Massive issues since most recent Firefox update.

jbr said

The privacy pref might have been set remotely for release; on nightlies it's added directly in code but only starting v153 (you should be able to just add it manually in advance /it's type "boolean"/ and then with the other prefs let that nightly update to latest — to see if those prefs have any effect for your system. If it doesn't work, you now know how to reset the nightly back to older version again;)…) As for downgrading a profile, there's a way around it, see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/dedicated-profiles-firefox-installation#w_what-happens-to-my-profile-if-i-downgrade-to-a-previous-version-of-firefox but please do BACKUP!! the profile folder first. Ideally to three different places.

I'll restart my Nightly first with these new privacy preferences & update it to see if it does anything different, and then try the new profile because I'm thinking if these work with Nightly, maybe I could go in and try the same changes to my regular Firefox and see if that's a potential fix...? I'll have to see if it changes anything in Nightly first, of course, and then see if I could even get my Firefox to work long enough to change those settings. And by backing up the profile folder, you mean the actual folder on my computer, correct?

So, after changing those privacy preferences I updated Nightly to the newest version (v155) and the same issue of the window opening then freezing happens, but something interesting is that this time it actually stayed working long enough for me to load up a tab before it froze up, and I noticed something else. In my task manager, under the details tabs, there’s only one Nightly process that is non-responsive, and in clicking on analyze wait chain, a window pops up that says ‘one or more threads of firefox.exe are waiting to finish network I/O’. Does that mean what’s happening is a network connectivity issue? Additional info: I went through all the Nightly processes and looked through their wait chains, and there was one other process that said the same thing, but it said it was running, but non-responsive. Not sure if any of this means anything.

Edit: After making these changes, I’ve noticed that both Firefox & Nightly start up very fast (almost immediately) and the time from them opening to freezing up has become a much longer period. I can load links and go putter around in settings for a few minutes before it ultimately freezes up which does still suck, but…progress? A little bit? Further edit: I’ve also since turned off DNS over HTTPS, and after doing so I’ve noticed it takes a lot longer for my Firefox to become non-responsive, usually ~5 minutes or so. It does still eventually freeze, but I feel like maybe that’s part of the issue…? I mean…I also don’t understand what disabling this does, but I figure it may be relevant to someone.

Ok, so those keys didn't actually fix things, but they changed something. Now FF doesn't actually hang completely. It will take a long time, but it will respond. I was checking the new SMBC comic and I got 4 console and network erros for talk.hyvor.com with http code 422. The console errors report after a few miliseconds, in the network tab they show up as taking over 10s each. Which is what is probably hanging FF. Google and youtube both have lots of requests taking over 3 minutes, but no relevant errors in the console (Youtube only has a CORS error).

I then tried checkin my addons (honestly, should have tried it earlier. When I turn them all off, things load fine, so I pinpointed Tampermonkey as the culprit (even though I don't have scripts for those pages, only for SMBC of the ones I tried). I'm not sure if this issue is actually related, but I've restored the values on the config keys and will keep an eye to see if it replicates with the addon disabled.

I have doubts this is the issue the rest of the people are having. Tampermonkey is kind of a specialized addon and not many people are bound to have it. Still, it's possible some other addon they have is causing it?

It's kinda annoying because Tampermonkey is a nice QoL for some sites I visit.

So, a new update: Even with Tampermonkey disabled (even though I turned it on for loading one page, but turned it off again) and with the keys restored, the issue persists. It should be noted even when FF is hanging it still loads mozilla pages (like this one and the profiler one) just fine.

Looking at the console/network, I get a bunch of NS_BINDING_ABORTED errors. I turned the profiler on and it generated this: https://profiler.firefox.com/from-browser/marker-chart/?globalTrackOrder=n0wm&hiddenGlobalTracks=1wl&hiddenLocalTracksByPid=5916-0~1992-0w2~12284-0w3~25124-0w2~13460-0w2~22508-01~20336-0w2~19836-0w4~1444-0w2~20140-0w2~11640-0w2~21080-0w2~19524-0w2~20404-0w2~11624-0w7~11660-0w3~12740-0w2~7128-0w3&thread=0&v=17

Does this help? Do you need more to find out what the issue is? Still want me to try out regression?

To share a profile you'd need to upload it first: https://profiler.firefox.com/docs/#/./guide-getting-started?id=share-a-profile — that will give you a shortlink that's ready for sharing.

Ideally when you still reproduce in Nightly, it's better to file a bug, add the profile captured, and if you can easily tell "good" vs. "bad" then also run the mozregression to see if it can provide the range (pushlog) of changes that are the suspected difference that's having impact on your experience.

If, conversely, you'd like to try flipping prefs in your current release, I'd start with something like disabling http3 or tls versions — it seems it's connection related to some extent.

To share a profile you'd need to upload it first: https://profiler.firefox.com/docs/#/./guide-getting-started?id=share-a-profile — that will give you a shortlink that's ready for sharing. Ideally when you still reproduce in Nightly, it's better to file a bug, add the profile captured, and if you can easily tell "good" vs. "bad" then also run the mozregression to see if it can provide the range (pushlog) of changes that are the suspected difference that's having impact on your experience. If, conversely, you'd like to try flipping prefs in your current release, I'd start with something like disabling http3 or tls versions — it seems it's connection related to some extent.

I managed to recreate a new profiler. This is with tampermonkey active, since I think that would be more useful, as I'd like to keep using it. https://share.firefox.dev/4x3Z0hh

Tomorrow I'll look into mozregression.

To share a profile you'd need to upload it first: https://profiler.firefox.com/docs/#/./guide-getting-started?id=share-a-profile — that will give you a shortlink that's ready for sharing. Ideally when you still reproduce in Nightly, it's better to file a bug, add the profile captured, and if you can easily tell "good" vs. "bad" then also run the mozregression to see if it can provide the range (pushlog) of changes that are the suspected difference that's having impact on your experience. If, conversely, you'd like to try flipping prefs in your current release, I'd start with something like disabling http3 or tls versions — it seems it's connection related to some extent.

(some weird stuff happened, not sure if I'm double posting). I managed to create another profiler log (the previous one was unavailable). This is with Tampermonkey active, since that would seem more useful, as I'd like to keep using it. https://share.firefox.dev/4x3Z0hh

OK cool that's interesting — in your case it's apparent it is some GStatic/GMail tracking pixel of sorts hanging… and I can imagine if these add up, they'd all hang at some point.

(Would be interesting to see what disabling http3 in config does to these…)

Basically all of these just keep adding up, and hang there in the whole 30sec window captured:

OK cool that's interesting — in your case it's apparent it is some GStatic/GMail tracking pixel of sorts hanging… and I can imagine if these add up, they'd all hang at some point. (Would be interesting to see what disabling http3 in config does to these…) Basically all of these just keep adding up, and hang there in the whole 30sec window captured:

I tried running mozregression, but I wasn't able to get it to hang. I assumed Nightly would have the same issues because the OP tried it and said the same thing happened. I logged in and synced my profile, so I'd get the addons/etc, and even imported scripts and feeds, but things were still responding fine after 1h.

Since my issue isn't immediate and sometimes takes a long time to happen, I don't know if it was just luck. So I installed the latest Nightly, set it up just like FF is (same tabs and stuff) and I'm going to try to find out if the same thing happens, although that might take a while.

I'll try to run regular FF with different http3 keys at the same time, just to see if that affects anything. I'll report back once I have more info. If Nightly runs fine and not FF, I'll probably open a new thread instead, since my issue will be a different one.

I'll have to see if it changes anything in Nightly first

Yes, good instincts, exactly… not worth wrestling with stubborn release when you can test the effects of the same in advance on nightlies that you can easily reset or move back in time.

by backing up the profile folder, you mean the actual folder on my computer, correct?

Correct. Either the whole Profiles folder for simplicity, or if you recognize your randomjozxyqk.default-release or however that's named inside. Just in case removing the compatibility.ini then does something to all the data inside and you won't have woking neither before nor after;]

firefox.exe are waiting to finish network I/O’. Does that mean what’s happening is a network connectivity issue? […] I’ve also since turned off DNS over HTTPS, and after doing so I’ve noticed it takes a lot longer for my Firefox to become non-responsive, usually ~5 minutes or so. It does still eventually freeze, but I feel like maybe that’s part of the issue…?

Yup, something blocking requests, the queue getting too long or something like that. And yes, DoH adds even more requests to that queue so good to disable it, makes sense.

FWIW some older HW/OS users reported trying to disable some features helped them:

FYI another tip in support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1594562#answer-1833974 is to “Run this program in compatibility mode” that seemed to help on some older HW/OS if you wanted to try that as well to see if the legacy adjustments make any difference in the optimization/rendering prefs.

But that's mostly for the rendering part, not networking part. It seems multiple performance issues collided here to create a perfect storm;) but it sounds like a multiple issues happening at the same time (or over a longer period of time, until culminating now).

(Would be interesting to see what disabling http3 in config does to these…)

There are about 50 different http3 keys. :D Which ones would you like me to try toggling? All of them would be quite a chore.

I tried running mozregression, but I wasn't able to get it to hang. I assumed Nightly would have the same issues because the OP tried it and said the same thing happened. I logged in and synced my profile, so I'd get the addons/etc, and even imported scripts and feeds, but things were still responding fine after 1h.

Good job. Even bringing over profile clone etc. is just a sanity check the only difference might realistically be … let's say … in some Google fingerprint of yours, that you've broken through with Nightly, and not getting stuck in front of their datacenters;)

There are about 50 different http3 keys. :D Which ones would you like me to try toggling?

Right. Just the main switch, disable network.http.http3.enable (you can also lower security.tls.version.max from 4 to 3 but only for test, this also basically just changes the connection envelope, not necessarily in a meaningful way, but just makes the handshakes different enough… for a test, if nothing else worked.)

Disabling http3 did nothing. Same thing keeps happening. But Nightly seems to be stable for now (although I'll probably need more time to be sure, since even FF sometimes lasted a few hours). Which means that my issue probably isn't directly related to the OP.

I'll stop posting on this thread and continue using Nightly. I'll check FF every now and then to see if there are any updates and if they fix things. If the next update doesn't fix it, I'll open my own thread instead. Thanks for the help so far.