535199 - Huge file created in Firefox profile on AFP networked home directories causing server HD to fill.

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Gregg Leventhal]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120121 Firefox/3.0.5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091102 Firefox/3.5.5

~100 users using Firefox 3.5.5 where there home folder is located on a remote server accessed over AFP are experiencing low disk space errors and system instability.  It appears something in the Firefox profile was temporarily expanding causing the entire remote server where user's homedirs were stored to fill HD to capacity.  The file then quickly gave space back to the filesystem.  This process takes only seconds.  It happens on different users profiles randomly several times an hour as long as Firefox is open and the users are working.  If the application is left idle, we did not see problems occur, only during browsing and usage.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Users use Firefox, issue occurs.
2.Users are moved to different Server, issue occurs.
3.Firefox is closed, issue does not occur.
Actual Results:  
When the application is closed the issue does not occur on our network.

Comment 1

[Gregg Leventhal]

The server is Leopard Server 10.5.8 and the clients are Leopard 10.5.8

Comment 2

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

what is the filename of this file ?

Comment 3

[Gregg Leventhal]

I cannot be sure which file it is because it expands and contracts in seconds at random times.  It may not be a file but something Firefox is doing to issue a request for space on the filesystem, and because the profile is located on the server, it maxes the drive there.  The binary is installed locally to the Users' hard drive, but the local drive does not fill up, just the server where the users' home folder and subsequently, their Firefox profile is located.

Comment 4

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

I (or someone else) have to find a component for this bug and the developer for that component can look into the bug.
The files in the profile directory are created by different components inside of Firefox/Gecko. I don't have a OS X system and an AFP share...
I can not find other reports about this but maybe someone else can find the file that is created.

Comment 5

[David Dahl :ddahl]

Do these users have any extensions installed that access the filesystem? Have you restarted the affected user's browsers in safe mode? 

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode

Also, what version of Firefox is installed?

Comment 6

[Gregg Leventhal]

No extensions were installed.  Version 3.5.5

Comment 7

[David Dahl :ddahl]

Can you write a script to monitor the files as they change size? until we know which file or files are chaniging, it will be difficult to know what is going on.

Comment 8

[Gregg Leventhal]

I dont have a test environment set up, only my production environment that had been affected.  I think it might be happening in the sqlite DB but I'm not sure.  I was hoping the info I provided already might be enough.  We can afford to have this happen anymore since it brings users down.

Comment 9

[David Dahl :ddahl]

Gregg:

You can probably modify this example shell script to help you figure out what files are changing size:
################################
#!/bin/bash

# replace the value here with your directory to monitor
DIRECTORY_PATH="/home/ddahl/.mozilla/firefox/xjdyafjs.crash"

COUNTER=0
LOGFILE="/tmp/monitorOutput.txt"

echo "starting test" > $LOGFILE

while [ $COUNTER -lt 5000 ]; do
  _date=`date`
  echo $_date
  echo $_date >> $LOGFILE
  echo `du -H $DIRECTORY_PATH` >> $LOGFILE
  sleep 3
done

################################

all of the output will be in /tmp/monitorOutput.txt

this will run 5000 times with a 3 second pause between measurements

Comment 10

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Reporter, please retest with Firefox 3.6.12 or later in a fresh profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). Also update your plugins (flash, adobe reader, java, quicktime, silverlight, etc.) Go to the developer's website and download the latest version from there. If you no longer see this issue, please close this bug as RESOLVED, WORKSFORME. If you do see the bug, please post a comment.

Comment 11

[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.