{"id":166,"date":"2009-02-07T01:06:15","date_gmt":"2009-02-07T06:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/installingcats.com\/?p=166"},"modified":"2009-02-07T01:06:15","modified_gmt":"2009-02-07T06:06:15","slug":"firefox-stops-loading-pages-fix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/installingcats.com\/2009\/02\/07\/firefox-stops-loading-pages-fix\/","title":{"rendered":"Firefox Stops Loading Pages – Fix"},"content":{"rendered":"
Firefox stops loading pages after several hours or days of continuous use.The problem often starts with only some page loading errors: stylesheets not being applied (ugly white pages with no images), buttons not working, forms not submitting, etc., then quickly gets worse until Firefox is completely unusable and often cannot be restarted.<\/p>\n
Sound familiar?<\/p>\n
The problem has to do with Adobe Flash Player.<\/p>\n
Common symptoms of the Firefox loading problem:<\/p>\n
When Firefox stops loading pages properly, the problem begins with subtlety, then the situation degrades quickly until Firefox is completely unusable.\u00a0 Previously, the only solution was to restart Firefox, killing the Firefox process (using Activity Monitor – Quit Process) if Firefox wouldn’t shutdown properly.<\/p>\n
This solution was only a temporary fix with the root Firefox page load problem still there.\u00a0 Clearing the cache in Firefox, then restarting, also seemed to help reset the loading problem on Firefox, up until it starts again after several hours or days of web surfing.<\/p>\n
A permanent fix to this Firefox loading problem: upgrade Adobe Flash Player to version 10<\/strong><\/a> from version 9.\u00a0 Strangely, Mozilla\/Firefox nor Mac OS X Leopard never recommended this update, even when Adobe published version 10 of Flash Player, wheres Firefox 3 comes by default with Flash Player 9, and actually, still does.\u00a0 Perhaps Mozilla considers Flash Player a system component, rather than a browser component and doesn’t notify Firefox users of updates to such pieces of software.\u00a0 This seems a bit odd to me, considering the only time I use Flash Player… is with web browsers, regardless of whether its Firefox, Safari, or Camino.<\/p>\n Open a new Firefox tab or window.<\/p>\n In the address bar type in about:plugins<\/strong> and hit enter.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This will load a special Firefox configuration page showing you all the plugins installed for use with your version of Firefox.<\/p>\n Scroll down to the bottom until you see a heading for Shockwave Flash<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The key piece of information in this section is just above the blue bar where it reads: Shockwave Flash 9.0 r115<\/p>\n This tells me that I’m running Adobe Flash player version 9 and what I need to do is upgrade to Flash version 10.<\/p>\n Update: Another way to check which version of Flash Player you have installed is to visit Adobe Flash – About page<\/a>, which will tell you your currently installed Shockwave Flash version (bottom right hand corner in the Version Information<\/strong> box.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\nStep 1: Check your version of Adobe Shockwave\/Flash in Firefox<\/h4>\n
Step 2: Download & Install Adobe Flash 10<\/h4>\n