64-bit Firefox/Firefox-based broswer issues

[JediMasterChief2]

Hey. For the past couple of weeks, in any 64-bit (and perhaps 32-bit as well, haven't tested that) Firefox-based browser, I either get video driver errors (which are recovered from) or full system-lock ups if hardware acceleration is turned on (if not, it works fine). The closest issue I could find that is related to mine is people having these issues (and worse) with the latest Nvidia drivers, though not specific to Firefox. I have an Nvidia Geforce GTX 560m (laptop). Curiously, for me, it only happens with Firefox and Firefox-based (Nightly 64x, Cyberfox, Pale Moon 64x, and perhaps even Waterfox). I have one native 64-bit game (Xonotic, an open-source, old-school first-person shooter), the 64-bit edition of 7-zip, Minecraft running on 64-bit Java, and a few other 64-bit programs I can't quite remember, and none of those incountered issues. The temporary fix I'm using is just simply disabling hardware acceleration (though I have it on right now, because I'm seeing if I had to much cached Java data, whcich I just cleared earlier). Any help would be appriciated.

[Phalanx108]

A couple things you could try:

 

You didn't mention anything about an update/rollback of your drivers, so you could try that.

 

Also, if the issue is only prevalent in firefox, go to Help - Troubleshooting Information, then click Reset Firefox in the top right corner. A warning about resetting: it will keep your bookmarks, history etc, but will revert themes and addons back to default. However, it does fix a lot of problems that can arise with an old installation of firefox.

[JediMasterChief2]

A couple things you could try:

 

You didn't mention anything about an update/rollback of your drivers, so you could try that.

 

Also, if the issue is only prevalent in firefox, go to Help - Troubleshooting Information, then click Reset Firefox in the top right corner. A warning about resetting: it will keep your bookmarks, history etc, but will revert themes and addons back to default. However, it does fix a lot of problems that can arise with an old installation of firefox.

I already tried creating a new profile for Firefox, and that didn't help. I have the latest stable drivers (320.49), so, unless I move up to the beta drivers, it looks like a roll-back is my only option, but, I'm not sure of how to do that safely and which drivers to roll-back to.

[Phalanx108]

Here's a run-through on how to rollback your drivers, relying on you not uninstalling the previous version.

->Go to Start, Control Panel

->Click "System"

->In the left pane, click Device Manager

->Expand "Display Adapters"

->Right click your graphics card, go to Properties

->Select the Driver Tab

->Click on Rollback Driver.

After that, just do a restart and let me know how it goes. I can run you through a driver reinstall if you need.

[FMod]

First of all, the official release versions of Firefox are 32-bit only.

You don't need a 64-bit one just because you can, so right now you're running beta software at best. It's not beta like non-WHQL drivers, either, it's quite experimental.

 

Begin by installing an official 32-bit browser version. If that fixes the issue, stick with it.

As for the drivers, in this case "beta" ones are highly stable and would be more properly called gammas, as they go straight to release after. Don't worry and update to 326.80.

[bben46]

I have just about given up on the 64 bit variants of firefox - the updates are now about 6 months behind on Waterfox and some of the newer features and bug fixes are not yet available because of this. The speed difference was negligible on my medium speed cable ISP. I went back to the official Mozilla FF-32 bit a while back and haven't seen much of any difference beyond now being up to date.

[JediMasterChief2]

Here's a run-through on how to rollback your drivers, relying on you not uninstalling the previous version.

->Go to Start, Control Panel

->Click "System"

->In the left pane, click Device Manager

->Expand "Display Adapters"

->Right click your graphics card, go to Properties

->Select the Driver Tab

->Click on Rollback Driver.

After that, just do a restart and let me know how it goes. I can run you through a driver reinstall if you need.

Alright, I'll try that if updating to the beta drivers doesn't work. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

First of all, the official release versions of Firefox are 32-bit only.

You don't need a 64-bit one just because you can, so right now you're running beta software at best. It's not beta like non-WHQL drivers, either, it's quite experimental.

 

Begin by installing an official 32-bit browser version. If that fixes the issue, stick with it.

As for the drivers, in this case "beta" ones are highly stable and would be more properly called gammas, as they go straight to release after. Don't worry and update to 326.80.

I'm aware that Firefox is 32-bit only. Which is why I also said "Firefox-Based", because I use Cyberfox at the moment (which I do get faster speeds with, regardless of hardware acceleration). Plus, for a long time, I didn't have this issue, which is why I think it has something do with the latest graphics drivers. Also, thank you for the info on the beta drivers. I'll check them out.

 

I have just about given up on the 64 bit variants of firefox - the updates are now about 6 months behind on Waterfox and some of the newer features and bug fixes are not yet available because of this. The speed difference was negligible on my medium speed cable ISP. I went back to the official Mozilla FF-32 bit a while back and haven't seen much of any difference beyond now being up to date.

Try Cyberfox. Though it isn't as well known as Waterfox, it is much more up-to-date than Waterfox, and is compiled with more up-to-date tools (Windows 8 SDK, most notably. Don't let that put you off, it works perfectly on any 64-bit Windows OS, except XP 64-bit). In my case, like I said before, I get faster speeds than with 32-bit Firefox, even with hardware acceleration disabled. Also, Cyberfox comes in two versions, on optimized for Intel processors, and another for AMD processors.

 

Well, never did a multiquote before.

Edited August 27, 2013 by austen1000