595148 - Firefox stops responding briefly (a few seconds) when performing a one word-search through the address bar

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 693808

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Description

[Andrea]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0b6pre) Gecko/20100910 Firefox/4.0b6pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0b6pre) Gecko/20100910 Firefox/4.0b6pre

Firefox stops responding for a while (some seconds) when you try to search for something (be it a search query or the site name you want to go) using the address bar.
You must type in a SINGLE word of limited length (had success to reproduce with words long up to 10 letters).
Tested also with a new profile.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. be sure keyword.enable is set to true (default)
2. create a new profile or clean all you browsing history, to be sure the site you're gonna look for hasn't been visited before
3. type a single word in the location bar, e.g. "mozilla" and hit ENTER
Actual Results:  
Firefox hangs for a while, the UI is not responsive, and if you click around "Not responding" appears in the titlebar (using Windows).
Wait a while (some seconds) and all becomes responsive again.

Expected Results:  
You should either be redirected to the site (if you have a search engine set in keyword.URL) or at least a search results page should start loading, without delay.

Workaround: about:config -> set keyword.enabled to FALSE.

Even if you keep keyword.enabled to TRUE, the issue doesn't happen if you type the same word FOLLOWED by another one (maybe also by more than one, I think the problem here is when you use just one).

Another thing I noticed: if you type "mozilla" and wait for Firefox becoming responsive again, the next time you type "mozilla" in the location bar (even in a new tab), Firefox doesn't stop responding anymore, so I think this can be related to the fact that the site has been stored in the history (not sure though).

One last thing: I also disabled the awesomebar suggestions (nor from bookmarks, nor from history, etc...), to be sure it wasn't related to some lag loading the results proposals.

This happened also on beta 4.

The value of keyword.URL seems to be ininfluent (tryed with empty, google, bing)

PS: I'm behind a proxy, will try to test again without it.

Comment 1

[Andrea]

Some additional tests proved me wrong about the workaround: it doesn't work.

But I confirm that typing >two words makes Firefox load the results page without becoming unresponsive

Comment 2

[(mostly gone) XtC4UaLL [:xtc4uall]]

So this Issue happens without using a Proxy, too?
Maybe you can get a usable Stacktrace and attach the Log?
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/How_to_get_a_stacktrace_with_WinDbg#After_the_crash_or_hang

Comment 3

[Andrea]

I don't know, I haven't tried yet.
Leaving the office right now, will let you now later and will try to post stacktrace + log :)

Comment 4

[Andrea]

No, the issue doesn't happen without the proxy, I just tried with a new profile.

Comment 5

[Andrea]

I haven't had the time to install WinDbg to produce a stacktrace, all I know is I'm in a Windows domain (NTLM proxy?)

Comment 6

[Andrea]

I made some additional tests, this is what I discovered.While Firefox doesn't stop responding when I'm not behind a proxy, it still takes some time (a couple of seconds) to translate the word I typed in the location bar into a search with the URL specified in the keyword.URL setting.Let's take an example.Clean profile.New tab, open the Web Console and keep only Network and Register/Registry (don't know the english string) checked.I want to visit mozilla.org without having to type the entire url, so I just type "mozilla", followed by ENTER.And here the strange behavior occurs: it takes more than 2 secs on my pc for Firefox to append the string I typed to the keyword.URL specified URL.Strangely though, this does not happen again if you repeat the same steps, provided that you are keeping your browsing history. If you repeat these steps, I get an almost immediate "translation" of the string I typed into a search.If I clean my browsing history though, I have to wait those 2 seconds again, so it seems like the search results page being in the history has some positive effect on the time Firefox takes to translate the string to a query.If you make a multi word-search, the result is always instantaneous.All this happens AT HOME, without the proxy.Having also the proxy results in visible performance issues (Firefox stops responding for a while, I'd say approximately that 2 seconds).Screenshots follow.Can someone explain this behaviour?I think Firefox shouldn't take so long to process this kind of requests, a lot of users almost don't use the searchbar any more.Screenshots follow.

Comment 7

[Andrea]

Great, seems like this nightly is completely ignoring line breaking. Sorry for the awful readability

Comment 8

[Andrea]

Attachment: first one word-search, takes "a lot"

Comment 9

[Andrea]

Attachment: second one word-search, instantaneous

Comment 10

[Andrea]

Attachment: two words search is instantaneous

Comment 11

[Andrea]

I was wondering, could this be a domain guessing-related issue?

Comment 12

[Andrea]

Seems like it isn't, setting browser.fixup.alternate.enabled to false (i.e. disabling domain guessing, if I'm not wrong), doesn't solve the problem, still getting 2+ seconds the first time I search for a word I haven't searched for before.

Comment 13

[Gary [:streetwolf52]]

Can't confirm this as it works properly for me.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0b7pre) Gecko/20100918 Firefox/4.0b7pre - Build ID: 20100919214516

Comment 14

[Andrea]

Are you also behind a proxy?

Comment 15

[Sammy]

This also works for me.
I'm not, however, behind a proxy.

Is it safe to assume this only affects the user when behind a proxy?

Comment 16

[Klaas Heidstra]

I can confirm that there is a delay and I'm not behind a proxy. The problem here is that Firefox does a DNS lookup when you enter a single word. If the domain doesn't exist a search is performed. Sometimes it takes seconds to perform the lookup, this is very annoying when you just want to search. 

The only time a lookup is necessary for single words is for local domains (e.g. http://localhost/).

IE9 always does a search without lookup when entering a single word with the exception of "localhost".

Chrome never does a DNS lookup for a single word, so when you type localhost it just does a search for "localhost". When you want to go to http://localhost/ in chrome you have to type "localhost/".

In my opinion the behavior of Chrome is the preferred method. It is not logical to make exceptions for certain domains like IE does (and putting a "/" behind "localhost" to go to http://localhost/ isn't to big of a problem).

Comment 17

[Andrea]

I do agree with Klaas, I keep getting a delay of approx. 2 secs when typing a single word in the address bar (checked with the Web Console, that associates such delay with an "undefined" reply).
I think that such a behavior affects the browser reactivity perceived by the user and should be changed.

Comment 18

[Andrea]

I still have this issue, also without proxy, on Nightly 13.

Comment 19

[Ahmad Samir]

I see this issue too, and I am not behind a proxy.

Comment 20

[adecusati]

+1 for solution proposed by Klaas.

I am experiencing this issue with no proxy in every version of Firefox I have used (at least since Firefox 4, possibly also 3.6).

The default behavior of the location bar with a single keyword seems to be to send you to "http://<keyword>" rather than to search.  This does not seem to be in-line with other browsers.

It would be nice if the location bar would expect the URL scheme (ex. http:) when identifying a URL for a single keyword.  If the keyword ends in a "/", then "http://" could be assumed as the default case.  If there is no scheme or trailing "/", then do a search.  At the least, the scheme should be required.

Comment 21

[Marcus]

Having recently switched back from Chrome to Firefox 29, I find this one of the most noticeable differences. Chrome search feels instant, and juxtaposes very clearly with Firefox's slow search which, as Klaas suggests, appears to be due to DNS lookups. No proxies here either.

Comment 22

[woprandi]

I have exactly same problem and I agree with Comment 20, it's the most noticeable difference between Chrome and Firefox.

Comment 23

[Frank Yan (:fryn)]

Fixed in bug 693808.