Author Topic: Solved: Why won't my laptop run Firefox? (Read 37,157 times)

Curt · « **on:** February 26, 2015, 12:00 AM »

Last August I lost my PC and was forced to take this old laptop into use. To my surprise it won't run Firefox, but only Internet Explorer! This is of course not some management restriction, but merely my real life experience; the Mozilla browser will launch but never go anywhere or open any homepage. Or it will launch, but everything takes longer than forever. And I mean several minutes to (not) open a page. Even with low safety settings and without any safety related program being open! SOMETIMES Firefox will open some pages, or simple pages, but not flash or complex pages - but most times it won't go anywhere at all!

Understand that my test results are sparse because I lose patience long before any homepage connection was made.

***Each and every other program that I have installed will connect to the Internet without a problem***

I have not been able to find any security related setting from the previous owner anywhere.
Computer, drivers, flash and everything are fully updated, so to speak; the laptop seems to be from 2009...

It has now been half a year and I have no more ideas about where to go or what to do, except asking YOU!

---------------------------------------
5 years ago the laptop was above average:
Dell Latitude Z600, Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU U9600 @ 1.60GHz, Data Width 64 Bits, Caption x64 Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 10 Family 191 Level 6 Stepping , Current Clock Speed 1601 MHZ , Ext Clock 200 MHZ , L2 Cache Size 3072 KB - Memory Device 0 and Memory Device 1 Size 4095 MB
Win 7 Home Premium 32-bits (year 2010 upgraded from Vista).

Edvard · « **Reply #1 on:** February 26, 2015, 06:49 AM »

Have you tried the tried-and-often-true method of simply uninstalling and re-installing? Try tracking down and erasing any user configuration files as well (back them up first, you may end up needing them).

Have you tried running Firefox from a command prompt? Often, this will give you some logging as it runs, and reports errors it encounters. Could be a missing library that it doesn't have a specific error message for, or a configuration has it looking for something that isn't in it's expected place. Give it a try if you haven't already, and let us know what you find (or not).

Shades · « **Reply #2 on:** February 26, 2015, 12:04 PM »

Sounds like the network configuration from FF is botched. Get a portable version of FF and try again (to my knowledge this version doesn't use anything but the bog standard network settings).

If that works, you can either continue using portable FF or install FF and use the settings from the portable one (profiles from both FF's are separated).

If this also won't work, take a good look at your network configuration in IE (perhaps it is set to use a (3rd party) proxy, which could filter traffic depending on browser or whatnot.

FF asks you, just after installation, if it should copy settings from IE before it connects to a website the first time. If you didn't do that before, try this and see how that goes. Or vice versa.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #3 on:** February 26, 2015, 02:33 PM »

It might also be worth installing an older version of FF. Try something that was released in 2009. If it runs gangbusters after importing the same profile it could be some compatibility issue. Also try disabling all AddOns. I found just a week or so ago that Session Save and Restore was causing all sorts of nini-hangs.

What FF are you running now?

mouser · « **Reply #4 on:** February 26, 2015, 02:36 PM »

Shades idea of trying a portable version of FF (if such a thing exists) is a good one.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #5 on:** February 26, 2015, 04:32 PM »

Quote from: mouser on February 26, 2015, 02:36 PM

Shades idea of trying a portable version of FF (if such a thing exists) is a good one.

PortableApps.com FF is one of the featured programs on the page. I have FF Portable 35.01. The cool thing is you can just copy the whole folder into a Windows Virtual Machine guest to have your AddOns and bookmarks without using Sync. More often than not once you run a few FF in various places sync just scrambles everything into a pile.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #6 on:** February 26, 2015, 06:45 PM »

Or the other whole discussion of running Pale Moon or even the older Cometbird. So depending on exactly what you need "flagship" Firefox for, if anything, Pale Moon specifically was supposed to be recompiled to help boost a little bit of performance.

If those work, something may be sour with whatever new tweaks flagship FF is doing lately and then when you have "FF vs FF-clone", maybe that can shed some clues.

IainB · « **Reply #7 on:** February 26, 2015, 07:42 PM »

Quote from: MilesAhead on February 26, 2015, 04:32 PM

...More often than not once you run a few FF in various places sync just scrambles everything into a pile

When I read that, I thought I should mention that my experience of using FF (Beta update channel) is that, quite to the contrary to what you stated, FF Sync works like a charm.
The only real problem I have had with FF tends to be what is an apparently common recurring problem that, on the beta update channel, with all the frequent updates, FF performance tends to occasionally decline/misbehave to the extent that the only way to fix it is to start FF up in base form (i.e., without any add-ons, etc.), and then re-install all the add-ons and Greasemonkey scripts etc. manually. I got the advice to do that from some helpful forum/blog posts, and it turned out to be good advice.
However, there was a real problem with following that advice - you are then forced into a seriously tedious exercise of manually re-installing all the add-ons and other stuff, which is a proverbial PITA.

I discovered that I was able to automate it all (except for Greasemonkey scripts) through the use of FF Sync, which automatically re-installs all the add-ons and other stuff (e.g., including bookmarks) that you can choose to sync. You may have to manually reset some settings, but that's about it.
However, I had to reinstall the Greasemonkey scripts manually, which was another PITA. Then at some stage a Greasemonkey update introduced an option to "Enable Firefox Sync for User Scripts", so that got rid of the PITA.

FF Sync has been operating thus, apparently faultlessly, for me and for a long time. I changed to the latest version of FF Sync some time back when they first introduced it. Sync has enabled me to sync FF smoothly across 3 computers, even with up to 3 different users sharing/syncing things like the FF bookmarks on those computers. FF Sync is pretty smart.
The only surprising thing I find about FF Sync is that it doesn't scramble the stuff up.

Curt · « **Reply #8 on:** February 26, 2015, 10:08 PM »

Quote from: MilesAhead on February 26, 2015, 02:33 PM

It might also be worth installing an older version of FF. Try something that was released in 2009.
Quote
***compatibility issues***

***I am typing this in Firefox 3.5.19. It is a very fast browser***

I tried the portable version 35, but it still won't go anywhere, just like any other new Firefox won't. Each one was removed via Revo Uninstaller Pro > Advanced.

So I guess it now is all about testing, how old a Firefox must be, to run on my laptop.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #9 on:** February 26, 2015, 10:56 PM »

Quote

So I guess it now is all about testing, how old a Firefox must be, to run on my laptop.

I guess you have tried with all AddOns disabled? Also you could try CometBird. It stopped at v. 11. I find many FF AddOns work but not all.

Edit: How about the "use hardware acceleration where available" setting? Perhaps the Laptop should run with the setting disabled.

Curt · « **Reply #10 on:** February 28, 2015, 12:22 AM »

Today giveawayoftheday is offering Driver Magician, so I gave it a swirl and was surprised to learn that my (free) laptop is quite a bit older than I expected: It's from 2006

Drivers (772x2155 pixels, 99kb):

[attachthumb=#]

Shades · « **Reply #11 on:** February 28, 2015, 02:41 AM »

That is only the date from some of the files in use by your driver(s).

Better use tools like SIW to properly identify your computer or parts thereof, so you can visit the manufacturer's website and extract from the information on that website the true age of your laptop.

And if the above is too much work...the date of the BIOS/UEFI on the motherboard of your laptop is usually a better indicator of the true age of your laptop. Again, tools like SIW will show you this info at practically first glance.

Curt · « **Reply #12 on:** February 28, 2015, 10:28 AM »

this was most interesting, but also confusing.

BIOS date was 24'th of August 2010, so not all that bad.

The confusing is of course why there are so many older dates. Now I am guessing that the previous owner simply made a "Move everything from your old to your new computer"-installation, hence the many 2006 stamps.
? $:-\$

-----------
[attachthumb=#]

Curt · « **Reply #13 on:** February 28, 2015, 03:49 PM »

I've tested versions 36, 35, 3.5.19, 27, 25, 24, 19, 22, and finally 23.01 (which I am keeping). Older than version 24 will run, version 24 and younger will not move an inch out of the box.

I wonder what change took place from version 23 to version 24 ?

Curt · « **Reply #14 on:** February 28, 2015, 06:54 PM »

Quote from: Curt on February 28, 2015, 03:49 PM

I wonder what change took place from version 23 to version 24 ?

One change was the introduction of SpiderMonkey 24 JavaScript engine! (Exclamation mark because I all along have said, without KNOWING, there were some "Java problems", and now it seems I may have been right.) Unfortunately I have no idea what to do if it is or if it isn't.

Later, SpiderMonkey 24 was updated to version 31, but that has not helped me.

-----------------
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/SpiderMonkey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpiderMonkey_(software)
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/SpiderMonkey/Releases/24

Deozaan · « **Reply #15 on:** February 28, 2015, 10:25 PM »

Quote from: Curt on February 28, 2015, 06:54 PM

One change was the introduction of SpiderMonkey 24 JavaScript engine! (Exclamation mark because I all along have said, without KNOWING, there were some "Java problems", and now it seems I may have been right.)

Not to be pedantic, but JavaScript and Java are two very different things. Calling JavaScript^w "Java^w" is like calling hamburger^w "ham^w"

ewemoa · « **Reply #16 on:** March 02, 2015, 01:43 AM »

Have you tried the browsers that won't run using a freshly created account?

4wd · « **Reply #17 on:** March 02, 2015, 02:47 AM »

You could try Dependency Walker and see what differences there are in system requirements between the version that does work and the later ones.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #18 on:** March 02, 2015, 11:24 AM »

I found this in FF 24.0 release notes

Known Issues

Unresolved
Firefox 24.0 crashes with the Norton Toolbar. More information. (Also see 917792)
Unresolved
If you try to start Firefox using a locked profile, it will crash (see 573369)

Curt · « **Reply #19 on:** March 03, 2015, 09:53 AM »

-thanks, Miles.
However, the problem here is that it's any version younger than version 23 that will launch but not reach the Internet.

---

Quote from: 4wd on March 02, 2015, 02:47 AM

You could try Dependency Walker and see what differences there are in system requirements between the version that does work and the later ones.

My intention was to have Dependency Walker [DW] open the well-working Firefox 23 and create a "before" report, and then uninstall version 23 and install the not-working version 24 - and have DW run the same test again. That was my intention. To my surprise, DW wouldn't even run Firefox 23, other than giving these error messages:

[attachimg=#]

--------

I know nothing, but I am baffled by this. I was expecting version 23 to run smooth and fast because it was opened and handled by DW, but it didn't open at all! (In DW > "Open..." > C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe), though it runs fine by itself

4wd · « **Reply #20 on:** March 03, 2015, 10:55 AM »

Is there any differences in the reports without you running the two versions - ie. just open them with DW and see what's reported as being missing between the two versions.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #21 on:** March 03, 2015, 11:39 AM »

Do you have the install disc for this machine? I'm starting to think it may be a case of running
sfc /SCANNOW to replace missing system files. Probably some Dlls.

According to the boards I'm on they say to run it 3 times.

Here's a tutorial for W7

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/139810-sfc-scannow-run-command-prompt-boot.html

Curt · « **Reply #22 on:** March 03, 2015, 01:42 PM »

Quote from: cmd.exe

Verification 100% complete.
Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

But No, I don't have a CD for this one either.
-so this was merely a cmd.exe on the desktop, not during boot.

Curt · « **Reply #23 on:** March 03, 2015, 08:33 PM »

Quote from: Curt on March 03, 2015, 09:53 AM

Dependency Walker [DW] ... giving these error messages: (see attachment in previous post)

On stackoverflow a user listed the exact same DLLs (as shown in above screenshot), as being named by Dependency Walker as missing. He then installed three OCX files, and voila his problem was gone - even though DW still listed the many DLLs as "missing"! Maybe a coincidence. He never came back to name the OCX files.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17023419/win-7-64-bit-dll-problems

Quote from: Stack Overflow

dependency walker is telling me that the following DLLs are missing:

API-MS-WIN-CORE-COM-L1-1-0.DLL
API-MS-WIN-CORE-WINRT-ERROR-L1-1-0.DLL
API-MS-WIN-CORE-WINRT-L1-1-0.DLL
API-MS-WIN-CORE-WINRT-ROBUFFER-L1-1-0.DLL
API-MS-WIN-CORE-WINRT-STRING-L1-1-0.DLL
API-MS-WIN-SHCORE-SCALING-L1-1-0.DLL
DCOMP.DLL
GPSVC.DLL
IESHIMS.DL

MilesAhead · « **Reply #24 on:** March 03, 2015, 08:35 PM »

Quote from: Curt on March 03, 2015, 01:42 PM

Quote from: cmd.exe
Verification 100% complete.
Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

But No, I don't have a CD for this one either.
-so this was merely a cmd.exe on the desktop, not during boot.

MS just pulled the W7 ISO images from Digital River too. Otherwise you could just download one. Although if you have the product key I believe you can still download directly from MS. But I don't know the server.

Here's the Softpedia News Item