When I try to open Firefox I get "We're sorry, Firefox had a problem and crashed. We'll try to restore your tabs and windows when it restarts.

Question

I have been using Firefox for several years. Now, when I try to open it I get the above error message.

Answer 1

Hi graham12345
This looks like a problem with hardware acceleration.
Are you sure that staring in Safe Mode isn't working?
You can use one of these to start Firefox in <u>Safe Mode</u>:
*On Windows, hold down the Shift key while starting Firefox with a double-click on the Firefox desktop shortcut
*On Mac, hold down the Options key while starting Firefox
*Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled
*https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Safe+Mode
Try to set the gfx.content.azure.enabled pref to false or if this didn't help disable Direct2D by setting the gfx.direct2d.disabled pref to true on the about:config page and leave hardware acceleration otherwise enabled.
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/about:config
You can consider to modify the prefs.js file and add some of these:
user_pref("gfx.content.azure.enabled", false);
user_pref("gfx.direct2d.disabled", false);
user_pref("layers.acceleration.disabled", true);
That way you still have the benefit from hardware acceleration, but may not suffer from rendering issues.
You can also try to uninstall Windows update KB2670838 if you have this update.
*http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2670838