Firefox Problems?

LaRussa is having problems with her computer and is using Firefox. She wants to know if anybody else who's using Firefox is also having trouble.

Here is what she emailed me:

My computer will not let me open any programs.  It is stuck on something and all I hear is a very high pitched sound.  I can open only my email but nothing else.  I’ve shut down a couple of times and was able to run the malware scan but still I cannot open any other programs. 

It is now showing how to open firewall, before it was on another page that I just can’t get off of.  When I click on my Mozilla icon, it doesn’t do anything at all so can’t open anything.  I don’t know what to do and I’m not sure what plug to pull if I have to to do that.

Firefox was updated very recently - maybe her firewall or virus software is blocking the latest version and FF has to be added to the exceptions manually. Has she tried to open the firewall to see what is being blocked? She might have to deliberately crash her computer by pulling the main plug to get out of the frozen state if she can't access the firewall or another browser.

I know that's not much help.

I use Firefox at home pretty much exclusively and have not had any problems with it at all. 

The high-pitched sound makes me think of hardware problems.  She may have a hard disk failure.  I am assuming that she has a version of Windows.  She needs to make a back up if possible then run chkdsk. 

I told Carol to try the 3-finger salute (CTRL+ALT+DEL) and that seemed to get her out. Her computer rebooted normally and everything was fine. But then, the other night, it did it again. She did the 3-finger salute again and it got her back out. She is using Windows 7.

I wondered about a hard disk failure, too, and did mention that to her. She tried to talk to Dell and they won't deal with her unless she pays $89 for 3 days of work, even though the computer is not even six months old. Dell seems to think it's more of a software issue, so they won't help. I'm wondering if it could be drive failure and that would be hardware....and so it would be covered.

Tricia, I did mention that if she couldn't get it cleared up, she might have to just pull the plug. Fortunately, the salute seems to being her computer out of the freeze. But I really think there's something funky going on anyway.

Thank you all.

Maybe something like PC Doctor can help. My DH used to use this and he fixed laptops for a while.

http://www.pc-doctor.com/solutions/consumer-end-users

I found this online.  Dell Diagnostics.  She should run those diagnostics to see if something pops up.  It could help with dealing with Dell.

Wow, thank you! I just did the diagnostic test on my own computer, just to see how things were and so that I could help Carol run it on her own computer. Thanks!

No, I do not run firefox but I do run chrome and e and with both I've been experiencing computer lock ups and freezing. I had done a complete system restore and still locking up. I have avast virus protection. This has been going on for at least 2 days. I can have any two windows up and still have the page turn either white or black and then tell me that they are not responding, only a manual button press, which I know is not good, will get me out of it. I ran dell diagnostics and passed all tests. I'm stumped. I can still open just about any program, just every so often, it locks up about twice an hour in chrome and e.

Hey everybody, thanks for all the advice.  Just to confirm, that funny high pitched tone only sounded when I clicked on anything but everything just froze.

I just did the diagnostic check and everything passed as far as Dell is concerned.  I am hoping I won't have any more problems but only time will tell.  I've only had this computer for 3 months and I don't know what I could have done to mess things up if it my fault at all.

nansiludie said:

 
No, I do not run firefox but I do run chrome and e and with both I've been experiencing computer lock ups and freezing. I had done a complete system restore and still locking up. I have avast virus protection. This has been going on for at least 2 days. I can have any two windows up and still have the page turn either white or black and then tell me that they are not responding, only a manual button press, which I know is not good, will get me out of it. I ran dell diagnostics and passed all tests. I'm stumped. I can still open just about any program, just every so often, it locks up about twice an hour in chrome and e.

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I was having the same problem w/chrome.  I switched to Firefox last night and it is so much better and faster.  I kept getting a shockwave flash not loading message on chrome.

Have you tried to reset the Firefox or reinstalled it?