479001 - macbook will not go into sleep mode while firefox is running, due to sqlite activity

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 428565

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[jon.vachon]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.6) Gecko/2009011912 Firefox/3.0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.6) Gecko/2009011912 Firefox/3.0.6

My macbook will not sleep with firefox running.  The display will sleep but the harddrive and fan still run.  When I quite firefox, the system will sleep again. System will also sleep with other programs running including Safari.  

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.open firefox
2.let computer idle to enter sleep
3.display will sleep, but not system
Actual Results:  
system will not sleep

Expected Results:  
Let the system go to sleep.  Safari does.

This is a very annoying bug which I think could also cause long term damage to my computer by not letting it cool down and sleep on its own.  Please fix.

Comment 1

[Jesse Ruderman]

Workaround: press Cmd+Opt+Eject when you want your computer to go to sleep.

Comment 2

[Warren Oates]

I've been checking my backup logs, and it looks to me like it's the sqlite database being "tickled" once per minute or so that keeps the Mac from sleeping. I know if I shut down Firefox, the computer will sleep happily after x minutes (whatever I've set). Of course, I can put it to sleep manually, or with the scheduler, but I want it to sleep after a certain period of inactivity, which FF3 isn't allowing it. Can't a Mac Pro get any sleep around here?

Anyway, is there any way to turn the sqlite thing off?

Comment 3

[Jesse Ruderman]

Which sqlite database is being tickled?

Comment 4

[Warren Oates]

It seems to be:

Library/Application Support/Firefox/
  Profiles/lxmwnqog.default/places.sqlite-journal

(obviously, your lxmwngog won't be the same). 

This gets updated every time i run the backup script, even if I keep hitting it over and over. These are incremental backups with rsync, only files that have changed (in some way) should be backed up.

Comment 5

[Jesse Ruderman]

What backup script is this?  Does this bug only occur for people who use this script?

Comment 6

[Warren Oates]

I'm the only person who uses the script -- it backs up my wife's home directory (MacBook Pro 2.4) across the LAN to an external drive on the Mac Pro. If FF3.0.7 is "running" on her MacBook, the MacBook won't sleep, and that entry gets updated. The actual rsync commands are:

rsync -aNHAXvh --fileflags --delete wife@192.168.0.107:~/
/Volumes/Backups/Home_Dirs/wife/

[I've inserted a line break after "~/ " to make it readable ]

This runs as a cron job through an expect script. This isn't about rsync though, it's about _something_ in FF3 that keeps the MacBook Pro from sleeping every x minutes, and I see these updates to places.squlite-journal every time I run the script manually. Rsync is presumably seeing a change in the modification time of the file and backing it up.

Comment 7

[Warren Oates]

I'd point out that I've seen references to other problems with places.sqlite-journal on Windows (can't backup "file in use") and Linux (excessive CPU usage).  

Under OS X 10.5.6, this bug renders our MacBook Pro unusable. Sleeping manually is not a "workaround;" nor is trying to remember to quit FF3 every time we use it. I could probably script a "workaround" that ties a pmset command to screen-saver activation, but that'd be kludge. Next step is to dump FF3.

Comment 8

[Timothy Miller]

I think this bug matches what I'm experiencing.  Having Firefox open prevents my iMac from automatically going to sleep.  It's set to sleep after 10 minutes of inactivity, but if Firefox is open, it stays on.

If it helps, I have the following pages open:
http://slashdot.org/
http://discussions.apple.com/messageview.jspa?messageID=9223161&stqc=true
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1776?viewlocale=en_US
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/columbus/
http://www.bananabeancafe.com/Locations.html

I don't know if any page content can affect Firefox in such a way that it prevents the computer from sleeping.

This is a pretty serious bug as it interferes with the normal operation of the whole computer.

Comment 9

[Timothy Miller]

One other thing that makes this quite a serious bug is that it drains notebook batteries.  You expect that when you leave your notebook alone for a while, it'll go into a power-save mode.  With FF3 open, it does not sleep, so it drains the battery.  

It feels like Firefox conspires to drain batteries.  It uses excessive CPU for what appears to be nothing.  Each additional tab, no matter what is in it, uses more CPU time... for what?  And additionally, FF prevents the computer from sleeping.  I REALLY don't want to go back to that memory pig that they call Safari.

Comment 10

[Warren Oates]

I don't think anyone is taking this seriously. I run the following script (as a cron job) on our MacBook Pro:

#!/bin/bash
if   ps xc | grep ScreenSaverEngine > /dev/null
then 
if ps xc | grep firefox > /dev/null
then killall firefox-bin
fi
else echo "No sleep for me now!" > /dev/null
fi

It's not the most elegant script, I know, but it works.

I have the screensaver set to kick in after 15 minutes and set the sleep time to 45 mins. I run the cron job every 30 mins. This is safe: it "force quits" FF3, which saves its session status for you to restore when you relaunch it. The the computer can go to sleep.

Comment 11

[Timothy Miller]

There's another report of this bug here:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/process_bug.cgi

BTW, I'm running nightly builds (shiretoko) on 10.5.6, and I'm using a brand
new iMac as well as a 2-year-old MacBook Pro.  This is definitely still a
problem.  Sleep is prevented entirely.  The longest period I've let the iMac
not sleep before manually putting it to sleep is about 8 hours.

Comment 12

[Timothy Miller]

Oops.  Screwed that up.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=428565