Safe Mode question: what else is affected besides disabling AddOns?
I have a problem opening some sites, specially it is for example a login form. What happens is that the page loads but when I try to click on the the first field to fill it Firefox does nothing and if I do the same 2-3 times eventually ends up displaying the "(Not Responding)" message on the title bar and nothing happens for about 10 sometimes 15 seconds until the page finishes loading and then I can fill the form field normally. This happens for example when I try to enter my online banking, or login into Paypal via the popup window at ebay, to name some. Also some other pages that don't have any forms seem to also cause this initial delay in being able to interact with the page, for scrolling down, clicking a link, etc. It feels like when there are scrips on the page being loaded, the problem happens, but I cannot be 100% sure that is what might actually be going on.
If I disable all the AddOns by starting Firefox in Safe Mode the problem goes away and pages load normally in the sense that I can fill the form field almost immediately without having to wait. But when I go back into normal mode with AddOns reenabled, and then proceed to manually disable ALL my AddOns, the problem still continues to happen. So I am assuming there must be something else the Safe Mode also affects besides the AddOns, and that seems to be causing the problem I am having with the slow load of pages mostly with forms.
For a bit of context, this problem started happening some months ago, out of the blue as I am pretty sure it did not start to happen immediately after something new was installed or some FF settings where changed/tweaked. Basically things where fine and the suddenly I started noticing the problem, but as usual one tends to first think it might be due to a temporary Internet speed hiccup, and so on, but eventually realizes that something definitively had changed permanently for the worst. And that is where I am now, and have been for a few months already. Very frustrating.
Hope someone here can give me some answers, primarily what encompasses to go into Safe Mode, which seems to solve the issue, but what else besides AddOns being disabled is also affected? Perhaps any custom user settings in About:Config are also temporarily reversed?
Thanks in advance for any information
All Replies (11)
Look at this article: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/diagnose-firefox-issues-using-troubleshoot-mode
Note that not all websites may still support your old Firefox 52 ESR version as you can no longer update to newer releases.
You can create a new profile as a quick test to see if your current profile is causing the problem.
See "Creating a profile":
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.
I looked at the link, but its mainly focudes to explain how to use Safe Mode to troubleshoot which I have obviously already done many times. The only somewhat useful information was:
"If the problem does not happen in Safe Mode, the most likely cause is an extension, theme or hardware acceleration."
I do not use any themes besides the default, and I already had tried switching HW acceleration off/on without any change in the issue. So besides already having tried disabling all AddOns manually there must be something else causing my problem but unfortunately the article at the link only does vaguely refer to what Safe Mode does to FF besides disabling AddOns, Themes, or HW Acceleration.
Anybody else have some more detailed info? Thanks.
Hey cor-el.
I think some time ago actually I did already try creating a new profile but it really did not help much to alleviate the slowness issue. Also it was a bit messy switching back and forth so I left that alone. My browser is highly customized and creating a new profile would entail a lot of work recreating things as they are now which are exactly how I like it except for this issue that I described. I am using server 2003 as a workstation, not XP. I have another machine for the stuff that requires win7 and (ugghh) ...up, and I still don't like it much. My 2003 system does all I need it to do, and does it quickly, cleanly and efficiently, that is until this issue started happening out of the blue. Otherwise everything is a snap, almost always zero latency.
Anyway, appreciate the feedback so far but I would rather ideally focus on finding the real problem which probably must be something very simple (and probably stupid) instead of trying to solve it by just looking at ways to try and bypass the whole browser profile (if it would have helped) and then not even knowing what really was wrong in the first place.
In any case just to be clear, last time I tried to create a new profile it did not help. The fact that the issue goes away when I go into Safe Mode makes it overly clear that it is indeed something in my current default profile that is causing it. But why it does not help to manually disable ALL AddOns leaves me scratching my head. What else does Safe Mode affect besides AddOns, and of course Themes and HW Acceleration?
Thank you for your time and input.
Can you list your troubleshooting information (about:support) ?
Sorry left out a couple of crucial words in my last reply:
...The fact that the issue goes away when I go into Safe Mode makes it overly clear that it is indeed something in my current default profile that is causing it...
and NOT a website compatibility issue as cor-el mentioned.
If it where the later, a simple Safe Mode test would not have helped to alleviate the issue.
Thank you.
Using the Profile Manager to create a new profile is merely meant to check whether this is connected to the current profile or is a wider issue. If you use the Profile Manager then you can easily switch back to your current profile unlike when you use the refresh feature in Firefox.
cor-el
I was trying to attach a PDF file here of all the Troubleshooting Info, but it seems PDF files are not allowed. Is there another way I can post the information without having to copy everything by hand? It rather long...
Ok thinking on my feet, I just posted the PDF file to one of my servers: https://ovprotection.com/tmp/Troubleshooting%20Information.pdf
Hope that works for you. Thanks.
BTW I forgot to mention that while the browser becomes unresponsive for during the first 10-15 seconds while starting to load a page, the CPU activity does not spike to high levels, only moderately in the sense that the fan speeds up a bit, but indicated CPU usage is usually only 10-20%, so I would think the slowness does not seem to be related to an overburdened CPU. Just wanted to throw that in as well in case it might be important.
So what happened? lost contact with you (cor-el). If you are unable or unwilling to continue looking into this issue please at least say so. Or did I break some unwritten etiquette rule that offended you/someone? Anyway thanks for your brief help, it sounded quite promising during those few initial exchanges...
BTW I created another profile just to test as you suggested, and yes the same problem still happens when in normal mode (not safe mode) on the same new profile. I selected launch profile in new browser at the about:profiles window.