of support, all anybody can do over the internet is instruct you about how to troubleshoot/fix your own issue. I don't want to be disrespectful, because I am standing for a brand at the moment, despite me being an independent volunteer, but I'm getting the feeling that you aren't following my instructions to the line (here on in other threads). I can only work with the information you give me, and, as you can imagine, I can't measure (right away, at least) your level of IT expertise, so I have to cover as many hypothesis as possible. Plus, there are multiple threads with the same name, and I'm guessing it's the same Dorothy Scheffer. That makes it harder for me to keep track what advice I have given you. In any case, I'll give you this advice again. Make sure you follow every step of the way:

1. run Firefox in safe-mode to disable all extensions, themes and plugins. If this fixes your issues, be them with RAM or CPU usage, then you know it's a problem with plugins, themes or extensions. Proceed to number 2. If safe-mode doesn't fix the issues, then read bellow, after this list;
2. update all extensions, themes and plugins in your Firefox. If this doesn't solve the issues, proceed to the following number;
3. disable all extensions, themes and plugins in your Firefox (not running safe-mode). Being certain that, as in safe-mode, the problems you're having have gone away, enable one plugin at a time. You should be certain that you WANT that plugin to be enabled, so keep your overall number of plugins as low as possible. When you encounter the problems, you know you've found a problematic plugin, so disable it for good. Keep enabling all plugins (except problematic ones) until you've gone through them all.
4. enable one extension at a time. Again, be certain that you WANT that extension to be enabled, so keep your overall number of extensions as low as possible. Also, try the theme you want to have installed so see if that is what's causing the problem. When you encounter the problems, you know you've found a problematic extension/theme, so disable it for good. Keep enabling all your extensions (except problematic ones) until you've gone through them all;
5. you're done! You've fixed your problems with problematic add-ons. If you want to keep using those problematic add-ons, please contant their author for support.

Ok, if disabling all extensions and plugins through safe-mode didn't work to bring Firefox's CPU and RAM usage to good levels, then you have different issue. The most likely scenario is that you have a third party software running on your computer that is messing with Firefox. Do as follows:

1. try reinstally Firefox. No data will be lost. You can get the latest version for free at getfirefox.com. If that doesn't fix the problem, proceed;
2. do a virus/malware check on your computer. If this doesn't fix it, proceed;
3. disable all software running in the background that you don't want to have running in the background (in windows, this is done by pressing WINDOWS+R in your keyboard, typing "msconfig" (without the commas) and pressing enter. Now, under the "Startup" tab, you can uncheck the software you don't want, and reboot your system for changes to take effect. If you're unsure of what software you want running, ask someone with more experience). If this doesn't fix your issues with Firefox, proceed;
4. check your firewall/antivirus/security suite for enabled functions/features that you don't want and/or may be conflicting with Firefox. You'll find that these features are most likely tied to Internet Security features, such as link scanners or URL checkers and the like. If you're not sure they are conflicting with Firefox, simply try to disable them to see whether or not that's true. As long as you don't browse the web with your antivirus completely off and your firewall completely turned off, there should be no problems. If this doesn't solve the issues, proceed to the following number;
5. check your operating system security options, mainly advanced options that are not configured by default. While it's very unlikely that this may be the cause of the problem (after all, it's the last item on the list), it's remotely possible. If this doesn't work, proceed to the following point;
6. clean up your OS registry, using appropriate software.

I'm trying to be as helpful as possible, but I can only help you as long as you let me help you. I will ask you this once: please refrain from writing irrelevant remarks about my good will and/or Mozilla's support as a whole.

Thank you, and let us do our best to fix this.

Hello Morbus (and Dorothy) I have the identical problem...on dialup, updated flash player about a month ago, for the rest (see above). I haven't read any of Dorothy's other posts that you refer to, but OH, I feel her pain...it's at the stage where I will soon have to either throw the computer away, or get a mortgage to afford the dialup connection charges because I'm getting disconnected so often! I also have xp sp2 and ff 3.6.3. I have only just found this page, so haven't tried the above, but discovered on friday morning that if I do a sysrestore I can connect immediately, and it is perfect for hours. BUT once I turn it off, I get 'not recognized on the domain'...permanently. Over the month since it got 'sick' I have had a variety of messages popup telling me why I was disconnected. These changed from hour to hour. Phone line busy...never had that in 3 years!, server reset is most common. Often when it told me I was disconnected, 'backspace' would take me to the last page and then it would be fine then for a while, sometimes ages! I normally only do sysrestore about twice a year. I have done it four times today as it is the only way I can connect. I am guessing the 'not recognized on the domain' message relates to some tweak I have read about and tried, as I haven't had it before last thursday, but still, after I do the restore (the reason I am on the internet now) ALL THE DISCONNECTIONS STOP COMPLETELY. Until I turn it off. I don't have much installed, Sony pic utility, flash, adobe acrobat, mozilla default plugin and a couple of microsoft ones..the dynamic library link etc. I don't use facebook, but photobucket I use a little, and that was impossible. I have Avira, Spyware Blaster and CC, and windows firewall. I saw something this morning that said to delete the MU and WU Activex controls from IE...I had a peek, but haven't tried to yet, as I have clicked and unclicked so many things in the innards of this over the last month that.... Not trying to takeover the thread, just thought it might help.

Jennifer, do your problems also happen on Internet Explorer or just in Firefox?

Thanks for your reply Morbus...no, apparently not thus far...about 2hrs.

So maybe I will uninstall and reistall ff.

I see IE has flash6ocx in addons.

Jenni

You mean you haven't done so already? I thought you had read my post above.

I removed firefox, and made three attempts to reinstall. Each time it got to about 3% downloaded,then, popped up 'server reset' sign, and disconnected from the internet. (I'm typing as fast as I can!) ta - Jenni

Hello again.

Jennifer, try creating a new Firefox profile (managing profiles), see if the issues persist. That will let us narrow down the possible causes of the problem.

Hello Morbus, I tried yesterday before I uninstalled ff, and have been at it this morning for three hours. I found two Mozilla folders (mostly empty) under doc+settings>Jenni>ApplData, and User Data. All I can think to do is go to Windows User Profiles. I have tried to post this a dozen times, I keep getting 'this page cannot be display, adjust your browser settings'. Ta Jenni.

jkjkl

A possible cause is security software (firewall) that blocks or restricts Firefox without informing you about that, maybe after detecting changes (update) to the Firefox program. Remove all rules for Firefox from the permissions list in the firewall and let your firewall ask again for permission to get full unrestricted access to internet for Firefox. See Configure firewalls so that Firefox can access the Internet and http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firewalls --- Also do a malware check with a few malware scan programs. You need to use all programs because each detects different malware. Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of the database.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware http://www.superantispyware.com/ - SuperAntispyware http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Spybot Search & Destroy http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php - Ad-Aware Free http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx - Windows Defender: Home Page .......... See also "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked and What to do when searches take you to the wrong search website