400176 - Firefox freezing Vista when accessing SSL sites

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Matt Portune]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.0.04506)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.8.1.7) Gecko/20070914 Firefox/2.0.0.7

When accessing SSL sites using Firefox 2.0.0.7 under Vista Home Premium (with all updates), Vista freezes up entirely (total lockup, with no keyboard/mouse control).  This happens with a brand new installation of Firefox (no plugins) with a brand new installation of Vista 32-bit, running on an Intel Quad Core with 4GB of RAM.  Oddly enough, this problem did NOT occur on another machine running the same version of Vista, but with a single core (Pentium 4 HT) and 2 GB of RAM.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Navigate to any SSL site
2. If Firefox hasn't frozen already, go to another SSL site, and continue navigating back and forth.  It won't take long.
Actual Results:  
Total lockup.  The machine has to be power cycled.

Expected Results:  
Pretty obvious.  ;)

Comment 1

[D Z]

The exact same thing happens on my machine too, running Vista Ultimate 64-bit, also on Intel Core 2 Quad. FF version 2.0.0.7. I tried disabling SSL 3.0 in options but the lockup still happens after that.

Comment 2

[Matt Portune]

I have confirmed that this is a multi-core (or multi-processor even?) issue.  After launching firefox (now 2.0.0.9), I opened the task manager.  In the "Processes" section, I right-clicked "firefox.exe" and selected "Set Affinity...".  I de-selected all CPUs except for CPU 0, essentially making firefox think it was running on a single core machine.  At this point I could load all the SSL sites I could throw at it, with no problems at all.  As soon as I added another CPU back in the affinity settings (1, 2, and/or 3) I was right back to where I was before (freezing on SSL sites).

Unfortunately the affinity settings don't persist between sessions, so every time a new firefox process is launched, it must be set to 1 CPU.  So this isn't really a fix, just a confirmation.  Something in firefox's SSL library doesn't like Vista and multiple cores.

D Z, can you confirm that this happens in Vista 64 as well?

Comment 3

[Matt Portune]

Here is a temporary workaround to set processor affinity when launching firefox from a shortcut:  In the shortcut's "Target:" field, enter this:

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start /AFFINITY 1 C:\Progra~1\Mozill~1\firefox.exe

That assumes the default installation path for firefox.  If you used a different location, please note that you have to use the short-name path to the firefox binary.  Putting quotes around the long-name path did not work for me.  For reference, to get a directory listing in short-name format, use "dir /x"

Unfortunately this requires firefox to be launched from that shortcut.  It won't take effect if it's launched elsewhere (From another app, a URL shortcut in the windows shell, etc.)  There is reference to a tool called "imagecfg" which will modify an application's binary to always use a specific number of CPUs, but my attempts to use it only returned "unable to map and load firefox.exe".

So unless there is another option, the shortcut is it for now.  Either that, or the dev team squashes this bug and we can use firefox normally.  :)

Comment 4

[Matt Portune]

Sorry, I'm an idiot.  The reason I couldn't use imagecfg was because UAC was protecting the firefox program dir.  Launching the command prompt as administrator fixed that problem.  Firefox is now using 1 core no matter where I launch it from.

This page provides a link to the utility, and the command to set the affinity:

http://www.reality-xp.com/support/knowledgebase/1006.htm

For reference:  IMAGECFG.EXE -a 0x1 firefox.exe

Comment 5

[Matt Portune]

*sigh*, and of course now the modified binary is no longer working.  Even though the resulting process affinity says it's only using CPU 0, it freezes when hitting SSL sites.  Yet when I launch an un-modified binary, then manually set the affinity to CPU 0, SSL sites work fine.  So I guess the problem is deeper than my skills go.  Hopefully everything I posted will lead somebody to the bug.  I'm going to bed now.

Comment 6

[Matt Portune]

Well this is confusing and embarrassing.  I've been having wifi issues on this particular machine for awhile now since the drivers are so old and unsupported.  It's gotten so bad that I've removed the wifi module to send it in for a newer replacement, meaning I'm on cat5 for now.  On a whim I decided to try Firefox again, and it now works perfectly.  No more SSL freezing.  I had no idea that a network driver could cause such a specific high-level error in one particular application like that.  Shows what I know.  I'm going to close this bug, since it's now apparent that it wasn't Firefox specifically causing the problem, just bringing it to the forefront.

Comment 7

[D Z]

Well, it's same here ie I use wireless...and can't really try wired...but it looks weird what has SSL to do with a wireless driver?? Are you sure you cannot reproduce it with a wired connection? 
For a workaround I installed the "IE Tab" plugin and configured it to open every https:// page using the IE engine but it's really a pain in the ...

Comment 8

[Matt Portune]

I agree, it seems weird.  But so far it's working great, and I've really been pounding it.  (I keep all of my SSL banking sites in a single bookmark folder - previously I could guarantee a freeze by selecting "open all in tabs" from that folder, and firefox (as well as vista) would be dead within 2 seconds - every single time.  I've spent the last two days doing this same operation after I yanked the wifi module, and it simply won't freeze anymore.  I've actually switched back to firefox full-time.)

I'll post again when I receive the replacement wifi module to let you know the results.  (It might be a few weeks)

Comment 9

[Matt Portune]

Just a followup - I have had absolutely no freezes since I ditched my old wifi adapter and switched to wired.

My replacement wifi adapter arrived today, and so far everything is still working fine.  (It's a newer version of the adapter and uses a different driver).  I can still use the "open all in tabs" function in my banking folder repeatedly with no problems.

I'm confident the issue is resolved.  However if I jinx myself by posting this, I'll let everyone know.