Firefox Stability Issues

[Renegade]

Has anyone had problems with Firefox stability in the last while?

[nosh]

I don't run any betas and I've had a few plugin container crashes since they segregated the plugins from the core. Nothing very frequent, though. I've had the whole app crash a couple of times too.

Possibly OT:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Another annoying issue I'm having is when I click a link in Feeddemon. The link sometimes doesn't open in FF and I get a message telling me FF is already running. I'm forced to restart FF to get it to work properly again. It may have something to do with me having disabled DDE for file types URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol and URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol with Privacy. It took ages for Feeddemon clicks to show up in FF with DDE enabled.

[ljbirns]

Running 3.6.10    no problems at all.

[4wd]

Running Minefield 4.0b7pre - no problems, (apart from a couple of my favourite addons no longer working).

[Renegade]

Hmmm... Maybe it's because I have 50~150 tabs open usually?

[J-Mac]

As a matter of fact, I just uninstalled Firefox 3.6.? (9, I think). Very unstable here. I had previously disabled all extensions one by one, then removed all of them and added them back one by one, created a new profile, etc., etc. All the usual suspects, or recommendations. Nothing helped. Same problems appeared running FF in Safe Mode. (Firefox safe-mode, not Windows Safe-Mode).

Any link that opened a pop-up window froze FF for a good 1 to 3 minutes, every time. Firefox would continually freeze and get that "(Not Responding...)" notation in the title bar with almost any routine action - like starting to type text into any form, even forum reply boxes like this one. I found out that if I minimized all open windows there would be a message that read "Server busy..." and had buttons for Retry, Switch to..., and Cancel, though Cancel was often grayed out. I never did find the cause for that one but it was frequent and really frustrating. Looks like this:

[attachimg=#1]

It would mention just about any and every other open app on my box. Some more examples:

[attachimg=#2]

[attachimg=#3]

[attachimg=#4]

I'm using Chrome just about full-time now, and I have been trying out IE8. I am reluctant to give Firefox another go just yet because I have spent SO much time troubleshooting it for the past year!

So no, you are not alone Renegade.

Thanks!

Jim

[Tuxman]

Running 3.6.10 (SSE2 build), quite many add-ons, no actual "crashes" whatsoever, only the Flash plug-in I use on some websites tends to give me weird messages ...

[J-Mac]

A lot of posts I have read at various forums regarding the Server Busy errors seem to involve the Foxit PDF reader and its Firefox PDF-viewer plugin. But I don’t have Foxit installed. Also many users have that same long delay whenever Firefox is opening a popup window, but again many of those are rooted in having a video-related extension that installs a plugin called "FastVid". I have never had that installed either.

Tux, while you may not have problems - and I am sure a heck of a lot of folks don’t - there are also a lot of people that are having similar issues. Many more than I have seen reported in previous versions. Actually since Firefox 3.5 was released the number of bugs and people reporting them has gone way up.

Maybe FF4 will be a little cleaner.

Jim

[Tuxman]

Fx3 (it's not "FireFox" or even "Fire Fox") is quite clean, too; at least with a fresh profile.
Once you use it long enough, it will be slow again.

Fx stores its data in SQLite files, AFAIK it started with version 3. Could be one reason for all these issues, as these files become bloated over the months...

[4wd]

Oooppss!  Spoke too soon, whatever they did in the update yesterday totally hosed my Minefield install.  Couldn't browse anything without it crashing.

Forgot to mention, I'm using Minefield x64 builds with the x64 Flash beta - definitely walking on the dark side here

EDIT: Found the problem, the OptimizeGoogle addon no longer can be coerced into running 'nicely'.

[Renegade]

FF keeps just puking and dying on me.

I'll not be doing anything and *POOF*~! It suddenly dies.

I'll be working on another machine and see it die.

I'll be working on the same machine in another program and see it disappear from the taskbar.

Flash? Dunno. It's just extraordinarily bizarre.

Usually programs crash when you DO something. Not when you don't do anything.

[4wd]

Back again - I don't know what they've done in Minefield 4.0b8pre x64 but no matter what I do it just CTDs, even after wiping every trace of it and reinstalling.  Crashes a few seconds after running it.

So I've gone back to Minefield 3.7a5pre which has always been stable, (well, at least on my previous XPx86 OS).

[cmpm]

Is this in windows 7 only or XP as well?

I ask cause I have had the 'not responding' problem with windows 7 but not XP.
Same extensions, same FF setup, same computer.

[4wd]

Is this in windows 7 only or XP as well?

I ask cause I have had the 'not responding' problem with windows 7 but not XP.
Same extensions, same FF setup, same computer.

W7HP x64 - I haven't run XP on this machine for 10 months or so.
I was using the x64 builds of Minefield and Flash but uninstalled x64 Flash to see if it made a difference, which it didn't.

Minefield 4.0b8pre x64 just CTDs, no reason, no crash data, even in Safe Mode - I'm beginning to suspect that it's interaction with another program or W7 update.  After all, if it was happening to a lot of people then I'm sure they'd be up to b9pre really fast.

I have yet to try Minefield 4.0b8pre x86 on either W7x64 or my other XPx86 based machine - I'll give it a go when I get home.

One thing I have noticed though since going back to Minefield 3.7a5pre is that it is dog-slow in comparison, a lot of times going into Not Responding for up to a minute.  It never used to do this which is what makes me think a software problem somewhere.  But then again, when I installed W7x64 I pretty much went straight to x64 builds of Firefox/Minefield so I'm not actually sure I ever ran Minefield 3.7a5pre x86 on this W7x64 machine.

EDIT: Just installed it on my XP-Pro x86 Aspire One and it works fine.

[J-Mac]

I was running 3.6.9 on a Win7 32-bit machine and constantly had "Not Responding" on my title bar. I finally uninstalled it again, cleaned it from the registry, and then reinstalled it again after about two weeks. It is running OK; still does it but not nearly as much. But I'll bet that after another couple months it'll be back to the same condition. I have heard something about Mozilla using an SQL database that fills up over time and causes issues like this. Don’t know if that is real or bs though.

Thanks!

Jim

[4wd]

I have heard something about Mozilla using an SQL database that fills up over time and causes issues like this. Don’t know if that is real or bs though.

CCleaner can optionally compact the SQL databases of Firefox if you let it.  Don't know if that will help you.

[Renegade]

I have heard something about Mozilla using an SQL database that fills up over time and causes issues like this. Don’t know if that is real or bs though.

CCleaner can optionally compact the SQL databases of Firefox if you let it.  Don't know if that will help you.
(see attachment in previous post)

That can't be the problem as this machine is pretty new. Like 2 months old or so.

Thanks for the recommendation though. I'll keep it in my renegade mind.

[4wd]

I have heard something about Mozilla using an SQL database that fills up over time and causes issues like this. Don’t know if that is real or bs though.

CCleaner can optionally compact the SQL databases of Firefox if you let it.  Don't know if that will help you.
(see attachment in previous post)

That can't be the problem as this machine is pretty new. Like 2 months old or so.

Thanks for the recommendation though. I'll keep it in my renegade mind.

There's also:  VACUUM Places
Which is based on: Speedup Firefox with VACUUM

Might only work on 3.x though.

EDIT: Improved version here.

[4wd]

Well, so far Minefield 4.0b8pre x86 seems to be running stable on my W7HP x64 machine - no CTDs, no Not Responding.

Long may it continue.

[Renegade]

FF has been behaving very well for the last week. No crashes. Dunno. 

[app103]

I have heard something about Mozilla using an SQL database that fills up over time and causes issues like this. Don’t know if that is real or bs though.

CCleaner can optionally compact the SQL databases of Firefox if you let it.  Don't know if that will help you.
(see attachment in previous post)

That can't be the problem as this machine is pretty new. Like 2 months old or so.

Thanks for the recommendation though. I'll keep it in my renegade mind.

If you are using the Google Toolbar with it's cute little start page of linked thumbnails to your most visited sites, your database is going to get pretty big rather quickly, and this WILL cause stability problems. It only took a few weeks for my places.sqlite database to grow to over a gig in size. It stores a thumbnail of every page you visit in there, not just the ones you see on the start page.

I am actually having less problems with Firefox lately. It seems much more stable than it did a year ago, back when it was freezing up on me about every 5 minutes...even starting in a frozen state...and refusing to close, causing me to have to kill it so I could open it again without the "firefox is already running" message.

[Renegade]

I don't use toolbars and extension in FF as I've had problems with them before. I have some, but they are disabled. Still, FF is acting up on me again all of a sudden. It's died 2x today. Just bizarre. Good for a week or two, then just won't play nice. I can't see any reason for it.