My next Luddite question:

@tsarstepan,

Quote:

..you're positive that it IS an actual Norton message and not a bogus pop

Yes, I'm sure of this.

Quote:

Chrome is smaller and leaner and uses less of the computer resources.

OK, I'm seriously considering the Chrome alternative.
I'll do a bit of online research & see what I can see.

Quote:

I mean if Firefox knows about this issue and its on the back burner in terms of problems being fixed....

That's certainly how it's sounding.

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@msolga,

It's not necessarily a problem with firefox (though FF does have a well-known memory hole issue). I have FF on several computers that also run Norton and have never had this problem.

You might be experiencing a conflict if norton is running background tasks at the same time you are trying to do something like run video. Can you see if Norton is scheduled to scan your system at certain times?

I also wonder how much memory you have... on the computer of course

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@dadpad,

It's a pre-loved Dell ("Optilex GX 260) if that means anything. (??)
I've had it for a couple of years. It's been terrific till this CPU issue emerged a few months ago.

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I have bever had a problem with FF.
Its the only browswer I use. I did try chrome but got lost in the new geegaws and placement of stuff.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

It's not necessarily a problem with firefox (though FF does have a well-known memory hole issue). I have FF on several computers that also run Norton and have never had this problem.

It might not be, Cyclo. (As if I'd know for sure! Wink

)
I was just going by the information supplied by Norton. As I said, it directs me to a FF file as the source of the high CPU problem.)
And also the FF users' online sites.

I wonder if windows XP could have anything to do with it?
Who knows? Confused

Quote:

I also wonder how much memory you have... on the computer of course

I'm not sure how I'd know. (A bit more Luddite at this point in time than I'd imagined!)

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I'd suggest the first step is a good clean up if you dont already.
some people use registry mechanic but i prefer ccleaner

Download ccleaner from here then install it
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download/standard
* Now run Ccleaner with the default options (that means don’t change anything) to clean out temporary files.
* Only use the default settings on the Windows Tab and select Run Cleaner. Do not run any other options from other tabs.
* Also it is highly recommended to login to all other User Accounts on the PC.
o Run CCleaner on each account. This can greatly reduce scan time and log sizes from the later scanning you will do below.
o If you don’t see Ccleaner’s link when logging into the other accounts, just go to the C:\Program Files\Ccleaner folder and double click on the ccleaner.exe file to run it. You can also create a shortcut to the file on the Desktop of your other user accounts to make it easier to run in the future

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My Norton report always leads me to (FF) plugin-container.exe as the source of the problem.

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Now download superantispywear free edition.
http://www.superantispyware.com/
and
malwarebytes
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
install and run both of those One at a time.

lets just see what they throw up.

1 Reply

@dadpad,

Thank you, dp.
Will do.

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@dadpad,

Will do that, too.

Thank you.
Much appreciated!

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Ok container>exe is an add on.
go to tools > add ons.
see if you can find container.exe and disable it

edit: you can still do the cleanup but at your leisure. some of the scans take a while so maybe put them off till you can set them running and go do something else.
its good computer hygene and should be done on a regular basis. For you i suggest evry couple of months.

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@dadpad,

Will do that right now.

1 Reply

@msolga,

msolga wrote:

My Norton report always leads me to (FF) plugin-container.exe as the source of the problem.

AH!!! Okay, now we're getting somewhere!

Plugin Container is a new feature of firefox that actually is helping you more than you think - or at least, it's supposed to help and it has helped me somewhat. What it does is wall off certain plugins - which are little programs inside firefox that let it do new or different things - from the entire program itself. That way, when something goes wrong with one of those programs, Plugin Container crashes - but Firefox doesn't hang and it doesn't crash. That way you don't see your whole browser freeze up and hang, so you lose your post here on A2K.

Common programs that run inside the Plugin Container are.... video and game software, just like you describe.

Here's how you check your memory -

go to START --> Control Panels and choose System

Double-click on that and the very next window you'll see will indicate your available RAM down at the bottom. It should say '768 MB of RAM' or somesuch.

This actually explains a lot. Plugin container works great, but it assumes - I believe - that you are running a somewhat newer model computer than you might be. Let us know about the RAM if you can find it, that might be a key to the puzzle here.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@dadpad,

dadpad wrote:

Ok container>exe is an add on.
go to tools > add ons.
see if you can find container.exe and disable it

edit: you can still do the cleanup but at your leisure. some of the scans take a while so maybe put them off till you can set them running and go do something else.
its good computer hygene and should be done on a regular basis. For you i suggest evry couple of months.

I don't think that the Plugin Container is an add-on. It's a part of FF 3.6.4 and above. I don't think you can disable it.

Cycloptichorn

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could be the ram as well.

I have two sticks. 2mb and 1MB
pretty cheap and easy to buy and install yourself.

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@msolga,

Its not there, dp.
But then, each time I've followed Norton's identification of the offending file, it's been in "my documents", not in add ons.
How about, the next time I receive a Norton high CPU usage report which directs me there (which will be pretty soon! Wink

) I just remove it?

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@Cycloptichorn,

This is getting more complicated by the minute, Cyclo! Smile

Quote:

AH!!! Okay, now we're getting somewhere!

Plugin Container is a new feature of firefox that actually is helping you more than you think - or at least, it's supposed to help and it has helped me somewhat. What it does is wall off certain plugins - which are little programs inside firefox that let it do new or different things - from the entire program itself. That way, when something goes wrong with one of those programs, Plugin Container crashes - but Firefox doesn't hang and it doesn't crash. That way you don't see your whole browser freeze up and hang, so you lose your post here on A2K.

Thing is, I've recently have actually been experiencing a higher number FF crashes than normal.

I hope I'm not giving you & dp a headache over this!

1 Reply

no headaches at all MsO

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I just Googled "firefox + plugin-container.exe + problems"

This (the last user post on the site) is closest to what I've been experiencing (with Windows XP, too) .

This user's solution may or not be OK. I don't know:

Quote:

I'm using Firefox under Win XP. I found plugin-container.exe was taking up to 99% of my CPU. So I did the following.... From Firefox, tools, add-ons, click plugins, scroll down to shockwave flash, click disable. Everything now runs much better. If I browse to a page where I have to use it, then I can enable it. But so far I've not had a use for it. Seems mainly to be used for adverts!

Proposed solution for plugin-container.exe issue:
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/707504

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@dadpad,

no headaches at all MsO

cyclo may well be ontrack with his RAM suggestion. If you had a bit more ram Its possible this wouldnt happen. It doesnt happen for me.

Another thing you might consider trying is downloading a clean copy of FF
You'll have to delete FF then use IE Internet explorere to download it.

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