Firefox crashes when using search engine

Every time I use a search engine such as Yahoo or Google, Firefox crashes. It did not start doing this until two or three days ago. I tried downloading the newest version of Firefox to see if this would help the problem, but it did not. I have sent in a few crash reports, but have not heard anything back. Does anyone know why this is happening or how I can fix this problem? It's nothing major, just annoying that whenever I want or need to search something I have to use IE.

 

What AV (antivirus) software do you use?

 

Welcome to the Forum, sweettgirl88

Open Firefox in Safe Mode, then try using the search engines. If Firefox doesn't crash, then that would suggest that an extension is the problem.

If so, then enable extensions one by one to determine which one is the culprit.

 

I have McAfee on my computer from the college I'm going to. It's required to be installed on my computer, but I don't have it on most of the time. SystemSuite is the program I use the most for now until I get a hold of something else.

 

It is highly recommended to use only one anti virus program, even tho you say that McAfee is disabled. Have you tried uninstalling SystemSuite?

Did you try using Safe Mode to check out the add-ons?

 

Even without starting in Safe Mode, it would help to know what is in Tools|Add-ons and give a list of Extentions and Themes, if any, although starting in Firefox Safe Mode would
tell if any add-ons are causing a problem.

 

sweettgirl88 ...

To expand on Ramona's suggestion ... as far as I know, it's not possible to enable an extension from Safe Mode (I can't on my two computers, anyway). Instead, it would be necessary to open FF normally, disable all installed extensions, then enable them one at a time, restarting FF each time.

 

Jim,

You are absolutely correct.

 

Opening in Safe Mode would tell us if an Extention or Theme is causing problems (maybe).
If so, the only way to get anywhere is as Jim said. I can be laborious if several extentions are installed. I had a similar experience, and I, first, checked the Theme. Still problems when I went back to the default Theme. Then, after disabling all Extentions, I renabled two at a time. After finding the culprit, I got rid of as many Extentions which I could.

 

Sweetgirl, you say that this problem started just two or three days ago. Can you think of any changes you made, any program or add-on you downloaded, or any dodgy websites you visited two or three days ago? Also, have you run a full virus scan and an anti-malware scan? If not, it might be useful to do so.

 

Even a blind pig finds an acorn every now and then.

 

The only extension that is listed is the XPL LinkScanner Firefox 2.7.2. I'll try disabling it and see what happens. Thank you all so much for the help. I hope it works. I don't remember going to any websites though. Mainly just stuff for research on projects at school then the same basic like 5 or 6 websites that I go to everyday.

 

I disabled that extension and so far it seems to be working...
Thank you all very much!

 

sweettgirl88 ...

Glad you found the answer. Thanks for posting back.

 

I had the same problem, and yes, it was extremely annoying because it would crash each and every time, and not just with search engines. If the page was busy, i.e. a lot of flash, ad boxes, etc. it took only seconds to crash. I couldn't even read a simple news story from trusted websites like CNN. I have disabled AVG Safe Search in the "manager add-ons" tab and have been crash free for 2 days now. I got the hint to do this from this post, so thanks all.

 

I have never had a crash, but I disabled AVG Safe Search almost immediately, because it is grayed out, so Optiond are not accessib;e. It seems to be incompatible with FF. Please report in a week or so, if crash free. As for the others, I am not sure if there is any connection, but as a rule, a grayed out extention should be disabled.

 

seeettgirl88 and Nokanda may find 'Finjan Secure Browsing' - which flags up dodgy sites in search results - to be a better option than AVG Safe Search, or Linkscanner (assuming the latter is intended to do the same). AVG Safe Search was breaking Firefox 3 for me - though not to the extent of a full crash. However, depending on the Firefox version being used, it may be necessary to make Finjan compatible by opening its Install.rdf file in Wordpad (or equivalent) and upping its maxversion to encompass the Firefox version number. This file can be found in the extension folder within the profile folder of Firefox, within the precise folder for the particular extension. Where all that may be found depends on the version of Windows you are running. In Vista it's under Cassuming that is where Windows is installed)/users/USERNAME/AppData/Roaming/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles...

Edit: bah! That smiley was intended to be a colon-open-bracket

 

This site does a few weird things. And, it is only this site.
I am unfamiliar with the other add-ons, but McAfeeSiteAdvisor does a great job and cause no problems, with Searches.

 

Westside, no crashes whatsoever since I disabled AVG Safe Search. I'm using the newly updated (it updated itself yesterday) FireFox 3.0.4. I don't do much web surfing and no one else uses my computer so it's a little pointless to have that software installed anyway. As long as AVG keeps me virus free I'm happy.

 

Good to know that things are under control. But, I cannot tell how AVG Safe Search could cause problems, as it is incompatible, but I disabled it, just in case.