firefox takes a LONG time to launch after latest update

djg1971 · 2011-06-20 21:42:44

recently, I see some people reported slow menu behavior in firefox. I do not see this, but firefox does take an incredibly long time to launch all of a sudden (either as of late last week or as of today). how long do I mean? like 20 seconds. so long I assume I failed to trigger the launch from the openbox menu. but it does eventually come up, and then it seems to work fine (menus and all).

anyone else see this behavior, or know how to fix it? I didn't see anything recent when I searched the forums.

I use an arch-64 system, gdm + openbox, lenovo T61 with intel processor(s), nvidia graphics (up to date via pacman -Syu).

karol · 2011-06-20 22:22:00

Sorry, but I have no idea what does it mean 'after the last update'. Please say, what version are you using.

All I can say is that it works fine here (32bit, dwm, nvidia).

Yagi858 · 2011-06-21 07:54:38

It' s an old story, I thing from ver. 3. It's really embarrassing to see FF icon jump for 15-20 seconds before start. It's not an Arch issue. On Fedora and o-Suse is the same. But FF on Win7 and MacOS is light and fast without any tweeks ...

triplesquarednine · 2011-06-21 17:37:44

djg1971 wrote:

recently, I see some people reported slow menu behavior in firefox. I do not see this, but firefox does take an incredibly long time to launch all of a sudden (either as of late last week or as of today). how long do I mean? like 20 seconds. so long I assume I failed to trigger the launch from the openbox menu. but it does eventually come up, and then it seems to work fine (menus and all).
anyone else see this behavior, or know how to fix it? I didn't see anything recent when I searched the forums.
I use an arch-64 system, gdm + openbox, lenovo T61 with intel processor(s), nvidia graphics (up to date via pacman -Syu).

older versions of FF always take a while to start, get the latest stable build (Firefox5)... *** another issue can be slow resolution in your internet connection *** ie: firefox will wait until it resolves properly before opening, you can see this in action by disabling/unplugging your internet connection, and starting firefox - it may not open for like a minute or two, literally! you might even want to try the very newest builds ( i currently use 'Aurora', and haven't had any bugginess at all, and it opens much faster than firefox4 ).

Other options/tips/tricks to speed up firefox can be found here;

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Firefox

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Firefox_Tweaks

and also here, if you really want an extra boost in responsiveness;

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Firefox_Ramdisk

just make sure you know what your doing with the ramdisk, or you will lose your profile data 4 firefox....

using any recent version of FF on my system, FF starts up instantly (unless my connection isn't resolving properly). I use nearly all hacks and tricks available.(in fact, every trick in the wiki). Google Chrome starts a 'hair' quicker, but other than that, FF is insanely quick.

Last edited by triplesquarednine (2011-06-21 17:38:46)

djg1971 · 2011-06-22 14:52:06

well, older versions did not take that long to start for me. -not blazing fast on initial cold start, but not too bad.

i had installed firefox 5 before posting the comment. though the slow behavior was there for me in the last arch version of firefox 4, it was not cured by moving to v5.

i tried the AUR package which does the "pgo" build.... the process took about 2 hours, but in the end i saw no speedup whatsoever, in fact performance was arguably a little worse. the script also didn't clean up after itself and left a couple GB of stuff in /var/...

i've removed that package and gone back to the standard arch firefox 5. hopefully it will miracuously speed up again in the future...

triplesquarednine · 2011-06-22 20:46:59

djg1971 wrote:

well, older versions did not take that long to start for me. -not blazing fast on initial cold start, but not too bad.
i had installed firefox 5 before posting the comment. though the slow behavior was there for me in the last arch version of firefox 4, it was not cured by moving to v5.
i tried the AUR package which does the "pgo" build.... the process took about 2 hours, but in the end i saw no speedup whatsoever, in fact performance was arguably a little worse. the script also didn't clean up after itself and left a couple GB of stuff in /var/...
i've removed that package and gone back to the standard arch firefox 5. hopefully it will miracuously speed up again in the future...

Sorry, to hear your still having trouble there must be something else interfering, then...? I have firefox-pgo - it's speed is only noticable for certain web applications. for certain benchmarks, it blows non-pgo out of the water, while for general web stuff - the difference shouldn't be too noticable... for example, if i visit an HTML5, or WebGL site - i notice the difference. while for general browsing, using the fastest-fox plugin and disabling pango - will make a bigger difference than PGO...

i wonder what's going on here?

flamelab · 2011-06-23 00:28:44

Firefox 5 is pgo enabled on the repos.

anonymous_user · 2011-06-23 00:57:12

@djg1971 - Did you try with a clean Firefox profile?

mentalduh · 2011-07-12 03:56:12

I'm having a similar problem. I'm running several computers, on the main computer I'm running an arch32 with KDE and it runs sweet. On the next machine I've just installed an arch64 with Gnome 3 and for the most part it runs fine. However, I have two programs that take an exceptionally long time to start: Firefox @ 40 seconds and Emacs @ 22 seconds per instance. I can start an emacs daemon and that allows for an almost instant startup per emacs instance, however, it takes longer for shutdown. If anyone has any ideas I'd be grateful.

rwd · 2011-07-12 16:42:39

Some ideas for Firefox:

- read the arch wiki tips for firefox
- start from the commandline to see if there are errors
- use strace to see where the time is spent on (strace -f -tt firefox 2>&1 | tee logfile.txt)
- clean history
- disable extensions/plugins to see if any of them is the cause
- create an new firefox user profile

Arch Linux

#1 2011-06-20 21:42:44

firefox takes a LONG time to launch after latest update

#2 2011-06-20 22:22:00

Re: firefox takes a LONG time to launch after latest update

#3 2011-06-21 07:54:38

Re: firefox takes a LONG time to launch after latest update

#4 2011-06-21 17:37:44

Re: firefox takes a LONG time to launch after latest update

#5 2011-06-22 14:52:06

Re: firefox takes a LONG time to launch after latest update

#6 2011-06-22 20:46:59

Re: firefox takes a LONG time to launch after latest update

#7 2011-06-23 00:28:44

Re: firefox takes a LONG time to launch after latest update

#8 2011-06-23 00:57:12

Re: firefox takes a LONG time to launch after latest update

#9 2011-07-12 03:56:12

Re: firefox takes a LONG time to launch after latest update

#10 2011-07-12 16:42:39

Re: firefox takes a LONG time to launch after latest update

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