If I understood it correctly, there was no recent “update cycle” directly to blame, as it affected multiple Firefox versions (at least 95, 96 and including esr). It seems an older bug related to HTTP3 present in FF for some time that got triggered only now when some server updated the software they were running on.
The temporary fix was therefore to revert the update to the server (or to disable HTTP3).
The real fix for this will likely come at a later time through updates to Firefox, but for now the issue seems to be resolved insofar as you can use the browser without having to worry about lockups.
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Don’t worry, @expat, the article linked above is free and publicly available for all interested readers. You don’t have to log in or sign up to read it. This feature is intended for subscribers to the site who want to read paid articles marked “heise+”.
By the way, on January 13, 2022, around 6:00 p.m., the article linked above was updated as follows.
Update 6 p.m.: Mozilla has since released a statement about the problems: “Earlier today, Firefox experienced a technical glitch due to a cloud provider changing the default settings, triggering a Firefox HTTP/3 bug. We’ve disabled the configuration change and confirmed that this fixes the issue.” Users who are still experiencing problems should restart their browser.
Since the article was a bit vague on this point, I wrote in my first post that the article stated that Mozilla had reported the problems as solved on Twitter and that after a reboot the problems should accordingly no longer occur. Unfortunately, the German word Neustart is somewhat ambiguous. It can mean both reboot and restart. Only the updated version of the article made it clear to me that Neustart did not mean a reboot of the computer, but a restart of the browser. Translating can be tricky now and then.
[Edit:]
Update:
The error that caused Firefox to fail has been fixed by Mozilla and is said to be due to a case sensitivity error.
Mozilla: Firefox-Fehler von Groß- und Kleinschreibung ausgelöst - 2022-01-14 - Golem.de
[Edit 2:]
Update:
With Firefox 96.0.1, Mozilla has fixed the bug in the Firefox code that caused this problem. Mozilla is already working on a further improvement for an upcoming update, so that Firefox does not end up in an infinite loop again even if such an error occurs.
[Edit 3:]
Update:
Two possible causes of crashes have been fixed, as well as the possibility of the HTTP/3 implementation code entering an infinite loop under erroneous circumstances.