284000 - Firefox hangs on startup when extension update URL is unavailable

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, defect)

Description

[Pawel Kot]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; pl-PL; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041108 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; pl-PL; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041108 Firefox/1.0

Hi,

I have firefox with few extensions installed. The subject at the moment are:
TinyUrl Creator
(https://update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&id=126&vid=1227)
and SwitchProxy
(https://update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&id=125&vid=1144).
I downloaded them from the author homepages: http://jgillick.nettripper.com/
(both are authored by Jeremy Gillick). Now as this wwbsite is unavailable
firefox (with autoupdate enabled) freezes on startup until the autoupdate
connection timeouts -- I cannot do anything inside the firefox window. Disabling
these extenstion helps (no more freezes). This behaviour is the same on Linux
and on Windows XP. As it tried to checktwo extensions from this site, actual
freeze in my case took twice as long as timeout.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install some extension from a certain location
2. Make sure that this location is unavailable (not an immediate connection refused)
3. Restart firefox

Actual Results:  
Freeze for a few minutes (until the connection timeouts) on startup

Expected Results:  
the update thing should be done in the background.

Comment 1

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

I could have sworn we had a confirmed report on this already, but I don't see it
so I'm adding this to the blocker list.

Comment 2

[Chris Jarvis]

I have observed Firefox hanging on startup as well. The SwitchProxy Tool (v
1.3.1) appears to be the cause. Without it installed, Firefox starts up fine.
With it installed, Firefox hangs for ~70 seconds.

I am using Firefox 1.0.2 on Windows 2000, installed on an IBM T22 laptop. Other
installed extensions are: 
Tabbrowser Preferences 1.2.2
Adblock v .5 d2 * nightly 39
Image Zoom 0.1.7
Web Developer 0.8

Comment 3

[Tracy Walker [:tracy]]

Asa, you filed bug 257976 asking to gracefully timeout from checking for updates
after a finite period of time.

Comment 4

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

->robert. possibly dupe of bug 257976 

Comment 5

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

The extensions authored by Jeremy Gillick have their own custom update code in
the extension that runs very soon after startup which is why this only occurs
with Jeremy's extensions and not others during startup. This is an extension
problem and would need to be fixed by the extension author. This is no different
than any extension or for that matter any other code that makes a blocking
connection in that doing so can cause a hang as described and precautions need
to be taken in order to avoid the hang.

Resolving Invalid.

Comment 6

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

Note: it also appears that Jeremy has included the ability to disable his custom
update code in the extension's options - I only checked switchproxy for this but
I suspect all of them have this capability since they all use essentially the
same custom code. Unchecking the "Notify me of updates" in the options dialog
for switchproxy should do the trick for switchproxy without disabling the
Extension Manager code that checks for updates.