Intermittent Firefox Issue 3.0 with Process Tamer

[DrBB01]

This is a real puzzler since it happens intermittently. I have only noticed this since I installed Firefox 3.0, but it may have been occurring earlier--I just don't know.

When I click on my desktop icon to launch Firefox, which has always taken a long time, I assume due to the number of extensions I simply can't live without  , I sometimes check in Process Tamer to see if it actually launched. I have noticed that sometimes when it actually has launched, it does not appear in the process list in Process Tamer. It does, however show up in other utilities like the Windows Task Manager and CachemanXP.

I have only noticed this with Firefox over the past few weeks, and it is intermittent. I believe--but haven't kept close track--that it occurs less than half the time. I haven't yet noticed a pattern of any type. Nor have I noticed any particular problems associated with this strange phenomenon.

At this point, I'm simply wondering how this can occur. Since I am just a simple user  , and really don't understand how any of these pieces of software work, I don't know if this is simply a reflection of how Process Tamer gets its process information differently than do the other two utilities--or is there more here than meets the eye?  I'd appreciate any ideas in understanding this. Thanks in advance.

[mouser]

are you sure you havent checked the option telling PT not to show processes using < 1% cpu ?

[DrBB01]

Hi Mouser,

Yeah, half a zillion other processes are there (well about 45-50, anyway  ) with big 0% showing. And the other two apps show Firefox cranking the CPU really hard, as much as 40-60%. The amount of time over the next 4-6 days to try things out will be limited, but I will have some time here and there to check things out or try other things. But I gather this may be something limited to me and possibly even this one PC (my much older, slower PC has other problems--but not this one).

[mouser]

it's hard for me to imagine a case where its not showing that process.. not that i doubt you of course.. i'm just not sure what it could be that would be causing PT to not show it.. what operating system are you using?  is it possible that ff3 is running under one user and pt under another? (not that that should really make a difference)

do you see anything unusual about the ff3 listing in the other task managers where it shows up? maybe the name is blank somehow and its causing PT not to show it..

i will check out the PT code soon again and see if i can spot anything, and maybe make a debug version to help test.

[DrBB01]

A quick post since I realized I responded off-line. The issue seems to have resolved since I installed XP-SP3. Don't know why or how, but if it makes sense to you, let me know.