Firefox 152 Crashes Tied to Intel Raptor Lake CPUs; Mozilla Patches Coming
Users running Firefox 152 on Intel 13th- and 14th-generation Raptor Lake processors are reporting widespread browser crashes, memory spikes and complete freezes, with Mozilla confirming it is working on a fix.
Reports surfaced across Reddit and Mozilla’s own support forums within days of the version 152 release, describing a Browser That locks up on launch, refuses to load pages and consumes abnormal system resources.
One user said their Task Manager showed Firefox consuming more than 3,800 MB of memory after just five minutes of use. Another reported disk usage hitting 100%, with Windows Antimalware Service Executable running at high load alongside the browser.
In some cases, clicking the window’s close button produced no response at all, forcing users to right-click the taskbar icon or open Task Manager to kill the process manually.
Mozilla Points to Known CPU Instability
A verified Firefox engineer stepped into a Reddit thread to address the reports directly.
“You sadly seem to have a Raptor Lake CPU with known instability issues, which is highly correlated with this crash,” the engineer said.
Mozilla is tracking the issue under Bug #2039575. A Mozilla employee said on the forums that developers are effectively playing “whack-a-mole” with the underlying Raptor Lake problem while simultaneously developing a broader workaround.
This is not the first time the CPU line has triggered instability in Firefox. Similar crash patterns emerged when version 151 launched, though that episode did not take down the entire browser process — this one does.
Patch Timeline and Current State
Mozilla plans to release Firefox v152.0.1 within days to address the crashes, according to official support channels.
Developers have already pushed a fix into the Beta v153 channel. Still, the Nightly v154 build remains affected, and Mozilla has not explained that discrepancy publicly.
Workarounds Available Now
Users who cannot wait for the patch have several options.
Updating the motherboard BIOS to its latest version resolved the crashing for several community members running Raptor Lake hardware. Intel released microcode updates to address instability in its 13th- and 14th-generation processors after acknowledging a hardware defect in 2024.
Switching to Firefox ESR — Extended Support Release — version 140 offers another path. ESR builds receive security updates but fewer feature changes, making them less exposed to regressions introduced in rapid-release cycles.
A third workaround, reported by a single user, involves force-quitting the frozen browser and reopening it via a Private Window shortcut on the taskbar. That approach bypasses the automatic session restore that loads previous tabs, which may be triggering the crash. From there, Users Can open a normal window.
Intel’s Raptor Lake instability problem first drew widespread attention in 2023 and 2024, when the company acknowledged that elevated operating voltages could degrade the processors over time. Intel subsequently issued microcode patches and extended warranty coverage for affected chips.
