319138 - Freeze on DualCore- Systems (with XP n-processor handling turned off or on) XP & Vista 32bit

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Ingo-Stefan Schilling]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20051111 Firefox/1.5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20051111 Firefox/1.5

Mozilla freezes from time to time for a while, especially if handling several tabbed- downloads parallel. The freeze takes up to 30s...

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Browse on several tabs
2. Pray the bug is upcoming :o)

Actual Results:  
The browser hungs and does not respond for a while, all other open Windows applications work as if nothing happened...

Expected Results:  
no freeze?!

The system is XP SP2 with all hotfixes etc. on an Athlon X2 4400+ processor with 2GB of RAM...

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

BIOS?  see bug 282392

Comment 2

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(In reply to comment #0)
> The system is XP SP2 with all hotfixes etc. on an Athlon X2 4400+ processor
> with 2GB of RAM...

Please read next AMDZone article pointed by a thread of MozillaZine forum(bug opener of Bug 325267 has pointed this thread).
> http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=373690
> http://www.amdzone.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=3951&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0 
This article seems to describe the problem correctly.
(points MSDN KB Q896256 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/Q896256)
See Bug 307527 Comment #101 also, and read three MSDN KB articles listed in it.

(Q1) Will disabling of "Cool'NQuiet" be a workaround?
     (When AMD. Sorry but I don't know equivalent feature name of Intel chip.)
     See the AMDZone's article and Bug 307527 Comment #6.

(Q2) Will /usepmtimer be a workaround? (MS Win XP SP2 is required)

(Q3) Can you apply newer Hot Fix(by Q896256. includes acpi-HAL update) for SP2 by MS? If applying the Hot Fix is difficult, try newer driver update(includes
acpi-HAL update) for Athlon X2/MS Win XP SP2 by AMD. Will it resolve the
problem?
(When try Hot Fix or driver update, disable workaround of "/usepmtimer".)

Comment 3

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

See AMD's "AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor Utilities & Updates" page for;
 - AMD Dual-Core Optimizer (June 2006)
 - AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor Driver for Windows XP
   and Windows Server 2003 Version (x86 and x64 exe) 1.3.2.16 (July 2006) 
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_13118,00.html

Comment 4

[Andre]

I also experianced this probem with a Intel Core Duo

Comment 5

[Ingo-Stefan Schilling]

I meanwhile checked WADA's suggestions and followed the given instructions. The issue is not upcoming that often now but still occours.

I than tried to handle this on an older, two processor system (DUAL XEON) without any 'fancy' Dual Core or Hypethreading stuff and the result is the same as above.

One interesting thing: Reducing memory made the error more seldom, adding memory made the error more likely occouring...

Hope this helps.

Comment 6

[Frank Fridlund]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070219 Firefox/2.0.0.2

cc-ing self as this is a major bug for Intel Centrino Duo processors.  On the computer I'm on now, the Centrino Duo processor can stall from 30 seconds to over a minute when starting or opening a new popup window.  Switching affinity does not help, and an end-user should NOT have to mess around with the Windows Registry.  As posted above, the disabling of the 'Cool'n'Quiet' only applies to AMD chips, and not Intel chips. Am willing to test newer builds to see if this is resolvable.

In case you want to know, I'm using a Intel Core 2 CPU T5500 @ 1.66GHz and physical memory of 2048MB RAM

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Ingo, Andre,

What do these do for you? Please update the bug.
 bug 277547
 bug 282392
 http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_hangs

Comment 8

[Frank Fridlund]

Attachment: screenshot of opening delay in Firefox

Attaching a screenshot of Firefox's opening window when it is frozen.  This picture was taken in safe mode, and under compatibility 'Windows 98/ME' mode.  

Note the blank bar above the tabs is supposed to be bookmarks.  This takes over a minute to show on my system.  Switching to compatibility mode doesn't help the delay.

Comment 9

[Andre]

Since FF 2.0.0.1 this Bug disapeared on my machiene

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Frank in comment #8:
> Note the blank bar above the tabs is supposed to be bookmarks.  This takes over
> a minute to show on my system.  

how and when did you set affinity? 

please clarify what takes over a minute:
* startup
* displaying bookmarks after the blank bar is displayed
* displaying blank bar after bookmarks is displayed
* happens without displaying other pages (which your screen shot does not show)


Ingo in comment #5:
> One interesting thing: Reducing memory made the error more seldom, adding
> memory made the error more likely occouring...

in this case might it not be a memory/mobo problem rather than processor?

Comment 11

[Ingo-Stefan Schilling]

Sorry that I didn't answer for a while - I am more the less down under. Since I want to have this stuff fixed on the other hand I used up a weekend to see what I can find out: 

> Ingo in comment #5:
> > One interesting thing: Reducing memory made the error more seldom, adding
> > memory made the error more likely occouring...
> in this case might it not be a memory/mobo problem rather than processor?

I thought so first, but I created a testbed last week and realized that not memory is problem, but a side issue as well.

I tried some of the tips from Comment #7 and figured out that some of my extensions are known as an issue. Therefore I removed them. The bug was now not that easily reproducable, but still existing - so it might be that the one or other extension (even though they where all up2date) caused the issue more easily.

2ndary I played around with memory and found (after removing the extensions) that the bug appears, but now it appeared memory independent... - well, Comment #7 brought me half the way down :)

At the end of the day, I moved my system to VISTA 64bit, HW is still the same and now comes the courious miracle - since I use Vista, I don't have the issue nor I am able to reproduce. Unbelievable but true.

Since I felt like this can't be the case, I installed XP & Vista 32bit in parallel on the same HW, just to check cross - the bug exists under both 32bit systems.

Conclusion:
a) I can't explain and from my point of view it can't make 'the' difference, but the bug for me happens ONLY on 32bit environments - whysoever
b) Firefox should get a more reliable system to prevent memory related issues in its extensions, maybe it should recognize them and disable the extension automatically.

Notes:
- Most recent Firefox was used (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4)
- Most recent Hotfixes + Bugfixes etc. for all OS have been installed as well
- Wayne, thanks for your wakeup call :)

Comment 12

[Ingo-Stefan Schilling]

(In reply to comment #11)
I forgot to mention, I tried (with 32bit OS) to reproduce the issue also on my Centrino Duo Notebook and the issue appears under XP and 32bit Vista as well. - but with the most recent Firefox version, it is now really hard to reproduce and I had to open several tabs, close them, download a lot of stuff etc. before I finally got it happen.

In comparison with the Athlon processor, it was really harder to reproduce. So I can follow for the Core Duo Comment #9 because I do not believe that I would realize this issue in real work environments anymore.

Leaves it to the Athlon.

Comment 13

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Does this happen with FF3 beta?
 ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/3.0b4/win32/en-US/

Ingo, Please clarify - you are/were able to create the problem at least once with Athlon and XP & Vista 32bit?

Comment 14

[Hilton Travis]

I have found the exact same issue with Firefox 2.0.12 - but it isn't tabbed downloads that cause the issue (obviously), it happens when changing folders, viewing email, viewing RSS feeds, viewing news groups and generally when trying to do anything.  The freeze can take up to 30 seconds and the application seems to crash and restart, as evidenced by the icon moving location in the taskbar from where it was to the far right (ie, last application opened).

I downloaded the SVN trunk - 3.0a1pre (2008040703) and used the same profile as I had previously and the issue has completely disappeared - 3.0a1pre seems to totally address the issue in Thunderbird 2.0.12.

Comment 15

[timeless]

fwiw, we don't use svn, we use cvs.

http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/How_to_get_a_stacktrace_with_WinDbg
be sure to select also debug child processes

Comment 16

[Frank Fridlund]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b5) Gecko/2008032620 Firefox/3.0b5 ID:2008032620  
Have been using beta build for a while, and I'm unable to duplicate this bug at the moment.

Comment 17

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Ingo (reporter) your're the only one left - is problem gone for you also?  (his email comes back "User unknown")

(and Hilton's issue is gone with trunk thunderbird)

Comment 18

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Ingo's addresses is dead
=> incomplete