176331 - cannot disable venkman "hooks" with /startup-init off

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Other Applications Graveyard :: Venkman JS Debugger, defect)

Description

[Dan Dickerman]

While investigating performance problems in the creating of javascript objects
(described in bug 176087), I noticed that a large amount of time was being spent
in the call to objectHook while in js_NewObject.  It was suggested that one
could avoid this extra code by turning-off venkman: issuing "/startup-init off"
in the debugger itself and restarting mozilla.  On several of the platforms I
tried (mozilla 1.1 and 1.2b on MacOSX HP-UX and Linux), however, this did not
turn-off the hooks: checking in the debugger again after startup showed venkman
was still enabled.  Reproducing the steps just tried:

> On my Linux (SuSE 7.1, 2.4.2 kernel) box, while logged-in as root to 
> avoid any permissions issues with the registry...
>
> downloaded the 1.2b release from the main page -- Linux w/Talkback
> rm -rf /root/.mozilla /root.netscape
> tar zxvf mozilla-i686-pc-linux-gnu-1.2b-sea.tar.gz
> cd mozilla-installer
> ./mozilla-installer
> Selected a "custom" install to /opt/mozilla
> Unselect chatzilla, and allow installation to complete for all other modules
> mozilla starts up after the install
> go to Tools->Web Development->Javascript Debugger
> In venkman's command window, type
>   /startup-init  -> venkman responds that it is "on"
>   /startup-init off  -> "... is now off"
>
> ^Q to quit mozilla
> /opt/mozilla/mozilla -venkman
>   /startup-init  -> ... is now on
> ^Q to quit
>
> For grins, I removed the file /opt/mozilla/components/compreg.dat and 
> editied components/venkman-service.js to initialize jsds.initAtStartup 
> to false and restarted.  This time...
>
> /opt/mozilla/mozilla -venkman
>   /startup-init   -> ...is now off
>
> Which was repeatable on subsequent starts.  Strangely enough, turning 
> it to "on" also worked when starting from "off", toggle, restart. 
> However, once it was "on" it wouldn't go "off" again.

There is a related question of whether it would be better to make venkman not
install its hooks by default, to avoid the overhead in the general case, but
that's for another discussion (bug 176325).

Comment 1

[Robert Ginda]

fixed with bug 177176