Any Firefox users having massive problems w/v.152.0.1 (latest LTS) on older OSX ?

[eppur_se_muova]

Firefox is essentially nonfunctional for me. All I get is the spinning beachball, with something trying to load and never finishing. Apparently multiple processes get launched , but never lead anywhere (had dozens according to OSX Activity Monitor). I've downloaded two updates in the last few days and performance went rapidly and catastrophically downhill after that.

I was trying to access a bank account tonight -- can't do this in Safari for this particular Web page, don't know why not -- and now I can't even open a Web page anywhere.

[canetoad]

1. Do you have an alternative browser?

I use waterfox - a firefox clone and there are often giant fuckups after updates. I've resorted to using one browser that I keep completely clean of add-ons, tweaks etc, for anything financial.

Day to day stuff on a dispensible profile. Speaking of which - have you tried making a new profile in Firefox? May seem like a lot of work, but it's often the only way to solve a decades old browser that's had too many tweaks done.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Unfortunately not. Safari cannot access this bank page, for whatever reason. (It's a very old version of Safari)

I'm using an older iMac with an updated OpenCore patch just to run a later version of OSX 10.15 -- "Catalina" (I'm so sick of these stupid names, which I can never keep straight).

I tried to find a Vivaldi download, which I've run on old iMacs before, but Vivaldi's Web page only list newer Mac installs. Windows versions are available back to v.1, but their "old versions" page doesn't include anything but Windows.

Thanks for mentioning waterfox. I was remembering things like seamonkey and iceweasel were out there, but hadn't seen them mentioned in a long time so I suspected they were no longer supported.

I tried to install Linux on this drive, but most of the partitions are formatted for AFPS, which Linux can't open, and the Linux partition disappears when I boot in OSX, so data transfer is a problem. When I'm satisfied my OSX backup is safe I'm planning to reformat all the APFS partitions -- if I can't run this version of OSX from an older format partition I'll just install Linux and forget that it was ever a Mac.

[canetoad]

6. You may not know

About this site: https://www.oldversion.com/

Some good, old, reliable programs to be found here for Win, Mac, Linux etc.

[usonian]

2. Depends on how old.

FFX has been steady on Ventura.

Does the bank have an app? I use one to scan the odd check. Older iOS, IIRC.

FFX works with my many extensions. I used to have to back down to Safari to do banking. No more.

Good luck.

[Tasmanian Devil]

3. Just some thoughts ...

Hi, just some thoughts ...

1) Reboot and see if it still fails. If multiple processes are running a reboot will at least nuke those and give you a chance.
2) But it sounds to me like one of its threads is crashing on launch (and the user interface is hanging waiting for it). Easiest thing to try is to launch Firefox with the Shift key held down (just during launch) to try and see if it'll work in "safe" mode.
3) If neither of those brings joy, then next steps are to start cleaning up the session store files in your Library, but that's kinda complex for now. Give a shout if more help needed.

In the meantime, try Brave, or (ugh) Google Chrome or something else to get to your bank.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Shift key while launching an application ? What does that do ? Is that general ?

Thanks for the suggestion. Things are almost tolerable now, but I'll remember to try that.

[Tasmanian Devil]

7. Good grief

My error, it's not Shift, it's Option while launching. I was getting it confused with a different safe-mode (OS-level safe booting macOS). And Firefox "Safe" mode has been renamed Troubleshoot Mode.

So hold OPTION while launching Firefox and you should see a dialog that prompts whether or not to open in Troubleshooting Mode.

Bonus: that dialog also prompts whether or not you'd like to instead do a "Refresh Firefox" which claims to reset a bunch of things while still leaving your bookmarks (and other important stuff) alone!

And frankly, if it's still giving you problems, I'd try "Refresh Firefox" and see if that helps.

Oh, refs for more reading: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/diagnose-firefox-issues-using-troubleshoot-mode
older: https://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_Mode

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Thanks, will give it a try. nt