Problems with new laptop and Firefox - need help

[mongo2]

Recently purchased a new laptop recommended by a BM.  It has been working just fine and thanks to the BM who recommended it.  It is running Win 10 Home Edition x64 bit.  Firefox is the preferred browser used  by the lady for whom it was purchased.

A couple of days ago, Firefox stopped responding.  The laptop has a touchpad but FF will not open via touch. However, other programs will open via the touchpad.  Without FF she is unable to go to the internet.  While I know that she COULD download Chrome, or use  EDGE, she prefers FireFox.  We have rebooted many times to no avail. Thought I would try to Uninstall it, then reinstall it, but the laptop says FF is open and must be closed in order to do the uninstall.

Ran a troubleshooter but that did not find a solution.

What to do?

 

 

 

[Czmate]

Through it off the balcony and buy her an IPad.

Im joking, but do you have a virus protection on the Laptop that has expired or something like a 7 day trial ?

[mongo2]

12 minutes ago, Czmate said:

Through it off the balcony and buy her an IPad.

Im joking, but do you have a virus protection on the Laptop that has expired or something like a 7 day trial ?

She was using only Windows Defender.  The laptop also came with a trial version of McAfee which had expired a few days ago before the problem occurred. I have since uninstalled the McAfee since it will not function now. But since this problem started I used EDGE to download the free version of Avira, ran a full scan and it did not find any detections.  Then downloaded the free version of Malwarebytes and ran a full scan which also did not find any threats.

Now ???

[Mognam]

With the uninstalling it open up the task manager and see if it running firefox in the background.  To get the task manager up press Cntl + Alt + Delete.  then click on task manager.  Once that is open click on Processes.  Then click on Name to get the processes in alphabetical order.  Then scroll down to see if Firefox is listed in the Processes.  If you see it there right click on it then select End task.  From there you should be able to uninstall firefox using the usual method.

If Firefox is not listed in your processes but it says it is running when you try to do an uninstall I would be concerned that you may have some malware on the laptop.

Hope that is of some help.

[mongo2]

2 minutes ago, Mognam said:

With the uninstalling it open up the task manager and see if it running firefox in the background.  To get the task manager up press Cntl + Alt + Delete.  then click on task manager.  Once that is open click on Processes.  The click on Name to get the processes in alphabetical order.  Then scroll down to see if Firefox is listed in the Processes.  If you see it there right click on it then select End task.  From there you should be able to uninstall firefox using the usual method.

If Firefox is not listed in your processes but it says it is running when you try to do an uninstall I would be concerned that you may have some malware on the laptop.

Hope that is of some help.

I will give that a try.  Tnx.

[taylor1975]

Try to open it from the menu button (bottom left corner) rather than double clicking on the desktop shortcut icon or the 'task bar' icon.

itunes used to do this all the time for me.

[mongo2]

6 minutes ago, taylor1975 said:

Try to open it from the menu button (bottom left corner) rather than double clicking on the desktop shortcut icon or the 'task bar' icon.

itunes used to do this all the time for me.

I will try that too.  But it is a laptop, not a desktop if that matters.  And when I tried to uninstall it the process told me it was already open and had to close before it could be uninstalled.  Cannot close it.

 

[mixedberrys]

Thanks mogman, never knew about Cntl.alt.del.  Just tried it and found out what was actually running.

Learn something new everyday 

[taylor1975]

37 minutes ago, mongo2 said:

I will try that too.  But it is a laptop, not a desktop if that matters.  And when I tried to uninstall it the process told me it was already open and had to close before it could be uninstalled.  Cannot close it.

 

No doesn't matter. Get it closed first, as described, then uninstall. Turning laptop off usually closes everything, so its a strange one. 

[Billyboy294]

FF was my Default browser (also had IE). After a Win 10 update and a FF update, FF became unbelievably slow.  Had to wait 30 seconds before i could scroll down, then i t paused and i had to wait another 30 secs to scroll more. Uninstalled it and reinstalled it and was better, only had to wait 8 seconds to scroll. Also had to wait a few seconds before a typed letter appeared. Removed it and now using Chrome with its useless tool bar.

I tried Ctl+Alt + Del and see that I have Chrome listed 4 times with 64MB, 72MB and 2 at 1.5MB. Is this normal?

[ChairmanMao]

4 minutes ago, Billyboy294 said:

I tried Ctl+Alt + Del and see that I have Chrome listed 4 times with 64MB, 72MB and 2 at 1.5MB. Is this normal?

No.  Normally chrome will use way more RAM than that and appear as at least 12 separate processes. 

Welcome to the botnet.

[mongo2]

1 hour ago, taylor1975 said:

No doesn't matter. Get it closed first, as described, then uninstall. Turning laptop off usually closes everything, so its a strange one. 

Already have turned laptop off and on and also restarted it, even unplugged it and turned it on again.  Still cannot turn off Firefox in order uninstall it.  When I click on Task Manager the only thing listed as on is Malwarebytes, nothing else, not even Edge which IS running.

 

[mongo2]

Found out that there are 11 updates not installed, most involve Realtek audio drivers and some HP system updates.  It is an HP 14" laptop.  Am now in the process of installing those updates but the downloading is very slow.  The laptop and the desktop that I am using to connect to PA are on the same internet connection, so I am going to shutoff this desktop until those downloads are complete.  I am thinking, hoping, that this will all allow the downloads to go faster.  Will be back on line later.

 

 

 

[Pattaya_Brian]

This might sound silly, but if you haven't tried it, try downloading and installing Firefox over Firefox. If you can't uninstall FF, then it might be your only shot. It might add something that has been deleted or is missing. Worth a shot.

If that doesn't work, then tell the girl to get comfortable with Chrome. In the long run, she's going to like it better anyway.

[CyberPro]

Does this computer have a restore partition for use in Disaster Recovery? If so, and if the above suggestions don't work, I'd consider copying needed files elsewhere, then doing a system restore. That will return the computer to it's new state. 

I keep several offline clone copies of the hard drives of my computers as safeguards against malware, drive encryption, etc. Some friends had to pay close to $1,000 USD to the local tech guy to recover family records, part of which went to whoever encrypted their hard drive. They thought they were doing backups but when it came time for recovery, said backups didn't work. If memory serves, Win10 now has encryption protection after a huge recent upgrade. If you lack that upgrade, get it and consider a PAID version of a respected anti-malware. Good luck. 

 

[singalong]

Already have turned laptop off and on and also restarted it, even unplugged it and turned it on again.  Still cannot turn off Firefox in order uninstall it.  When I click on Task Manager the only thing listed as on is Malwarebytes, nothing else, not even Edge which IS running.
 

In task manager there should be a button which says "Show All Processes" or something like that. Click and see whether you can see FF (you may get a security warning). Once you see it, you can right click and end the task...

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

[mongo2]

I sure hope all of you can be patient with me.  During the past few hours I have been downloading and installing all of the not yet installed updates listed by HP Support.  None of tem involved FF nor Win10 directly.  An extremely slow process.  Total 11 separate updates.

Having done that I tried again to uninstall or open Firefox.  Still will not work.  At the moment my aging brain needs a nap - so will again sign off and come back again later.

I did find out that the Firefox installed on the laptop is version 57.0  And that the CPU is an Intel Pentium, 1.6 GHz

One other item - the display logos are set to large. 

The Firefox logo is standard on the display but has a large white + sign in the lower right quadrant. 

I do not know what that indicates.

 

 

[Pattaya_Brian]

1 hour ago, mongo2 said:

The Firefox logo is standard on the display but has a large white + sign in the lower right quadrant. 

I do not know what that indicates.

That's an international distress signal. It means, "Nobody uses Firefox anymore. Give up all hope. Abandon! Abandon!"

[Czmate]

Just reverted to Google it and most of what's been said is all in the above basically.

i still have hunch its related to the Virus protections installed. You mentioned you had the Windows Defender which comes as standard and at least 2 more you have tried installed. Are you sure you have uninstalled deleted the ones which are void now completely ?

I've had other kinds of issues with these things. Try closing everything and uninstall just clean your hard drive without connecting to the internet shut off the WIFI or unplug the cable this way you are not at risk.

[david555]

I do not know .... but this could be also a reason ....Firefox has a total new browser system ..named quantum , you can update by" clicking > "Help" and then  >" about Firefox clicking "

[sulu]

3 hours ago, david555 said:

I do not know .... but this could be also a reason ....Firefox has a total new browser system ..named quantum , you can update by" clicking > "Help" and then  >" about Firefox clicking "

Thanks.

I'd heard about FF's new browser and that is was built for speed but didn't believe it. I used to (circa '08 ?) use FF all the time but it slowed down considerably the more you used it until it was almost unusable. Closing it down and re-starting it cleared up the issue (most likely memory related) but who could keep doing that 4 or 5 times a day.

So I tried Chrome - blazing fast compared to FF. R.I.P. FF

But now Chrome doesn't (always ?) support Flash and Flash is still the #1 used video format on the 'net.

So I just now tried loading the new version of FF and first impression ? WOW !!! Much faster than Chrome. I'll try it a bit longer and see if it holds up.

[LarryDarrell]

https://www.wired.com/story/firefox-quantum-the-browser-built-for-2017/

[soujiro]

The trouble with quantum it's add-ons, some are missing and some are bad written so they eats a lot of ram. So don't use add-ons unless you really need.

[seans]

I use 64 bit versions of Firefox clones Waterfox and cyberfox on an MSI gaming laptop with no problem and great speed

[revoluti]

Addons are a pain at the moment, i use a few like ad blocking, private tabs etc but ad blocker was eating huge amounts of RAM.