Do I need internet connectivity for that though? If I do, I can’t do it. As the network is not working in safe mode for some reason even when it is enabled. And the problem does not occur when the network is not connected, so I am not sure what good this would do… am I missing something?

Wait, do you mean FF safe mode or Windows safe mode???

EDIT: ok, I started FF in FF safe mode and the problem went away… So does this mean there is an ad-on somewhere that I have to remove???