603155 - randomly slow startup of new windows launched from other apps

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Sean Barrett]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.10) Gecko/20100914 Firefox/3.6.10
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.10) Gecko/20100914 Firefox/3.6.10

Sometimes when clicking/activating an http url in another program with Firefox set as the default browser, the new window containing the clicked link takes a long time to open -- 20 or 30 seconds. During this time, the program in which I clicked the URL itself blocks until the Firefox window opens.

This happens regardless of whether Firefox is already running or not. If Firefox is already running, the existing Firefox windows behave correctly (they are not blocked). Only the launching app is blocked.

This is inconsistent, happening perhaps between 1 in 5 and 1 in 20 times that I launch links from other applications. I have seen this occur from multiple other applications: email, RSS reader, chat programs.

This is under Windows XP.

I do not see anything like this happening launching programs other than Firefox.

Firefox is not slow opening to open directly, nor is it slow to open new windows from within Firefox e.g. using "open in new window".

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. click URL in other program
2.
3.

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Sean, have you tried FF 4 beta yet?

Comment 2

[Tim (fmdeveloper)]

Reporter -> Are you still experiencing this issue with the latest version of Firefox 5?

Comment 3

[Sean Barrett]

I have not tried this in FF4 or FF5 and do not expect to anytime soon. Do as you will.

Comment 4

[Tim (fmdeveloper)]

There have been major improvements to startup in the new versions of Firefox. You should try and update when you can.

Comment 5

[Tim (fmdeveloper)]

Closing bug as Incomplete - if you are still experiencing this issue with the current release of Firefox or have more information to provide feel free to post back here and we can re-open the bug. You can also get assistance by visiting the Firefox help site -> http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Ask+a+question

Comment 6

[dj_daforce1]

(In reply to Tim (fmdeveloper) from comment #4)
> There have been major improvements to startup in the new versions of
> Firefox. You should try and update when you can. ...

I agree to this, the general startup time improved around version 4 and is still as good now in version 17. However:

Since version 17.0.1 (or previous), i have the problem described by the original poster of the bug:

When firefox is already running, and firefox.exe <url> is called from the command line, which would transfers the url to the running instance of firefox and then exit, this now takes up to 10 seconds, while before it was max 2-3 seconds. (so it seems firefox is doing something else before just transferring the url, like opening a database from disk or something...).