Youtube/Flash making Firefox crash?

[Elcura]

Well, I'm not totally certain this is what's happening, but it seems that after a while of watching videos on youtube (one time while downloading, but I'm not sure about that) Firefox crashes completely. After that happens and I close the page I can't use Firefox again unless I restart my computer. This has only happened recently, cause usually I like to listen to music on youtube while browsing other pages or doing work.

Any ideas on what could be going on?

Oh yeah, one time when it happened I lost all sound from stuff like my media player (music, movies etc) from applications that have nothing to do with Firefox, so I can't say for certain that's the core problem. But I dunno where else to start.

[Elcura]

Alright, so apparently it's not just youtube - though if hotmail uses flash then it might be that. When Firefox crashed everything just went to shit. Couldn't open any new applications or modify ones that were already open. I couldn't restart or shut down my computer normally (hard restart) and generally the only thing I can do is open folders. Firefox will crash randomly while just browsing pages then it all goes down hill. Guess I'll try IE for a while and see if it happens on that.

[Cephius]

Few suggstions:

-Virus/Malware scans, just in case.

-Uninstall/Reinstall Adobe Flash for Firefox.

-Uninstall/Reinstall your audio drivers, check for a newer version

See if any of those help. Also, when Firefox locks up like that and won't launch after you force quit, it means the process is still in the background somewhere. Go to the Task Manager > Processes > Find Firefox.exe > End Process and you should be able to restart it without rebooting your machine.

[Elcura]

Oh, I did forget to mention that I can't bring up the task manager which is why I needed to restart. Usually when that happens with Firefox I just end process and start again, and I would have if I could. But I'll start with virus and malware scans, any good ones that I can get for free?

[Cephius]

See the sticky at the top of the forum, personally I'd give Malware Bytes a run. If you don't use antivirus at all, try installing Microsoft Security Essentials.

[Elcura]

Thanks a lot! Hopefully this will work...