Firefox background tabs won't load properly
November 11, 2010 12:02 PM

Firefox background tabs: will appear but won't load

When I middle click on a web page link to open a new tab in the background, the new tab does appear in the background next to the currently open tab, but it doesn't download the page from the internet until I click on the new tab to make it the new foreground tab. This is all the more puzzling since I have moved my Firefox profile (via MozBackup) from another computer where Firefox is behaving perfectly. Why is it waiting for me to click on the new tab? Any thoughts on how to fix it?

Using Windows 7 64 bit, Firefox 3.6.12 with Tab Mix Plus.
posted by paphun123 to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)
Does the behavior persist if you disable Tab Mix Plus?
posted by bizwank at 1:59 PM on November 11, 2010


I have something similar happen occasionally. Close Firefox, then open the process manager, and kill Firefox.
Now try again - does the problem go away?
posted by devnull at 2:02 PM on November 11, 2010


Yes, it persists with disabling Tab Mix Plus and with killing FF thru the task manager. Other thoughts?
posted by paphun123 at 2:52 PM on November 11, 2010


What happens if you start Firefox in its safe mode?

What happens if you create a second, completely clean profile?
posted by flabdablet at 9:11 PM on November 11, 2010


After 5 or 6 reinstallations of different versions of FF (3.5 vs 3.6) and inserting multiple backup profiles, FF started again working as it should. Unfortunately, I have no idea what made the difference. Thanks to everyone who thought about this problem for me.
posted by paphun123 at 8:43 AM on November 12, 2010


About 5 minutes after my last post it stopped working correctly again, so I did a clean install, including the 22 addons (the reason I was resisting a clean install). So far, so good. Thanks again.
posted by bbranden1 at 10:54 AM on November 12, 2010


I believe I remember reading that there were known profile corruption issues that could arise from attempting to share a profile between a FF3.5 and a FF3.6 installation; apparently the 3.5->3.6 transition does something to the profile that makes 3.5 do Bad Things.

Also, if you have enough add-ons and reinstalling them all is painful, it might help just to grab their .xpi files and keep them all in a folder somewhere. That way, you can do a mass reinstall just by copying all those .xpi's into a profile's Extensions folder before launching Firefox.
posted by flabdablet at 6:08 PM on November 12, 2010


Great idea, thanks.
posted by bbranden1 at 7:11 PM on November 12, 2010


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