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It has been 3 days now since I upgraded to Firefox 3.6.11 and I haven’t had a single crash so it looks like the upgrade fixed the continual crash cause. Now I am sure it was not the extensions that were the root source of the problem. Hope everyone else is so lucky with their problems.

Well, it’s been about 24 hours now and since installing the latest update I haven’t had a Firefox crash. If I can make it through about 72 hours without a crash I will assume the problem was with Firefox code and that it has been fixed.

Jim, thanks for the tip. I seem to have heard of Firefox safe mode but to be honest it never crossed my mind to try it out. Your suggestion of removing all and replacing one at a time is exactly what I would do in case of a Windows problem analysis but since I have another browser to turn to I never considered doing it with Firefox. Besides all that I am using only a few plugins and they have all worked fine on other versions of Firefox so I really don’t expect them to be a problem that is correctable.

Within minutes of my last reply I received the FF update.

I haven’t installed AVG antivirus but if I found it interfering with and application I would remove the app, not the antivirus. I have tried removing add ons to fix the problem but nothing seems to work so I am enduring the problem until I get the next update. If that doesn’t fix it then I will just do without Fire Fox and maybe give Chrome a try. I have IE 9 Beta on the computer and so far it looks great with the exception of a couple of things like my Roboform not working with the Beta. I’m happy to hear that FF 3.6.11 is out.

Yes I am running a new and clean profile. I did copy my old bookmarks file from the old profile and insert in the new one but everything else is new. My settings haven’t changed in recent memory so I don’t think that’s the problem and since I did a clean reinstall I can’t imaging a file being corrupted. The most likely of the possibilities you mentioned is a bad extension. I only use 8 extensions though and most are pretty standard things (AdBlock Plus, Autofills, Roboform, Java, McAfee Site Advisor, NoScript, Skype and Better Privacy. The only recently added one is Better Privacy but some of the others like NoScript are updated pretty often. I will start by disabling one at a time to see if I can find a source of the problem and if I do I will post my findings here.

Glad to help and hope eM Client meets yours and your wife’s needs. Believe me, I know all about hard to please female companions. My wife insisted on using a free version of Incredimail for a very long time until I finally got tired of trying to fix problems in that monster from Hell. I made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. If she wanted my tech support she was going to use Outlook or Outlook Express because they were fairly simple to repair and to customize. As for eM Client, the out of the box appearance is a little too stark black and white for my tastes so I started out by modifying colors, fonts, etc until I got something more eye appealing. Just a hint if you get ragged on for its appearance.

Good luck.
Cecil

No it is from London. It sounds like you either got the wrong thing or forgot to install in the proper language. Go to : http://www.emclient.com/ and download from there and i will definitely come in USA English flavor.

I installed eMail Client a couple of weeks ago to give it a try and so far I am really impressed with it. I am still running it in parallel with Outlook until I am fully convinced of its viability. The program is freeware for a single copy being run on a single computer. Both visually and operationally it very much resembles Outlook but it far more configurable than the latter. Support seems to be excellent and better than what you would find on most freeware. I noticed a couple of very minor bugs when running it on Windows 7 64bit but they were totally inconsequential to proper operation of the program. As it stands right now I will be switching over to eMail Client as my sole email package very soon.

As I said in an earlier post, I tried out Thunderbird for a few months but it had some strange habits I cold not seem to get past so I abandoned it and reinstalled Outlook 2003 which I already own.

Based on the fact that the computer ran for 3 to 4 hours in safe mode it is unlikely that you have a virus problem, a bad power supply or a bad motherboard. Any of those items or bad memory (RAM) could cause shutdown problems but they are not generally self correcting. As several other people have said, the most likely problem is a buildup of lint in the computer. The most heat sensitive item in a computer is its processor/CPU and if the heat sink atop it becomes dirty with lint, pet hair or whatever then the computer can shut down in a matter of seconds after it has started. A non functioning fan on the processor will actually prevent the computer from even trying to start.

If you have a local service shop that you can take the entire computer case to, they should be able to get you running quickly but that can be an expensive experience. If you know of a neighbor who is even moderately tech savvy then he or she could disconnect the computer take it outdoors and remove two screws holding the side panel in place and blow most of the dust out of the computer. All that is needed is a $3 can of compressed air. If that fails to correct your problem then a shop visit is inevitable.

Afterthought. if you live in a metropolitan area, ask around to see if there is a Computer User Group in town. Many times, members of those groups will offer their help on problems such as yours for a very modest charge or in many cases for free.

I tried to give up on Outlook and switch to Thunderbird. That was a mistake, I traded one devil for another. Thunderbird has some good features but is really lacking in some simple areas. The problem that finally drove me back to Outlook (until I find a better solution) was TBird’s (mis)handling of forwarded attachments. That’s a long story and I won’t bore you with it. Just suffice it to say that if you hate Microsoft’s support you aren’t like to fall in love with Mozilla’s. Yeah, I know it is open source and driven by volunteerism but that doesn’t mean a lot if you are in trouble and need some help.

I tried one of the last versions of Eudora too but it would not run correctly on Windows 7 so I wrote it off as a bad replacement choice too.

Cecebee

It appears that the target for the link referenced several times in this thread has been changed or removed.

Howard, No the cleanup file you need is not nearly that old. I just looked for the Windows XP software and drivers for the J6480 and at the very bottom of the list is a file “HP Officejet Software & Driver Removal Utility, version 10.0.1 of size 1.16 MB. That same file is valid for Vista but there is a newer one for Windows 7.

As I said before, I am using the HP software on an Officejet J6450 and it runs fine on Windows 2k, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. I know that is not comforting when you are struggling to get things to work but I think it does say that the software can work as advertised. Having been around Windows since its birth I have seen many inexplicable problems that somehow disappeared with a new clean installation of Windows. I know that is not what anyone wants to hear but it does seem to be another feature of Windows that none of us intended buying.

Good luck!

Cecil

Hi Guys,
I sympathize with you for the problems you are having and I can certainly understand why you don’t harbor any warm feelings toward HP.

One problem I had in trying to install from the downloaded 256 MB file was that it only offered to install to a USB or a Wireless installation. The option to install to ethernet was missing from the option menu. That’s when I tried uninstalling the previously failed software suite. I uninstalled, ran a registry cleaner, emptied all temp files and defragged, still no success! I finally downloaded the official HP Cleanup utility (abt. 3 MB), Ran it through four cycles of clean and reboot and finally I was running normally again and got the option to install to an ethernet setup.

So, if you are having problems running the downloaded software I suggest you go through the cleanup routine before proceeding. The utility has 4 levels of cleanup and they must be run sequentially with a reboot required after each step.

As for not having a CD based program you can get around that by unpacking the download and burning the resultant files to a CD. That step is really unnecessary since you can easily run the download from Windows repeatedly.

Good luck!

Cecil Britton

This thread is rather long so I might have missed something already mentioned; if I did I apologize in advance. I have an HP Officejet J6450 that gave me problems with installing for Windows 7. Specifically I could not install Solution Manager and that prevented the printer’s scanner unit from functioning from the Windows 7 computer. I mention that simply because it never would install until this January when HP put a new complement of software on their support site. I installed that and the problems all disappeared.

As for not being able to install on an XP machine I can only say something that someone already said; you must install the full complement of software from the CD or a download on each computer in the network for them to connect to the printer.

I know my printer is a different model but I’m sure it is very much similar from a manufacturing standpoint. I have the printer attached on a wired network to 2 XP computers, one Windows 7 Pro., and one Vista Ultimate. Via wireless I connect to one Windows 2000 Pro. and one XP Pro computers. All computers have available service packs and patches installed.

I guess my suggestion is to be sure you have the latest software and it is installed on all networked computers. As for the BIOS suggestion, it may be valid but most likely from my experience with tech support people it is a last ditch parachute for use when nothing in their script has fixed a problem.

Cecil Britton