5 ms·

Fixed Case of Firefox Sudden Shutdown

3 points by graycat 12y ago

Kitty cat walked across keyboard, and then Firefox would shutdown after just 10 seconds or so. Used another browser to do a Google search for the cause and found that the problem seemed common but for solutions found only things like reinstall software, update virus protection. Since didn't have problems with other software doing shutdowns, guessed that the problem was limited to Firefox. Just as a guess, and before the 10 seconds or so were up, deleted the Firefox history for the current day. Problem solved.

klez 12y ago
Well, it's nice you solved the problem, but it would have been more informative to know what had actually happened.
- graycat 12y ago
  Best I can guess, and I thought that guess was fairly clear, somehow the kitty cat stepped on some keys that got Firefox confused about some Web page and to shutdown. Then when Firefox started again, it kept trying to redisplay that Web page where is was confused and just got confused again. To know just why Firefox got confused likely would have to know some details on what Firefox keeps on each Web page it remembers in its history, and I don't have any such details. But by deleting the history for the day, Firefox was no longer able to try to return to one of the pages where it was confused and got well again right away. From my Google search, I saw a lot of discussion of Firefox doing such shutdowns, and all the suggestions for solutions were a lot of work and looked unnecessary or even unpromising because I'd made no changes in my software collection or configuration. Or, Firefox was fine until my kitty cat walked across the keys. In the interest of a short post, I omitted this explanation. This discovery seemed nice because from my Google search the problem is fairly common and my solution was just dirt simple, much simpler than anything else I found. Since apparently just hitting some random keys can get Firefox sick about some one Web page, my solution should apply fairly frequently, maybe to a significant fraction of all instances of the problem, especially to uses with kitty cats, babies, etc. Hope that makes things a little more clear.

3 points by graycat 12y ago

klez 12y ago

Well, it's nice you solved the problem, but it would have been more informative to know what had actually happened.

graycat 12y ago
Best I can guess, and I thought that guess was fairly clear, somehow the kitty cat stepped on some keys that got Firefox confused about some Web page and to shutdown. Then when Firefox started again, it kept trying to redisplay that Web page where is was confused and just got confused again. To know just why Firefox got confused likely would have to know some details on what Firefox keeps on each Web page it remembers in its history, and I don't have any such details. But by deleting the history for the day, Firefox was no longer able to try to return to one of the pages where it was confused and got well again right away. From my Google search, I saw a lot of discussion of Firefox doing such shutdowns, and all the suggestions for solutions were a lot of work and looked unnecessary or even unpromising because I'd made no changes in my software collection or configuration. Or, Firefox was fine until my kitty cat walked across the keys. In the interest of a short post, I omitted this explanation. This discovery seemed nice because from my Google search the problem is fairly common and my solution was just dirt simple, much simpler than anything else I found. Since apparently just hitting some random keys can get Firefox sick about some one Web page, my solution should apply fairly frequently, maybe to a significant fraction of all instances of the problem, especially to uses with kitty cats, babies, etc. Hope that makes things a little more clear.