1116476 - after days of use, often get "unable to connect" or stuck on "looking up"

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Brent]

This could be hard to reproduce.  Used browser as normal, except I did not close it for a week.  Mostly, I do not use tabs, I open new windows.  I also clean up every once in a while, and close many but not all the windows. This is Firefox 34.0 under a 64bit Lubuntu OS, so it's the Ubuntu canonical branded version.  For extensions, I have Adblock Edge 2.1.7, Hide Tab Bar With One Tab 1.4, Textarea Cache 0.9.3.2, and the Ubuntu one that was installed by default, Ubuntu Firefox Modifications 2.9.  Also have 7 plugins all related to playback of video.

Loading of web pages became slower and slower.  After about a week, Firefox will not fetch anything from the Internet, though it seems able to do everything else as normal.  Each window I have trying to reach a website is stuck on "looking up www.google.com" or whatever the website is.  Before reaching this point, I would sometimes get an "Unable to connect" screen, which a refresh fixed.  Firefox appears to be working normally except for this.  Windows that already have content loaded continue to work mostly as normal, except that web pages that update themselves (like slashdot.org) no longer update.  Even the Addons screen never loads, just says "looking up services.addons.mozilla.org..." in the lower left corner, while a spinner spins endlessly in a little box with the word "Loading..." in the center of the window. I can still bring up new windows, and open HTML files I have stored locally.  I can ping, and connect to web sites with Chromium at the same time that Firefox is stuck, so the problem is not with my connection, it must be Firefox.  I tried removing all the cookies I'd accumulated, and that did not help. I do not know if trying to load a page from 127.0.0.1 would work as I don't have a web server running on my box at the moment.  Finally, I closed the browser and launched it again.  Then Firefox was able to retrieve web pages as quickly as normal.

Comment 1

[Brent]

Happened again, this time in Firefox 35. Did not have nearly as many windows open, and running for only 2 days.  Also deleted all the cookies 2 days ago.  This time I saved reports from troubleshooting and about:memory, which still works.

Comment 2

[Brent]

Attachment: firefox-troubleshoot.txt

Comment 3

[Brent]

Attachment: firefox-about.plugins.txt

Comment 4

[Brent]

Attachment: firefox-about.buildconfig.txt

Comment 5

[Brent]

Attachment: memory-report.json.bz2

Comment 6

[Brent]

Attachment: memory-report.json.bz2 after closing all but 1 window and Minimize Memory Usage

Comment 7

[Brent]

Installed Apache to test if Firefox can still load a page from 127.0.0.1.  Yes, it can, but only the local content.  It is the same with the 192.168.0.6 address.  Got the "Apache2 Ubuntu Default Page".  At the bottom of this default page is a logo for W3C and HTML, which Firefox will not load.  A message, "Looking up www.w3.org...", is permanently present in the lower left corner of that web page, and the URL bar has the "X" symbol for the user to stop the page from loading.

Comment 8

[Patrick McManus [:mcmanus]]

is this something that still happens. Can you do this if so?
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Debugging/HTTP_logging

Comment 9

[Brent]

I have not seen the browser stall on name lookups for several versions now.  It may be that changes in Firefox 36 or 37 fixed this issue.  I would have reported it again if I had seen it again.

Comment 10

[Patrick McManus [:mcmanus]]

thanks