Do you have the same issue under another user account? Try downloading Firefox from Mozilla and see if you have the same issue. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/#product-desktop-release

No Joy! When I ran the desktop file, it took about 2 minutes to open a new instance of the browser.

In yesterday's post I forgot to mention that I cleared the startup cache, and did a refresh. I also have this OS and Firefox running on a laptop and Firefox opens well within 10 sec.

Today, (and I've seen it on the laptop as well other days) I get a notification that I must close Firefox to install an update (in this case today) in 13 days? This must have something to do with the snap system...not impressed, as I have closed Firefox and went to "software" to look for updates and found none.

Still befuddled! New OS's are such a PITA!

Thanks for your help. Dave

Hi

I understand that this is something that Canonical are continuing to look into (I use the Firefox Snap myself on Xubuntu). You may find this article of interest:

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/07/firefox-snap-significant-startup-improvements

Thanks for the encouraging article Paul. Fingers crossed. This is the first time since 2012 I have seriously considered shopping for a new OS. Ubuntu had always "just worked" before! But this delay is hard to take in the morning before the coffee has fully kicked in!

Kudos, Dave

Thank you for letting us know, fingers crossed that this gets resolved soon.

Oh, and the laptop mentioned above (is a cheap HP refurb) is running straight Ubuntu 22.04, without XFCE. That could have some bearing, and errantly I claimed the same OS earlier...so yes, Ubuntu 22.04, but problem machine runs Xubuntu.

I really do appreciate your interest...I am lost on this issue. I suppose I could do a backup and blow away Xubuntu on this machine to see if it helps, but if it didn't help, I would not be happy reloading and configuring all my apps and data.

Dave

I think strace can provide info on what's going on during startup that could be helpful for Dev. You could also get a live usb stick of another OS and test. Are you using X11 or Wayland?

Operating System: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20220829 KDE Plasma Version: 5.25.4 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.97.0 Qt Version: 5.15.5 Kernel Version: 5.19.2-1-default (64-bit) Graphics Platform: X11 Processors: 8 × Intel® Xeon® CPU E3-1535M v5 @ 2.90GHz Memory: 62.7 GiB of RAM Graphics Processor: Mesa Intel® HD Graphics P530 Product Name: HP ZBook 17 G3

.....

I would say KDE and Gnome are heavier desktops compared to the light Xfce.

My bad, wrong iso. Here is Xfce LiveCD

Yeah, I tried it live, not so bad. It was a great idea to try a live copy, I never thought of that. OK, I'll make an Xfce copy too. Thanks for your help locating them! Regards, Dave

Yesterday I found the "refresh snaps" command. Today a Kernal update...shaved a whopping 10 seconds off Firefox startup! Only 1:50!....Yeah...still not good at all!

LOL

Okay... how did it go with openSUSE Xfce?

Firefox opened well under 10 seconds, (in both open SUSE versions) as it should! I also liked using the distro, and I am considering a full install. I just woke up, but there was something about the learning curve that makes me hesitate, it just isn't coming to me right now. Certainly a possible alternative to Ubuntu though.

This whole experience has taken me back to my Windows2000 days when I spent more time fixing things than actually using the computer....EXACTLY why this machine has never seen Windows! I think when I built this, Ubuntu was on release 14, and it flew because of the SSD. Now, until this latest upgrade, it was quite acceptable. But this upgrade has made it untenable for me. I do some light programming occasionally on Arduino and other uPCs, but primarily browse, watch video, and check my email...nothing demanding. Still, the browser is the key. I haven't found one I liked more than Firefox for it's privacy and configurability, so that has to stay, even if the OS must change!

Thanks again for showing me openSUSE! I think I'll wait a week or 2 to decide, and use it a couple more times before pulling the switch!

Dave

More research has led to Mint. Tried it live to (XFCE) and it works fine. Can't decide which I like more yet.

I guess this issue is resolved and enjoy.  ;-))

~$ firefox

2022/09/01 23:42:04.155833 cmd_run.go:1053: WARNING: cannot start document portal: Failed to activate service 'org.freedesktop.portal.Documents': timed out (service_start_timeout=120000ms)

Ok then, trying to start an instance of FF in the terminal gave me this 2 minute error! Obviously, trying to start this service is the delay to opening FF.

The question now becomes: What can I do about it? Where do I look?

To answer and earlier question that I skipped over: X11 is my window manager type.

You're getting this error on ubuntu I assume? I found this from googling your error. https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/snaps-only-run-after-a-long-timeout/9201/4

What happens when you just launch Firefox from the icon and not the cmd line?

If I launch from the panel shortcut or the internet menu, I get no feedback in terminal, but the same delay. If I launch from the terminal, I see the error I posted.

I went to the article you linked and WHOO-HOO it seems to be fixed! (Based on opening a new instance.Thanks SO MUCH! I really did not want to rebuild my system. I still need to try from a system restart, but I see no reason it should not work then too.

Apparently during my searches, I was too specific by posting the entire error line. Thanks for your search-foo!

Just for reference posting here: sudo chown -R $USER:$USER ~/.local/share/

Best Regards, Dave

Credit to vasilisc on forums.snapcraft.io ! Dave