283130 - Hangs at startup with CPU at 100%

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Toolkit :: Startup and Profile System, defect)

Description

[Mårten Svantesson]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041111 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Manual build CVS head checked out 2005-02-21 14:43 UTC




I built firefox with this .mozconfig:

. $topsrcdir/browser/config/mozconfig
mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=@TOPSRCDIR@/obj-firefox-instances

# Options for 'configure' (same as command-line options).
ac_add_options --enable-default-toolkit=gtk2
ac_add_options --disable-tests
ac_add_options --enable-optimize
#ac_add_options --enable-debug
ac_add_options --enable-xft
ac_add_options --disable-freetype2


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Run firefox


Actual Results:  
If starting with ~/.mozilla removed the text
"*** loading the extensions datasource
*** loading the extensions datasource" is output. Otherwise no output. Anyway
the process hangs with cpu att 100%.

Expected Results:  
Started

The computer runs Linuc Fedora Core 3.
>uname -a
Linux nitrogen 2.6.10-1.760_FC3 #1 Wed Feb 2 00:14:23 EST 2005 i686 athlon i386
GNU/Linux

I'll attach a gdb backtrace as well. I had this problem about a week ago
already. So the fact that I can't find any other reports might point to the fact
that something is odd on my end. But just as a check I did a build of Firefox
1.0, which ended up fine. Anyway, I'm marking this Blocker, cause this stops me
from development.

Comment 1

[Mårten Svantesson]

Attachment: GDB backtrace of hanged thread

I did several backtraces of the thread using the cpu. They all looked the same.

Comment 2

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

this is the hang from bug 273336 comment 37, which can be worked around by using
a different optimization options (f.ex. --enable-optimize=-O2 or =-Os)

Comment 3

[Mårten Svantesson]

The work around certainly works, thanks! So this bug isn't really a blocker. 

Comment 4

[jharvey]

when firefox checks for updates on startup, it ramps cpu usage to 100% and locks
up firefox until the process wither times out, the browser is closed (if this is
the first action taken) or a response from the update server is recieved.

This should be a background process!
especially on startup!

Comment 5

[jharvey]

when firefox checks for updates on startup, it ramps cpu usage to 100% and locks
up firefox until the process either times out, the browser is closed (if this is
the first action taken) or a response from the update server is recieved.

This should be a background process!
especially on startup!

Comment 6

[jharvey]

(In reply to comment #5)
> when firefox checks for updates on startup, it ramps cpu usage to 100% and locks
> up firefox until the process either times out, the browser is closed (if this is
> the first action taken) or a response from the update server is recieved.
> 
> This should be a background process!
> especially on startup!

corrections:

firefox hangs on load showing the green update check arrow next to the help menu
and never loads the bookmarks toolbar usually.  This is new with the version
1.0.2 for windows.  version 1.0.1 didn't have the problem.  

process for correcting the problem:
close and reload firefox until it works (usually 1-10 tries will do it)
rmoving ALL extensions does not change the behavior
also, cannot load links that open a new window from other brograms (like emails
and documents that would otherwise load up a web browser)
uninstalling firefox and re-installing it makes no difference either.

Comment 7

[hdiehl]

i am having this same problem.  i cant even use firefox. computer just hangs 
up.

Comment 8

[Robert Riches]

In case it might help somebody else, I was seeing the same symptom with FireFox 1.5, built from FTP'ed released source tarball.  To be more specific, I saw 100% CPU use at startup with no window ever created.  I found the workaround in comment #2, by Christian Biesinger, worked for me.  (Now, I just need to fix the hideous fonts: 1.0.7 was using adobe-* fonts, and the ones used by 1.5 are almost doublespaced with tiny characters.)

Comment 9

[Robert Riches]

I solved the font problems and ended up with this .mozconfig:

. $topsrcdir/browser/config/mozconfig
mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=@TOPSRCDIR@/ffobjdir
ac_add_options --enable-optimize=-O2
ac_add_options --disable-debug
ac_add_options --enable-static
ac_add_options --disable-shared
ac_add_options --disable-tests
ac_add_options --disable-freetype2
ac_add_options --enable-default-toolkit=gtk

The "=-O2" was added to the optimize line for 1.5 (not needed for 1.0.7), and the toolkit line was added for 1.5 to get rid of gtk2.  I found the CPU-bound hang problem was independent of gtk1 vs. gtk2.  With gtk2, there were serious font geometry errors, including hardcopy prints with numbers misaligned within fill-in-the-blank boxes so only the top half of each digit was visible.  If I knew enough about gtk issues and fonts, I'd check/file a separate bug report on this issue.

Oh, I'm using Mandriva Linux LE2005 (alias Mandrake Linux 10.2) plus updates.

Comment 10

[Robert Riches]

This problem still shows up using the binary trunk build firefox-1.6a1.en-US.linux-i686.tar.bz2, dated March 13, 12:40pm (tested for another purpose).  I'm now using Mandriva Linux 2006, plus updates.  The firefox-bin process got over 2 CPU minutes on a 2.4GHz Pentium 4"a" (Northwood, IIRC) and grew to 205-206MB in virtual size before I killed it.

Comment 11

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Raising back to blocker since this happens with mozilla.org binary builds.

Comment 12

[Robert Goshko]

I am also seeing this issue with Firefox 2.0 (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20061010 Firefox/2.0) on Windows XP SP2.

Starting Firefox has the CPU jump to 99% and it never goes down, is slightly usable but just make everything drag.

Comment 13

[jd]

This problem is so bad that it is a "deal-breaker".  It renders Firefox totally unuseable within a few minutes of opening and with only window/tab open with no ongoing updates or downloads and without any gif's, Google calenders or any of the other specifics associated in some other bug reports on this issue.  The problem has existed for as long as I can remember (Phoenix 0.8 was my first experience but I don't remember the problem with it).  I know that it has been around since Firefox 1.0 and it has gotten noticeably worse with each release since then.  As of version 2.0, it is 99% unuseable.  The Ook Video downloader is the ONLY reason I have not simply uninstalled Firefox and launched my own counter-evangelism campaign.  Yes, this persistently worsening problem really has made me that frustrated over the years.

This bug has existed in every XP machine that I have seen - four of mine and five belonging to friends.

Comment 14

[Farish]

I have this problem in in Ubuntu Gutsy Firefox.  At first I thought it was caused by having too many tabs open, but now it happents when only one tab is open. Also hangs with maxed-out CPU whenever I click a link in a webpage.

Comment 15

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

still see this problem with Firefox 3?

Comment 16

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

@Reporter, we have not heard back from you in a while, so I am closing this bug as INCOMPLETE. You can reopen this bug if more information becomes available. Some helpful information you can provide us is found at http://new.quality.mozilla.org/bug-writing-guidelines.