308987 - Firefox v1.5 beta on W2K SP4 - leaves multiple processes running after close, caused hardware problems

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Doug Whitehill]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050716 Firefox/1.0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050716 Firefox/1.0.6

Uninstalled FF 1.0.6 (which is fine...)

Installed v1.5 beta...

After about 24 hours of use, I notice these two severe problems:

1. Firefox v1.5 beta repeatedly left several process instances running on my PC.
 When I looked at Task Manager/Processes after realizing that FF was not
responding, there were no less than 5 separate running instances of firefox.exe
on the Processes list.  Not caused by unusual web page visits/activity.

2. After installing FF v1.5 Beta, my external USB hub, USB card reader, and IEEE
1394 (FireWire) internal adapter started to ***not work correctly***; showed
problems in Hardware Manager.  My USB card reader would stop at about 5-10
minute intervals, and I would have to disconnect it and reconnect it to get it
going again.

Solution:  I uninstalled FF v1.5 beta, and deleted its Program Folders material.
 Scrubbed Registry of all Firefox references manually.  I then restarted my
PC...  my IEEE 1394 and USB hardware re-installed itself successfully. 
Installed Firefox v1.0.6.

I have not had *one* hardware nor software problem since performing these
actions to solve the problem.  I truly believe that FF v1.5 beta led to these
things as this was the only thing I changed that can be attributed to causing my
hardware and softare problems.  My system is once again stable I assure you.  FF
v1.5 beta is the only culprit.  Is FF v1.5 beta stable on a W2K SP4 machine???

I will NOT move beyond FF v1.0.6 for now.  Please investigate.

Thanks!  Doug Whitehill

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Gerald Britton]

confirmed here.  I'm running Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US;
rv:1.8b5) Gecko/20051006 Firefox/1.4.1 on Win 2K Pro Service pack 4.  After I
run ff for a while, I notice that it slows down.  In fact, my whole computer
slos down apprecialy.  (The worst was when I left it running while I was away
for a weekend.  When I came back, I had to restart my computer to get it to talk
to me again.)  Particularly, clicking the "X" to close tabs goes from
millisecond response to several seconds.  At that point, I usually close ff to
restart it.  However, after closing ff, I notice that there is still a
"firefox.exe" task running in the task manager.  I have to manually kill it.  

This happens just about every time I exit and restart firefox.

Comment 2

[Ramon]

Also problem on Windows NT SP6a. Firefox.exe still active after close by clicking on 'x'.

PROBLEM SOLVED!!!! 
-By typing about:config in URL-bar (address-bar)
-Filter "Preference name" by entering "sanit" in filter-field
-Double-click "privacy.sanitize.promptOnSanitize" to set it to FALSE
-(if needed) Double-click "privacy.sanitize.sanitizeOnShutdown" to set it to TRUE

Comment 3

[Doug Whitehill]

Now using v2.0 on my XP Pro SP2 machine... no problems at all leaving multiple processes running.

Previous version used was v1.5.0.8... no problem there either.  Problem seems to have gone away with the short-lived v1.5.0.7...