I've had several private inqueries as to the solution I found for my
previous problem of Firefox being stuck in a futex loop. As I've just been
asked again and in each case the individuals said they tried searching first.
Since I don't think I ever posted the solution here this message is doing so
now so that future individuals who do the correct think and search first will
find their answer without having to wait on my response. :)
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My problems were caused by the SwitchProxy extension. What's happening is
that it has its own auto-update routine which ignores Firefox's own settings.
It attempts to auto-update and the SwitchProxy site is known to drop from
time to time. As a result it hangs Firefox until it times out. You can
disable it by running Firefox in safe mode (-safemode on the command line) and
removing it from Firefox's extensions. While I found it useful I did not like
the fact it would prevent my browser from opening every few months and did not
honor Firefox's setting to not auto-update. :(
If you do not run SwitchProxy it might be another extension which has
autoupdating that is ignoring Firefox's settings. -safemode will get you into
the browser but it'll be trial and error to find the offending extension.
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--
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
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