445085 - Upon attempting to upload or Save As a file, firefox becomes unresponsive

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect)

Description

[ark]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; InfoPath.1)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052906 Firefox/3.0

Whenever I attempt to upload a file or download one in firefox, the file upload/save as will cease to work. All functions related to firefox freeze, and the menu itself cannot be clicked on to shut down the upload. If I attempt to end firefox in task manager using end task, I recieve alternatively 'not responding' and 'windows cannot shut this down because it is waiting for a response from you'. These seem to happen at random intervals, because I have recieved both at similar timeframes running on a clean PC with no background programs beyond critical system processes.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Attempt to upload any file to a website such as www.imageshack.us
2. 
3.
Actual Results:  
The program freezes. In some situations this occurs for up to half an hour (before the program unfreezes and then immediately freezes again). The only way I can stop this second freeze is to close a window with more than one tab in it, and when the menu asking 'would you like to close multiple tabs?' appears, then close the file upload window.

Expected Results:  
The file upload process would not have locked up Firefox and I could have uploaded normally.

All of the themes, etc are all completely default.

Comment 1

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Please try in safe-mode if it works and if not, delete the file downloads.sqlite in your profile.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_Mode_(Firefox)
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Folder

Comment 2

[ark]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Please try in safe-mode if it works and if not, delete the file
> downloads.sqlite in your profile.
> http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_Mode_(Firefox)
> http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Folder

Both suggestions make no difference on either the frequency or the apperance of the bug.

Comment 3

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Then please try a reinstallation in a new empty folder. First delete the old installation folder manually. I see indeed sometimes a high cpu usage on www.imageshack.us probably because of the flash ads, but definitely not a hang, not even on a slow laptop.

Comment 4

[ark]

(In reply to comment #3)
> Then please try a reinstallation in a new empty folder. First delete the old
> installation folder manually. I see indeed sometimes a high cpu usage on
> www.imageshack.us probably because of the flash ads, but definitely not a hang,
> not even on a slow laptop.


The reinstallation removes the problem, but the moment all the profile settings are returned the problem also returns. As a note however, It's not high CPU useage or memory use which causes the problem - Firefox is actually telling me it is using roughly the same amount of resources as just browsing. It is literally only the process of bringing up the 'save as' or 'upload file' screen on any website (irrelevant as to if there is flash content or not), that causes Firefox to go unresponsive. 

Comment 5

[patdenny]

I also ran into this issue. (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5)

I found that simply waiting an inordinately long time (minutes...) would give FireFox enough time to work out its issues and eventually open the file dialog. IF I simply shut down the dialog without selecting a file, the same problem would occur next time I tried to upload a file. If I did select a file, then the problem went away.

While this is a usable workaround, it still doesn't fix the underlying issue that occasionally FireFox seems to freeze up for several minutes when trying to call the native file open dialog.

I do occasionally work with USB drives and across VPN connections, so this may be related to having Firefox try and open a path that no longer exists since last time the file dialog was used.

Comment 6

[Christopher Hart]

Started a new bug with very similar outcomes b/c wasn't sure it might be the same cause as this one (ie. OS X only regarding unresponsive Cancel/Save/OK buttons in the file dialog):

See bug #486031

Comment 7

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

Not blocking, though it sounds like we're talking about a case where the default save path can't be evaluated causing system delays.

ark: you said "once the profile settings are restored" - do you have a default directory set for downloads? Do you download to a USB or network drive?

Comment 8

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

This bug was reported using Firefox 3.0 or older, which is no longer supported. The bug has also not been changed in over 500 days and is still in UNCO.
Reporter, please retest this bug in Firefox 3.6.10 or later using a fresh profile, http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/managing+profiles. If you still see this problem, please update the bug. If you no longer see the bug, please set the resolution to RESOLVED, WORKSFORME.

This is a mass search of unconfirmed bugs that have no activity on them, so if you feel a bug was marked in error, just remove the CLOSEME comment in the whiteboard within the next month.

Comment 9

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.12 or later and a new profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). If you continue to see this issue with the newest firefox and a new profile, then please comment on this bug.