How to disable plugin-container
Plugin-container.exe is a Firefox process that is used to load plugins separately so if a plugin crashes for whatever reason, Firefox won’t be affected by the crash and will stay responsive.
Since there are a lot of people experiencing problems with the plugin-container process I wanted to provide you with two easy methods for disabling it.
In older versions of Firefox it was possible to disable plugin-container.exe by following the steps below.
First method
- Enter about:config in your address bar
- Search for dom.ipc.plugins.enabled
- Set their values to false
Sadly the above method doesn’t seem to work anymore with the newer versions of Firefox. Luckily there is a different workaround which can achieve the same exact result by setting a system or a user environment variable. Follow the steps below if the first method did not work for you.
Second method
- Right click on your computer icon on the desktop and click properties
- Go to
Advance system settings - Click the button called
"Environment Variables" - Click the “New” button under
User variablesorSystem variablesdepending if you want the change to affect all the users on the system or just the one you are currently logged as - Set the variable name to
MOZ_DISABLE_OOP_PLUGINSand its value to1
And that is all you have to do. Now simply restart Firefox and you will notice that the plugin-container.exe process will not be used any more.
OK, OK This one will work……Sort of.
Basically Don’t upgrade past Firefox 47.0.1 to 48.0.2 or newer.
Firefox 47.0.1 does not have a plugin container. So I reinstalled this older version and very quickly had to go into advanced and uncheck auto updates.
At the risk of crying wolf. I think I did find the solution.
After doing this, choose Troubleshooting Information under Firefox Help
The using the “Refresh Firefox” below the “Give Firefox a tune up” upper right hand corner. Has put the Plugin-Container.exe back under control.
Like 3k instead of the 500K it was using before.
BEWARE though it did reset some other settings not associated with plugins like: Menu Bar and Bookmark appearances. It did not loose any data but you need to simply reset or add back Menu Bar and Bookmark menu appearance to see normal information and options.
This FAILED also. After you restart Firefox it will automatically run the newest version and therefore supersede it’s own Refresh.
Neither worked for me running Windows Vista, Firefox 48.0.2……sadly. The problem only started a few weeks ago.
However My Method did work.
Go to Troubleshooting Information under the Firefox help (drop down from Menu bar) Upper right hand corner was an option to restart Firefox with Plugins Disabled. I can’t say exactly because after you do this the option is no longer there. So after you select restart Firefox with Plugins Disabled (or its closest verbiage) a popup “Firefox Safe Mode” will appear. Choose Start in Safe Mode. After you do this and restart, Plugin-Container.exe For Firefox no longer appears in the Task Manager nor is it using my CPU usage.
BEWARE though it did reset some other settings not associated with plugins like: Menu Bar and Bookmark appearances. It did not loose any data but you need to simply reset or add back Menu Bar and Bookmark menu appearance to see normal information and options.
SORRY SORRY SORRY, AFTER A FEW TRIALS THIS DID NOT WORK. It went back to the problem stage.
thank you thank you! your 2nd fix ok!
OMG, the second method worked. I have been dealing with this for years! Thank you!!
Thanks for it works very much
Sadly, neither worked for me :(
Running Windows Vista. Neither worked for me, sadly :(
Second method worked for me. I’m using windows 8.0 and firefox 32.0. No more crashes.
Thanks a lot for this Great workaround
For Windows XP-SP3. Yes, plugin-container.exe was using up a tremendous amount of system resources and in general being a real nuisance. So, after reading all of the many and varied ways of disabling it, my choice was this: open Mozilla folder in Program files, drag plugin-container.exe out of the folder and put it anywhere you want, thereby changing the path, and, voila! It will bother you no more – unless of course you want it to bother you again, in which case, just put it back where it came from.
What a great tip! I have been putting up with Flash Player crashing in Firefox for months. I use Firefox v.36.0.4 and Windows 7 on a 64bit machine.
Used your Method 2, and once I restarted Firefox, no more crashes when playing videos. CooLMinE,thank you!
Hi, I can’t find the settings options you wrote about. I’m using Windows XP, and if I right click on the Firefox icon on my desktop, there are none of the options you listed under Advanced in any of the tabs.
But, the workaround I found was to install the QuickJava extension. Then you can just turn on and off Java And Flash. It’s just a button on the menu bar and very easy to use. If I turn off Flash, then I can open task manager and delete plugin-container, and it will stay off until I turn on Flash when I need it on YouTube, etc.
It’s an ENORMOUS memory and CPU hog. It’s frustrating that Mozilla hasn’t fixed this problem. Even if you have a lot of memory, why would you want to use up another 1/2 of your resources compared to what Firefox already uses up? For instance right now I have 6 windows open with one page using Flash with a video on it in the background, and Firefox is using 348,880 K of RAM.
Now, I’ll turn Flash back on using Quick Java extension – and plugin container opens up and is now using 128,016 K. Firefox is using 15% CPU, plugin container is using 78%.
And the Mozilla forums tell you to run around in circles, restarting in safe mode, checking your extensions, on and on – when the problem is plugin-container. It’s just nuts.
And the funny thing is, even on my old XP with 2GB RAM, I don’t have problems with Flash crashing with plugin-container turned off.
C’mon, Mozilla – fix this hog!
Great Method! I am very happy. Plug-in-Container lol :-)
Thanks buddy…
Your fix did indeed speed up my system in Firefox 35, however I was still not getting Adobe Flash videos. I thought I had updated to the latest version of Flash, but discovered I had not disabled my anti-virus program in Norton. Once I did that, the update downloaded and everything has worked fine. Thanks a bunch for your advice.
hello i am running Firefox version 34.0.5 and running windows 8.1 64 bit and i did a compatibility test then Submitted it to Microsoft the findings and it says that the plugin container is incompatible along with when i do the the test then submit appling both to the firefox prgram it self and i have one more inqurie when i go into the properties from the plugin container it states the widows version as Version 6.3 do you have any ideas
it also does not matter if i disable the plugin container in any instance because as it is fire Firefox still becomes unresponsive anyway
well thanks a fucking A lot i needed some insight still have yet to receive any kind of any some I’ll try to be patient sorry
I HAVE WINDOWS 8.1 THE ADOBE FLASH PLUGIN,SHOCK WAVE PLUGIN AND UNRESPONSIVE PLUGIN CONSTANTLY CRASHED UNTIL I TRIED YOUR METHOD ( THANK YOU )
Neither worked for me
thank you thank you! your 2nd fix worked like a charm!
I tried method 1, it didn’t work, so I want to try method 2, only problem is that im stuck on the 2nd step, finding the “Advance system settings”. Do i need to use the My Computer via desktop or from the windows page (that you see when you click on the windows icon at the bottom left corner of the screen). I’m using Vista btw.
Please disregard the previous request. Did a bunch of diging and managed to locate the file and change to false.
All seems to be working fine including addons.
Sytem backto normal speed and stability.
Thanks
Hi Cool:
I’m still using XP Pro SP3, V 5.1 build 2600, 2.5 RAM
I’m not able to use fix 1 or 2 for removing plugin_container.exe.
FF V 32.0.2
Can you help with instructions for XP?
Cheers,
Bill
Hello,
I am using Firefox Portable and I also have troubles with Flashplayer, earlier it was “unresponsive plugin” and now “plugin container.exe”.
My question is: Does your solution applies to Portable version or only to installed version?
Thanks
I have not tried the portable version myself sadly. But since the method is easily reversable you can always test it and revert the changes back if it doesn’t work for that version.
AWESOME!!!!!!
Second method an absolute cracker
Thanks a million.
I had the problem of the Tab recreating the plugin-container even though I went through all the steps, above where it should have been gone. But when I opened a new tab, it would create a plugin-contaier.exe process.
My solution was
1. Get off the BETA side of Firefox updates. I don’t think was the cause, but I was surprised I was on it.
2. Uninstall Flash and put in back in.
3. I used the Flash uninstall utility http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-windows.html
4. Restarted
5. Opened Firefox, went to a site that needed Flash, and let Firefox do the install.
I think my previous Flash install was corrupted in some manner. I think its solved now
tnx for this post… its very usefull
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you. Thank you!
I’m brain farting I suppose – where did you wish for me to type the SET command. From the start|run|cmd or from someplace else ?
The environment variables for User & System both show MOZ_DISABLE_OOP_PLUGINS with a value of 1 (right click my computer | Properties | Advanced | Environment Variables …
I did reset firefox which made the problem worse – in that I had to kill the plugin-container process 5-7 times for each new open tab. Even after changing all plugins to never activate. But get this … from my earlier point/observation the 9 pinned placeholders were scrambled a bit and in my attempt to reposition them by moving and deleting a bunch of recently visited pages … the next time I opened up a new tab it took like 15+ kill processes (ie around the number of url/boxes I deleted) to finally stop the plugin-container from reloading. Then when I opened up a new tab again it only took one kill process. Hence – I think that may lead to the solution in some way. Meaning – opening up a new tab spawned the first occurrence of plugin-container but the environment variable suppressed any others from loading unless I go and delete additional boxes and then it cues up a one time plugin-container for each event. Am I making sense ? So, perhaps a variable could shut off that 9 panel bookmark page all together – any ideas ?
I can actually duplicate your problem to some extend so this is not something that affects only you by the looks of it (minus the crashing and the ram usage). In my case if I drop a URL in one of those 9 boxes the plugin-container starts, but if I close it (or restart Firefox) the plugin-container process doesn’t start again. Could it be that you have a website in those 9 boxes that triggers it a bit different ? Since by the looks of it Firefox attempts to run those websites in order to create a screenshot of it.
My “new tab” is empty, in other words, I have no bookmarks pinned in those 9 boxes. If I pin any URL (including this one) the plugin-container process starts immediately. So it seems to have something to do with that specific feature.
Quite good observation, thanks for bringing it up. I will take a look at it to see if there a way to make that tab stop spawning the process and I will report back here when I have more details.
In the meanwhile if you want to get rid of the plugin-container process simply unpin all the urls from those 9 boxes in the “new tab” tab and use the top bookmark bar (View -> Toolbars -> Bookmarks Toolbar) to navigate to your favourite websites.
My guess is that the 9 window tab page stores a queue of thumbnails for those respective url’s and once it has found a snapshot of it then no process will be spawned to fill it. My workaround was to pin 9 known/visited sites thus never having to spawn the plugin-container.exe to go and find an empty slot or next available slot. Lame workaround for sure but at the moment effective. Curious though that if you just repeated delete one of the panels it spawns plugin-container for each of the url’s from your recent history instead of just having one for the most current panel it is looking for ie the interrupts just queue themselves.
Now to further delve into this. The reason this came to my attention was because one of the panel’s url went obsolete and firefox was trying to repopulate a panel url.
BTW – if I turn off the grid that doesn’t work because one plugin-container seems to spawn automatically (even though likely a null return). So for me … solution was to eventually work it where I had 9 active url’s with thumbnails located and stored in some firefox list it uses to populate those panels.
It took some doing to get 9 url’s I wanted to lock into place and the effort to do so suggests to me that the firefox list is perhaps corrupted in some way because of the way it repopulated itself in random ways when I restarted firefox or even moved some of the panels around. Probably deserves more investigation if this issue reoccurs. For the moment some bliss.
Trying to narrow it down to if it is a website issue or a Firefox issue. In your case I would say it is probably a mixture of both.
Firefox starts the plugin-container when it shouldn’t be (in my case I can only trigger it by adding a bookmark in one of the boxes), but after that if I restart Firefox the plugin-container will never start again. If it is indeed a corruption issue then a new profile for Firefox (or a full reset) would be the way to go to identify that.
As for the websites you had pinned before, do they have any sensitive information in them ? If not, can you give me all 9 links, in the same order you had them (one never knows !) to actually test if my Firefox behaves the same as yours ? If you are uncomfortable posting them here feel free to use the contact us form. That would be an easy way to identify if it is a website triggering the issue or if it something to do with Firefox only.
Wrote a much longer reply but when I submitted it this site was down for maintenance or something. Ugh.
I did do a reset which re-introduces the problem because the list of thumbnailed url’s must be repopulated.
BTW nothing sensitive about the panels I use. Your basic home pages of ebay, amazon, local library, abe books, and some sports sites.
The reason you can only recreate the issue once is that once you drop a link into one of the panels plugin-container spawns and thereby loads the webpage and creates the thumbnail and stores in a list for the next time you open a tab. Try visiting a bunch of random pages after doing some searches … and then start deleting the panels so that the most recent history starts populating the panels. I think you’ll see the plugin-container continue to spawn even if you kill the process over and over again. That make sense ?
I see what you mean. I will give it a go.
I currently have the history completely turned off so those boxes don’t get populated with anything, but I will do a test install of Firefox with full default settings on my virtual machine and give it a go as soon as I find time.
Also, sorry about the maintenance, I had to update a few things, although you might be a bit unlucky as it usually takes just a few seconds :)
Method 1 doesn’t work anymore so you don’t have to worry about that one. I just kept it there in case someone else was using an older version.
Can you verify that the variable has been set by typing “set” (without the quotes) in the command prompt ? You should get a list with all the variables that are set, verify that MOZ_DISABLE_OOP_PLUGINS=1 is in that list.
As for the source code, it would be tricky to dig through the source code (http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/29.0.1/source/) just like that to find something like this without getting familiar with the project first. Best bet would probably be to raise a ticket in Mozilla’s support forums to figure out why the variable is not working as intended.
Since I was running a new/updated version of Firefox I skipped Method 1 and followed Method 2. I didn’t mention it but after Method 2 didn’t work I also went back and examined Method 1 where no change was needed since dom.ipc.plugins.enabled was already set to false.
In answer to your other suggestion: Yes, I set the system variable initially for user but also went back and set it for system.
So, at the moment with all plugin’s not activated plugin-container spawns when I open a new tab (oddly not when a url opens up in a new tab). Not sure if relevant or not but when I open a new tab I’m shown a blank page with 9 previously pinned website bookmarks which I believe is standard but suggests that besides just opening the tab another process must populate those sub-windows. Grabbing at straws here.
If firefox is open source then would the code for opening tabs be viewable to determine how MOZ_DISABLE_OOP_PLUGINS is used and if something is spawning the plugin-container.exe after that variable is checked ???
Could reset firefox but I believe I’ve also done that before and no change noted.
Second method did NOT work for me. I get the plugin-container only when I open a new tab and then it quickly grows in size and crashes when it runs out of RAM. To counter it – I’ve been able to kill the process under task manager the 5 times in succession it reloads and then the new tab is fine. Any ideas. Running latest version of Firefox (29.0.1). I also tried disabling add-ons when loading firefox and that didn’t seem to resolve the issue either.
As far as plugin-container.exe goes, I am running the latest version as well (currently 29.0.1) and method 2 stops the plugin-container process from starting. Have you followed all steps ? (a typo perhaps ?)
Now with the memory issue, if your plugin-container grows in ram that much (GB’s ?) that it actually ends up crashing, then you have a more serious problem to troubleshoot as it something it shouldn’t happen regardless if you are using the container or not.
Usually the cause for these kind of issues are the plugins, but if you actually disabled all the plugins as you said (have you tried safe-mode ?) then something else might be causing the issue.
I would recommend updating your flash player and also create a new profile for Firefox (this will reset your settings) in order to narrow down the issue a bit more.
Since I was running current version of Firefox I skipped method 1 and proceeded to method 2 (above). I cut and pasted variable name so typo not likely (grin). Restarted. There was no change in plug-container loading on opening new tab. Tried in safe-mode and again plugin-container loads. Visited one of the sites that indicated which plugins were updated and as you suggested indeed the Flashplayer needed updating. The result of that was that the number of plugin-containers that loaded was reduced from 5 to 1 (meaning – I just have to end the process once in task manager). Progress I suppose but still a pain in the arss. What next ? Reset Firefox ? Any other workaround ? Would kinda like to know what is triggering it and why ? Seems to be triggered by opening a new tab – does that help ?
The plugin-container process pretty much contains the code that is executed by the plugins. So if it starts when you open a new tab (is it an empty tab ?) then you probably have a plugin that executes some code when a new tab is created. Which also means the environmental variable is not set correctly as the process shouldn’t start if it was.
Does plugin-container still crashes because of memory usage after you updated your flash player and your plugins by the way ?
Also, have you tried setting the system variable for both the current user and the system (all users) in case something is conflicting with it ?
If you want to troubleshoot your Firefox a bit more take a look at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-using-safe-mode#w_how-to-start-firefox-in-safe-mode. This will explain you in simple steps how to start Firefox in safe mode (assuming you are still having the memory issue, the plugin-container process won’t be affected by that).
Plugin-container.exe eventually crashes regardless of being in safe mode or not (so it isn’t an extension). I guess I’ll try not activating all of the plugins and see if that makes it go away. The environmental variable is set as shown above (easy enough to follow and I didn’t type it I cut & pasted the name etc and set value to 1 (One) not I or L or TRUE or anything like that.
Follow up.
Disabled all plugins.
Restarted in SAFE mode.
Open a new tab and plugin-container.exe spawns itself.
So what starts that process if no extensions turned on or plugin’s activated ???
Even with no plugins installed the plugin-container will start as soon as you run a video (flash) for example. Same goes for quicktime, real player etc.
What troubles me is that your Firefox still spawns the plugin-container disregarding the setting which should stop it. That is extremely odd. You didn’t answer my previous question by the way. On the second method (step 4) there are two ways to set the variable, system wide and user wide, have you tried both of them ?
As for the crashing, my guess would be codecs at this point. Have you installed any codec packs in your system by any chance ? Though audio and video codecs would cause the plugin-container process to start when a video or audio is played in Firefox and not on a new tab.
You have a quite tricky issue in your hands.
I just did this. To be sure, if I want to undo option #2, I simply go back and hit “delete”, right?
Yes, simply delete the system variable you created and the change will be reverted.
thanks. Method 2 worked
Thanks! This helped a lot. I was having trouble re-starting firefox quickly after closing it. It would take 8 seconds or so to relaunch when before it would load in a second or 2 at most. This second fix you listed not only fixed this issue but also just makes the browser in general a little quicker. Thanks again!
Thanks. Method 2 worked like a “charm”. I owe you one.
My web site is not working all that well just wondering if this can be fix. please.
I will require a bit more information other than “is not working” to be able to help you.
But in general, having the plugin-container disabled (or enabled) shouldn’t affect your website.
The only reason it will affect a website is if you have a plugin installed that is conflicting with the website and it happens to conflict when in a separate process (plugin-container.exe).
Other than the above (fairly small chance) scenario I don’t think disabling the plugin-container will fix your website, sorry.
SORRY . my plug in container for firefox has stop working. it keep popping up when i log inte my email.can you help me. please.
Try the second method in the post above and see if that stops with the crashing.
Disabled it the second way and working fine. Tried the trouble spot that blew it up this morning and all ok. Will keep advised. Thank you.
Haven’t yet. Thinking of doing it if it might make Firefox more stable on this machine.
Try the second method and see if that helps with the crashes (the first method isn’t working on the newest Firefox versions) .
Worst case scenario if it is an unstable plugin causing the crashes, your Firefox will crash instead this time. In that case you can easily reverse the steps and switch back to the plugin container within a few seconds.
Best case scenario it was a plugin conflicting with the sandbox environment of plugin container and the crashes will stop.
But in general you have nothing to lose other than a couple minutes that it will take you to test it out, so you have nothing to worry about.
Do the plug ins still work after either method is used?
Yes, plugins are not affected in any way. The only difference, as explained to the first paragraph of this article, is that if a plugin crashes it will probably take Firefox down with it, whereas if plugin-container is enabled then plugin-container.exe will crash instead.
OK. My trouble is more that many times after a Firefox crash then the box comes up that says plugin-container stopped working. After I’ve had to ctl-alt-del Task Manager my way out of Firefox
What happens when you disable the plugin-container ?
Thanks mate, works well nice and clean instructions without any bs.
Fantastic. I used the second method. Worked great! Thank you so much for posting these instructions.
Thank you so much for being a clever genius, this solution is wicked! I have been searching for a fix for days with an issue in Netflix- it freezes after I rewind or fast-forward (also in Chrome, but not IE). I found your post through a firefoxcrash blog and also shared it with my friends.
Thanks, man. One memory stealing process down. A dozen to go!
thanks
thanks dear its very nice this methode
Thanks CooLMinE. That damned plugin container has been hounding my machine since forever… up until now. Happy New Year.
I know the feeling, first Firefox’s plugin container then flash’s FlashPlayerPlugin process! Seems like everyone likes to spawn new processes nowadays.
Happy new year as well :)
thank you member sended post
Thank you CooLMinE. My wife’s CPU has been liberated. Thanks for posting this.
Normally i dont comment/reply Blogs or Posts, but i wish to say: You saved my CPU!!
Normally I do not read post on blogs, but I wish to say that this write-up quite forced me to try and do so! Your writing style has been surprised me. Thanks, quite good post.