Trying to save stuff causes Firefox to freeze

[LittleDove]

Problem: trying to save stuff from web-pages etc (like JPGs) causes Firefox to freeze up.

When I try to save a picture, hitting Save is causing FF to freeze. The page is frozen on the monitor. It's not like the "normal" times when FF crashes for some odd reason. If I open the Task Manager, nothing out of the ordinary is going on. Everything is just sitting there, placid. There are no wild swings in CPU usage nor is FF suddenly using massive amounts of memory.

When I force FF to close, using the task manager, and then reopen it, I get taken back to the page I was on (usually). After a brief interval, say 30 seconds to a minute, the Download Manager pops up, and it indicates the item I was trying to download is now downloading, and taking forever to do so. Before I started this post, I checked it one last time -- tried downloading a 37KB JPG from an email. FF froze again when I hit save. On restarting it, the download happened, but it took between 2 to 3 minutes to accomplish the task.

History -- just happened today, 9/24.

Recent changes -- update to AVG yesterday AM. Update required restart. However, after the restart, it wasn't doing this. I only saved a few things yesterday -- say 6 +/- images from various sources, and it wasn't doing this after the restart. Saving things then was without problem.

Tried -- various searches turn up some possible solutions, but they mostly seem to be 2+ years old, and most I've seen seem to be talking about FF version 2. Regardless, I tried some of the suggestions. Temporarily disabled the anti-virus with no result. Deleted downloads.sqlite from folder with no result. Cleared history/cache/etc with no result. Tried downloading to different area of my machine than normally used with no result.

This doesn't seem to be affecting anything else that I've found. I can wizz around the 'Net like normal. Pages load fine. I can play the one game I play on-line without problem. It's just with saving things that it all stops. Nothing else seems to be a problem that I've discovered so far.

FF version 3.6.10

System -- Win XP (home)
on a Dell Inspirion 530S w/ 2 GB RAM

Thoughts? Suggestions? Further info needed?

 

[trinket]

I just wanted to tell you that "I feel your pain" here! And you are not going crazy. Firefox (always the current version of the day) on my previous machine developed this exact behavior one day and I tried everything I could to fix it, including the stuff you mention just below, but I couldn't get anywhere. I eventually just downloaded with a 3rd-party tool (DownThemAll) or IE or Chrome when applicable, but I was badly due for another machine anyway, and that solved it, even when migrating my Firefox profile with an add-on.

You might've already found this, but try the last guy's tip anyway about download.rdf.

Tried -- various searches turn up some possible solutions, but they mostly seem to be 2+ years old, and most I've seen seem to be talking about FF version 2. Regardless, I tried some of the suggestions. Temporarily disabled the anti-virus with no result. Deleted downloads.sqlite from folder with no result. Cleared history/cache/etc with no result. Tried downloading to different area of my machine than normally used with no result.

 

[LittleDove]

Thanks. I'll give that a read and see if that helps -- although the fact that you experienced the same problem and couldn't find a solution doesn't leave me very hopeful.

 

[bendted]

The AVG download from 9/23 resulted in a no start (several attempts) of my computer today 9/24. Had to start in Safe Mode and go to System Restore to restore to a point before the AVG update. Back to normal now. Running IE 7

 

[Corny]

this sounds more like a problem with some additional software. do you have any kind of virus scanner or personal firewall installed that might want to try to hook itself between FF and the file that is being saved?

 

[LittleDove]

Well, dang. This is odd. After a late dinner and a couple of glasses of wine, I was too tired to do anything last night, so I just shut the machine down at bedtime, as usual. This morning after I started it up, it's not doing it. I just went around to some random sites and emails and was able to save pics in just a blink, like it's always done. So I'm stumped, but not unhappy. It was f**king annoying, what it was doing yesterday.

this sounds more like a problem with some additional software. do you have any kind of virus scanner or personal firewall installed that might want to try to hook itself between FF and the file that is being saved?

As per one of the suggestions I found on-line, I disabled all the AVG components and tried running Firefox that way yesterday, without it making any difference with the saving of stuff. That what you mean, D?

 

[Corny]

yeah that's what i mean. can you completely disable avg? kill the process? and also check for some firefox addon - many virusscanners nowadays install something like that aswell.

 

[swmjck]

The AVG download from 9/23 resulted in a no start (several attempts) of my computer today 9/24. Had to start in Safe Mode and go to System Restore to restore to a point before the AVG update. Back to normal now. Running IE 7

Exact same thing happened to me when installing one of the firefox updates. Computer totally froze. I forced shut down and tried numerous times to restart and it would get as far as me entering my password and then a blank screen. I thought the computer was toast, but decided to start in safemode and then restored to the day before the problem. Everything has been O.K. since. Still not sure what happened.