I woke up to an update from Windows on July 12th, 2017. It happened in the background while working and it restarted by itself. I usually let these happen, so no big deal. When it restarted, I was in an endless loop of firefox crashing. Uninstalled, reinstalled, lost all bookmarks, etc. Very frustrated.
I was only able to get firefox working by going back 2 major versions (52). Here’s how:
- Went to FF older versions page: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-older-version-of-firefox
- Chose the older versions directory: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/
- Went to 52 directory: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/52.0.2/
- Then choose the OS (Win64 in my case) and then your language. Then downloaded exe.
- Uninstalled FF
- Installed downloaded 52 version
- UNCHECKED install maintenance part (so it wouldn’t auto upgrade the browser)
- Crashed on startup and asked about going into safe mode. Chose safe mode. (This actually crashed in newer versions as well.) This time, it stayed open.
- Closed safe mode.
- Opened browser as usual. Worked!
- Did some browsing to check, then wrote this article.
- Tested updating to newest FF (update history showed it had been updated, but the version was 52.)
- Press the ALT key to show menu at the top of the screen. HELP | ABOUT FIREFOX
- Click the update button. Finished. Asked to restart FF. Restarted and still works.
- Back to FF 54