459033 - FF3 and csrss.exe - 100% CPU usage on launch

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Core Graveyard :: GFX: Win32, defect, P2)

Description

[Paul]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092417 Firefox/3.0.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092417 Firefox/3.0.3

Everytime I start up Firefox 3, Windows loads the application window (but not my homepage), and then freezes for anywhere from 1 minute to 10 minutes. Meanwhile, in the Task Manager, a system process called "csrss.exe" spikes up to around 100% of processor usage. After waiting for Firebird to finally load/resolve this conflict, csrss.exe goes back down to it's usual 00 - 01% CPU usage, and FB works just fine. 

This bug has appeared and been fixed in previous versions of firefox, but is happening again. This bug has previously been tied to the amount of fonts installed on the user's system. Apparently, FF will try to cache all installed fonts while launching.

The solution of me having less fonts installed is unacceptable as I need them to do my job.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Have many fonts
2. Launch Firefox
3. Try to use Firefox
Actual Results:  
The browser is sluggish to scroll a page, and if a link is clicked or an URL entered, the browser will display (Not Responding) in it's titlebar.  This takes around 6-10 to gain responsiveness.

Expected Results:  
The browser should be responsive immediately on launch.

Firefox 2 did not have this issue.  This bug appeared on FF3 Launch Day when I installed it.  Have sought solutions on mozillazine forums to no avail.  This bug appeared in a previous version of firefox, but was fixed.  Link here:  http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=245130&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

I have over 3000 fonts installed.  No I can not move them out of my active font folder.  No other application has a problem with my fonts.  Google Chrome/Iron works just fine.

Comment 1

[Ford]

Yup I am experiencing the exact same thing.

and have found countless posts online from others experiencing the same problem.

Seems to be Win XP

Comment 2

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

I believe this is Core -> GFX: Win32

Comment 4

[Vladimir Vukicevic [:vlad] [:vladv] (needinfo me, slow to respond)]

The issue is that we go through the fonts to pull out character map information, which is needed for proper font selection at later times.  This has generally been quite fast even with a few thousand fonts installed, so I'm not sure what could be causing the 1-10 minute startup times.. Stuart, any ideas?

Comment 5

[Vladimir Vukicevic [:vlad] [:vladv] (needinfo me, slow to respond)]

Stuart, any ideas?

Comment 6

[Stuart Parmenter]

maybe try turning on windows font logging and see what is going on, see if certain things are taking longer than they should?

Comment 7

[Vladimir Vukicevic [:vlad] [:vladv] (needinfo me, slow to respond)]

csrss.exe is the service runner process; it doesn't have any meaning by itself.  Often a tool like Process Monitor can figure out exactly which service is running there.  Another possibility is that it's the same cause as http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555021

Comment 8

[Stuart Parmenter]

set NSPR_LOG_MODULES=winfonts:5 and NSPR_LOG_FILE=c:\\foo.log in your environment and run firefox from the command line.  post the log

Comment 9

[Paul]

Attachment: Log of debug as requested.

thank you for your interest.

Comment 10

[Stuart Parmenter]

thanks... it looks like we don't actually log font searching at startup :/

the best thing to do here is probably have someone do a build with some additional logging that can time how long each font family takes to process its faces

Comment 11

[Paul]

That won't be me doing a build with logging...  if someone was waiting.  Am not dev.

Comment 12

[DC Dalton]

Having exact same problem over the past few weeks. I also have 3 or 4 thousand fonts installed at all times for design work and this bug is just maddening! WinXP FF 3.04

Comment 13

[Paul]

I've pretty much switched to exclusive Chrome / Iron use now.

I've been one of the early Firefox adopters, and have always wanted to believe in you guys, but Firefox is not longer viable to me.

I guess I'll check in on this bug every so often...  so long.

Comment 14

[Matt]

I tried to reproduce the bug to find a regression range but couldn't get it to show the way you described it. Firefox opened pretty quickly but when I tried to play a youtube video it couldn't keep a constant framerate (alot of hard drive trashing). A couple minutes later it worked properly. Is that the same?

I was looking and didn't see any spiking of csrss.exe or slow scrolling (but I have a dual core cpu if that matters). Did you imply this happens every time or just after computer startup? I think what I noticed only happened the first time after startup (and font installation) but not the rest.

I downloaded a font file torrent with the following name and the link where it is located after it (about 500Mb). Installed almost 7000 of them.

DaFont.com.Complete.Collection.7485.fonts.13-01-2007.ViNZ.zip.torrent
http://www.dafont.com/faq.php#all

Installed using Font Xplorer (first free program I could find to help remove the fonts after installing them) which creates shortcuts to the actual fonts to the font folder (I don't know if installing with a shortcut would make a difference rather than directly placing it in fonts folder). Also, I have lost 11 of xp's original fonts since this (maybe Font Xplorer bug).

http://www.moonsoftware.com/fxplorer.asp

Tested on latest trunk, Firefox 3.0.5 (see below), and Firefox 3.0.3 (see link)

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/2008/09/2008-09-24-17-firefox3.0.3/

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5

Comment 15

[Paul]

3.0.6 seems to have fixed it.

well done.

Comment 16

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

no patch in this bug = not fixed

Comment 17

[Paul]

you're right, it's back again...

but it was fixed for 2 weeks, and nothing changed on my end other than upgrading to 3.0.6

Comment 18

[Vladimir Vukicevic [:vlad] [:vladv] (needinfo me, slow to respond)]

One thing to try is in comment #7 -- grab process explorer and see which service is actually running under csrss.exe .  If it's an issue with the user profile being corrupt, as in the knowledgebase article there, I'm not sure how you'd check for that without actually trying it... maybe creating a new user on your box and seeing how long it takes to start firefox with a clean windows user profile?

Comment 19

[Phoenix]

Hi Paul, do you still see this issue with current Firefox version?

Comment 20

[Phoenix]

Resolved per whiteboard