Mozilla Firefox has recently started having a crash that prevents web pages from loading. The bug causes the browser to not open any websites on the desktop versions for Mac, Windows and Linux. Because of this, many people thought it was a problem with the internet, but in fact, it is related to the program.
Affected users started to see their tabs with the infinite opening process, without any pages being shown. It’s not yet clear what causes the problem, but it appears to be a glitch. loop infinite in Firefox’s HTTP3 implementation. In this case, the browser process has conflicts that can affect performance and even crash the application.
On Tuesday (11), Mozilla released a browser update that may have contributed to the bug. As the update brought a backend based on the updated protocol, there may be some kind of incompatibility that prevents the pages from displaying successfully. As some users reported, the issue has been around for some time, but it has surfaced now because the browser has started trying to connect to the organization’s data analytics servers.
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The HTTP3 protocol is still a technology designed for the future, with little adherence from most websites. Even the pages that use it often keep a replacement on the old model to avoid compatibility failures.
How to fix Firefox crash that won’t load websites
Until an official fix is released, the only way to prevent infinite loading is to disable HTTP3 entirely in Firefox. Mozilla said it already did this remotely this Thursday (13) — just restart the app — but you can follow the steps below to check if everything is ok:
- Open a new Firefox window;
- type it about:config in the address bar to open the settings screen;
- Look for the configuration network.http.http3.enabled;
- Check the “false” option to disable it
- Close the browser and restart it for the setting to take effect
This short tutorial should help temporarily get rid of the problem, and can be applied to all desktop versions of Firefox, regardless of platform. When a patch is released, just revert the settings and browse HTTP3-compatible services as normal.
If you’re still affected, please restart your browser. We’re sorry for any inconvenience caused. #firefoxdown #firefox
— Firefox 🔥 (@firefox) January 13, 2022
Firefox 96 was released with a safer cookie policy and minor tweaks, with optimizations for Linux users. The browser has brought a tweak that will identify when the machine is low on available memory, so it can put tabs to rest to avoid system overload or free up resources for other tasks.
