fwiw, it took a minute and thirty five seconds after the "post" button for the above post was pressed before there was any response in the FF browser.

Beverly Howard

It is possible that your firewall or other security software blocks or restricts Firefox without informing you, possibly after detecting changes (update) to the Firefox application. Remove all rules for Firefox from the permissions list in the firewall and let your firewall ask again for permission to get full, unrestricted, access for Firefox and the plugin-container process and the updater process.

See:

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/server-not-found-connection-problem
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/Firewalls
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fix-problems-connecting-websites-after-updating

Boot the computer in Windows Safe mode with network support to see if that has effect in case security software is causing problems.

• https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/how-to-start-windows-in-safe-mode/
• https://www.7tutorials.com/4-ways-boot-safe-mode-windows-10

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions ("3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem.

• switch to the DEFAULT theme: "3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Themes
• do NOT click the "Refresh Firefox" button on the Safe Mode start window

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-using-safe-mode
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-extensions-themes-to-fix-problems

You can create a new profile to test if your current profile is causing the problem.

See "Creating a profile":

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_-_Firefox#Profile_issues

If the new profile works then you can transfer files from a previously used profile to the new profile, but be cautious not to copy corrupted files to avoid carrying over problems.

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile

Thanks for the response. The issue is not with windows nor windows firewall.

However the profile may be a factor, so, a question.

How does one determine if a profile is corrupted before importing it? I'd hate to lose anything.

I will pursue this tonight and report back.

fwiw, I don't think any of my searches for ff speed problems ever came up pointing to profile problems, and, as mentioned, there were a _lot_ of recent results by people searching for answers to ff speed problems... maybe time to update some of the mozilla boilerplate KB responses.

Thanks again for the response.

Beverly Howard

OK... possible fix, but need to wait a day or so to confirm.

While the profile reload links you posted are tried and true, they are intimidating to mere mortals so, being lazy, I elected to ponder on less stressful alternatives and after backing up the profile folder, the "sync" option came to mind.

...and going that route exposed a clue.

When I pulled down the tools menu, the "sync now" option had been replaced with "sign in to sync" even though all of my bookmarks and other sync items appared to be valid.

When I selected "sign in to sync" and attempted to sign in with my mozilla credentials, I got a weird response that indicated that I was not the most recent user and was signing with an invalid account account.

Since I normally create logins with a "mixed case" email address, I retried entering the email in lower case only, that was accepted and triggered the mozilla email validation.

After I completed the sign in and allowed the sync to complete, I triggered a second sync to assure that I got a full copy.

Following that, it _appears_ that FF page load times are now normal.

Since this is my primary computer and I never intentionally signed out of FF, I have to assume that something happened during one of the FF updates two or three months ago and impacted the profile sign in status... for example, triggering some type of "user not valid" event that FF _eventually_ determines that the user is acceptable but consumes significant FF time and resources in the interim.

Here's hoping that the above information is useful to other page load time sufferers.

Beverly Howard

NOT RESOLVED

I have seen erratic normal page loads, but the large majority still take over a minute to load.

Opening Chrome and going to the same url at the same moment, Chrome always takes less than 5 seconds where FF often takes a minute or more to load the same page.

I can visualize both sides pointing at each other with the result that nothing gets done.

Bottom line, FF is currently not usable. I am going to miss some of the features and the reduced privacy, but, I have no other options.

I have;

Resynced (see above)

Deleted my profile Uninstalled and reinstalled FF Restored from Sync

Repeat, then Restore from backup

So, I now have a host of omissions, changes and other problems that will take at least several days to sort out, but, hey, mozilla is not paying for my time, so I guess it's not a priority. Then again, why bother.

As previously mentioned, I've been here since Netscape. There are similar reports of this issue all over the internet, but no one seems able to help or do anything to resolve the problem.

The support forum has evolved to isolate all of the mere mortal users and vastly reduce the sharing of information, but that doesn't seem to matter to those in charge either.

Someone please let me know if and when the root of this ongoing problem is addressed.

Respectfully but sincerely, Beverly Howard