104819 - DNS Lookup slow

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 85551

(Core :: Networking, defect)

Description

[Waheed Islam]

User-Agent: Win95; rv:0.9.5+ Gecko/20011014 08

i'm not sure if anyone else noticed it, but mozilla's layout engine has become
bloody slow!
I'm sorry i can't give further details as to what happens, you just have to go
to various sites to notice, such as slashdot (!).

the dns lookup has always been slow for some reason, even though there is a file
sitting in \windows\ called hosts, containing many frequently used entries. --
which are updated daily, but mozilla doesn't seem to use.

and when transferring data or just basically displaying the page, it takes, much
longer than it used to with build 0.9.3/4 or something.

i guess what i'm asking is, has anyone else noticed this?

machine: p3, 267megs RAM, with 10mbps connection.
so you can't say moz is slow due to connection.

and it's not a poor connection either, because ie4 is now faster than mozilla...
much faster :(

Comment 1

[James Paige]

I am not observing this slowness. (build 2001101503 on Windows 95)

Some questions:

> the dns lookup has always been slow for some reason, even though there is a file
> sitting in \windows\ called hosts, containing many frequently used entries. --
> which are updated daily, but mozilla doesn't seem to use.

Do you manually edit your \windows\hosts file daily or something? Are you
running some special software that alters it? Normally \windows\hosts only
comtains entrys that you put there manually. Mozilla has no problems reading the
entrys I put in mine.

This sounds like a problem with your DNS server. Perhaps Mozilla is failing to
cache DNS lookups?

Comment 2

[Waheed Islam]

yea, i use software which verifies all dns entries.
.. you'd be mad to go through (changing manually) about 100 entries.
ermm, ah so moz DOES use hosts. I find that hard to believe since ie only says
"resolving" for like a second, whereas mozilla stays there like it's resolving
it, it self.
...perhaps because IE is integrated and already has the hosts file in memory. so
that it's a faster lookup.

whereas mozilla probably opens the file, goes through entries until it finds the
appropriate and gets the ip??

Comment 3

[James Paige]

No, Both IE, Mozilla, and any other windows program just call out to the
operating system for a DNS lookup. NO normal program should read the hosts file
directly, rather DNS calls that pass through Windows do it internally.

Well, this reminds me of bug 74153 and bug 87811 , but both of those have been
marked duplicate of bugs that are now marked fixed, so that doesnt explain
anything :P

Question:
How does Mozilla behave if you disable your hosts-file-manipulating software,
and temporaraly delete or rename your hosts file? Does working with an empty
hosts file make any difference for better or for worse?

Comment 4

[Ashley Bischoff (blog at handcoding.com)]

Old summary:
"slow layout with generally any site"

New summary:
"DNS Lookup slow"

-> Networking

Comment 5

[Chase Tingley]

dup of bug 97097?

Comment 6

[Ashley Bischoff (blog at handcoding.com)]

Marking as dupe of bug 97097. Reporter: If you disagree, please reopen this bug.



*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 97097 ***

Comment 7

[Bradley Baetz (:bbaetz)]

actually, this is more likely a dupe of bug 85551. Bug 97097 only affects PAC,
because all other users use async dns resolution, which does go through the
internal cache.

If someone else is using sync dns resolution, then thats a bug. A quick lxr
search doesn't turn up anything.

Comment 8

[Ashley Bischoff (blog at handcoding.com)]

Good call, bbaetz. Marking as such.

Reopening...

Comment 9

[Ashley Bischoff (blog at handcoding.com)]

... And, marking as dupe of bug 85551.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 85551 ***

Comment 10

[Waheed Islam]

> How does Mozilla behave if you disable your hosts-file-manipulating software
in fact, it seems to take exactly the same time to resolve even though the hosts
file is disabled.

which means that it could well in fact be how fast the status bar updates.
... i agree with this being a dup of <a
href="http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85551">85551</a> especially
due to the fact that sometimes, the 'Resolving bugzilla.mozilla.org" (or
whatever) stays there for up to 3 seconds (bloody long)!

Comment 11

[benc]

Waheed: please describe why you think DNS is slow. Is it because the "resolving"
status is longer now? Or because all page loading is longer in a certain build?

Comment 12

[Waheed Islam]

no, it's not about a certain build. the problem has been there for a while. and
as stated, I think the dns resolving is probably fine, it's just the status bar
which needs to be refreshed / updated more frequently.

Comment 13

[benc]

Waheed: you can update your summary to reflect the actual problem as the
discussion develops... if this is not a DNS problem, but a status bar problem,
you should change it (this bug is a dupe, but it's good practice :)