Help with Computer Problem

For the past several months my computer "locks up".  It says "Mozilla Firefox is not responding."

I either get something that looks like a big capital I or an hourglass.  Waiting for it to do something doesn't work so I usually close all programs or turn the computer off, whichever is available.

It is an older desktop with slow satellite internet.  I believe it is Windows 7 or it could be Windows 11.

I have narrowed the problem to two things.  When I want to do a search or when I am saving a link to a webpage.

Is this my internet connection doing this?  Or is it the computer?

Is there something I can do?

Try these in order:

1)
You could try and update to the latest version of Mozilla and see if that fixes the problem.

2)
You could also try disabling or updating your browser plugins:
How to disable plugins

3)
You may also want to clear your browser cache:
How to clear Firefox on Windows 7
How to clear Firefox on Windows 8
How to clear Firefox on Windows 10

4)
If those don't work you could try installing a different browser such as Chrome, DuckDuckGo or Ecosia

5)
Still, having issues? I would run a scan with windows defender and/or another antivirus program:
How to scan on windows 10

6)
If that does not work then contact your internet service provider; they could be throttling your service during peak hours.

7)
If you are using windows 7 update to Windows 10 since Windows 7 is no longer supported by Microsoft see: Windows 7 End of Support Info this means windows 7 may no longer be secure and may be vulnerable to modern cyber-attacks.

Hope this helps.

It's a challenge to diagnose this remotely. There are a lot of moving parts, as it were.

Is Firefox up to date?

How many other programs are open? How many tabs are open in the browser? All of these eat up memory (RAM) space, and on older machines there is a limited amount available. That can cause slowdowns and hangups. Does it seem like the hard drive is working overtime when things hang up? The system will try to use a cache on the hard drive to handle a high demand on memory (RAM) but it's a slow method.

I have a fixed wireless internet provider, and regular resets are needed to get the best out of the connection. Sometimes the internet provider updates its software to fix bugs, but you don't get the benefit unless you reset the hardware (usually by cycling power off, waiting a few minutes, and restarting). Your internet provider should be able to provide guidance.

I was on firefox for sometime, I found when weird things happened I would delete my profile directory that Firefox uses and life went back to normal.


The first step is to find what the root of the problem is.       Trying a newly installed browser as mentioned before would be a good place to start by testing if everything works with another browser then you know that firefox is the issue., else you may have a different problem  like lack of disk space.

Checking one thing at a time can help to find this root cause.

Myself I gave up on firefox and moved to MX  Linux, and Vivaldi  and I have not looked back,  but I am a geek and one solution does not work for everyone.

We are rooting for ya !

Mart

You can also do a speed test to see the level of service you are getting with upload and down load.
The providers are obliged to give you minimum speeds.
Find out about the rules, it may help.

If its an old computer you may need to defrag it to improve the speed with the hard drive.

It doesn't sound like the internet connection, that should just return a timed out error or a page not available error.

I would try a different browser and try to trigger the same problem, if it doesn't trigger it then I would uninstall Firefox, and reinstall just the base firefox with no add on's and see if I could get it to crash again.
You should also check how much space you have on your hard drive, you can run a disk clean p as well if you have not in a while, but actually read what it wants to delete as often the biggest offenders are not ticked. And then check if a disk defragmentor has been done recently (all this is under Start menu-accessories-system tools)

Thanks, everyone for the suggestions.  Some I have done.

I have updated Firefox twice which I hate especially when I get a message like "Welcome to the New Firefox!"

Probably I need to do the defrag thing which I have been considering.  I used to do all kinds of maintenance actions like remove cookies, defrag then it got to where I didn't know how to do those things.

If I have a good day sometime I will look into those.

Douglas said "How many other programs are open? How many tabs are open in the browser? All of these eat up memory (RAM) space, and on older machines there is a limited amount available. That can cause slowdowns and hangups. Does it seem like the hard drive is working overtime when things hang up?

This was the first thing I consider since I usually have lots of windows open.  Being careful not to open more than 2 or 3 didn't help.  And I have not noticed the hard drive working overtime.

I really appreciate everyone taking the time to make suggestions!