Firefox is slow at first start up

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What could be the cause if Firefox is slow in the first start (during that session), but not in the following? Apart from being the way how Fx works now at Fx3 level, that is. Version used is 3.0.10.

I have put this as a characteristic of the Fx3, since I think I first saw this slowdown when moving to the current generation (or getting worse, since there was a bit before but not this bad).

When I run Fx for the first time after a Windows start, it takes around 12-13 seconds to load Fx; initially, first seconds nothing is shown, then for the middle 3-10 seconds I see the window frame but nothing else, and when in place, it takes some extra 1-2 seconds before the Bookmarks Toolbar is populated.

This happens on a defragmented HDD, with 2 GB RAM DDR2-800 running dual, and with little overhead in OS or Fx etc. I do let Windows finish all loading; AV and firewall etc. are all idle, let’s say 5-10 minutes (though that PC is quick, I’m at the Welcome screen in around 30-35 seconds, so I could be up and running quite quick if I wanted).

There is no start page in use, and even if so, the following Fx starts are at around 1 second. There are only a few RSS feeds in the Bookmarks Toolbar. But most of that is irrelevant since it starts quickly in all the following, as said.

I do clean the cache, quite often, and remove most but: browsing history & download history.

I have only looked briefly on the net for this, since after the first start it’s quick, until something happens, some installation or perhaps something else that requires a lot of mem. then it’s a slow start,

An old thread at Mozilla:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.ph…p;sk=t&sd=a

There are some other threads about Fx 3, I have not read all, but a discussion about tabs or slow pages at start is irrelevant for me since I start with blank page.

So, are there any config. tricks etc. that can deal with this? Or perhaps something completely different? I know it’s not that important since it, on that desktop, can go 24-72 hours between restarts so I don’t see the slowdowns that often.

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What could be the cause if Firefox is slow in the first start (during that session), but not in the following? Apart from being the way how Fx works now at Fx3 level, that is. Version used is 3.0.10.

It’s probably to do with needing to load dlls etc at startup. Once they’re loaded they don’t get unloaded unless the memory is required for something else, so subsequent loads are faster. You see something similar with OpenOffice.org. As an aside, I believe Microsoft cheats and loads bits of IE and Office at startup which gives a legup to their applications.

As a further aside — at work where I have to use Internet explorer 6.0 (don’t ask), I see a huge first startup time as IE frantically searches for a proxy server, but when I furtively load Opera it starts immediately.

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It’s probably to do with needing to load dlls etc at startup.

Hello,
I think you are probably right. I have not looked that close on the issue and only notice that it takes longer to start, but I know that some things have changed over the years, such as not releasing memory when you minimise (back in ver. 1.5) etc.

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You could try a time test with your network cable unplugged or wi-fi disabled to gauge whether or to what extent the problem is caused by any resources retrieved from the internet. (E.g., Firefox makes unrequested connections.)

I don’t know whether the size of the Places database (bookmarks + history) is a factor.

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You could try a time test with your network cable unplugged or wi-fi disabled to gauge whether or to what extent the problem is caused by any resources retrieved from the internet.

Hello,
Sorry for taking some time to reply. I did a test off line, just to be sure, but I think I have done this before, and there is no change. The first start of Fx is slower, much slower, 10-12 seconds, this time. The start doesn’t look that nice either, for several seconds there is that “empty” frame around an all white screen, looking as if it is going to crash, or you are running out of memory.

I don’t know if removing/cleaning browser history would make any difference, but then they shouldn’t have 90 days as default. Opening the Library to watch all history is usually a quick process, but it can sometimes take some time (a few seconds) before it is possible to navigate (scroll) the entries, but not if it has been running for some time. Another part that has been a bit flaky in Fx history is the download manager; I often remove some items, but I have not removed all, yet, since last install.

But since it starts so quickly after the first one, I can’t relate it to the Download Manager, History, Bookmarks (I do have many, but I don’t now how that compare to other people; when I had them in IE Favourites there were some 1200-1300 files, probably more now, but the file is smaller now in Fx 3), Internet connections or anything it seems.

I guess that, since the first start, by necessity , has lesser impact on the user experience the longer my Windows session last, it is not much to argue about. But if I’m going to recommend Fx to a friend or two it would be nice if didn’t look like it is going to crash on a 2 GB RAM, AMD 64 3500+ system.

I’ll see if I can find the files that holds history and downloads, or perhaps backup the whole profile, and then do some cleaning for another test.

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A quick G**gle took me to http://kb.mozillazine.org/Increasing_startup_speed which in turn led me to http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffpreloader/

DISCLAIMER: I’ve not tried either, the performance of my Opera installeation being quite fast enough for me

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A quick G**gle took me to http://kb.mozillazine.org/Increasing_startup_speed which in turn led me to http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffpreloader/

I would not use ffpreloader, it can cause problems with the auto-update feature of Firefox and updating add-ons. Firefox has to fully close to do the updates and ffpreloader keeps parts of Firefox in memory.

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A quick G**gle took me to http://kb.mozillazine.org/Increasing_startup_speed which in turn led me to http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffpreloader/

The kb article has some good general advices. I have not done all, as I mentioned earlier. I haven’t cleaned out all the history. If it were not for the great difference between the first and the following starts, I would think that things like Download manager and History were the culprits or increased the time. But I’ll look at that. With the address bar in Fx 3 one does like to make use of the History saved.

As for the preloader, it was mentioned in the thread that I linked to in my first post, so I read a little about it. I am reluctant to add something like that just for this, since my “maxim” is to try to solve problems with the software and OS that’s there, not adding more just to solve a problem somewhere else. But you couldn’t know that. As it seems, the way it works can interfere with crash recovery, updates etc. in Fx, as also mentioned by Tony.

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A cleaning of the Fx History resulted in a 4-5 seconds start, under similar circumstances: first start of Fx after Windows start (OS running idle for some 5-10 minutes).

So, History, by default set to 90 days, has quite a big impact, oddly only on the first start. I guess that cutting down bookmarks to only 10-15 will also improve the start time. But that’s not going to happen …

Before the cleaning, I had seen some odd entries in the History menu; the quick access to History in the menu should list some 10 of the latest pages, but my entries were really old. But the history in the Library was correct. Anyhow, it’s gone now (have a backup though).

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…… Before the cleaning, I had seen some odd entries in the History menu; the quick access to History in the menu should list some 10 of the latest pages, but my entries were really old. But the history in the Library was correct.

My experience matches yours concerning the URL dropdown list of alleged “most recent” entries. Mine contains some that I’ve NEVER visited and others that I haven’t been to for over a year or more! Pretty useless and I never go there.

I usually make it a point to clear the browsing history from the Library via the History on the command line. I just looked and mine had over 6,000 entries because I had forgotten to clear it lately.

The only thing I’ve ever done in the Tools, Options, Privacy box is to set mine to 30 days. I had never gone down into the settings box. These are probably the default, since I don’t remember ever going in there. Is this what you’ve got?

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My experience matches yours concerning the URL dropdown list of alleged “most recent” entries. Mine contains some that I’ve NEVER visited and others that I haven’t been to for over a year or more! Pretty useless and I never go there.

Al,
In that part, I was talking about the Menu entry called “History” (I think, since I use a Swedish ver.). It was changed some versions ago to History instead of something else, “Go to”, or whatever.

I don’t know if you with “URL dropdown list of alleged “most recent” entries” mean the address/location bar.

I have no direct problems with the address bar (location bar, super bar, magic bar or what they call it ).

As I said earlier, I recently cleaned out my History, thus there isn’t much history to mix with my bookmarks if I start to type something in the location bar, so mostly bookmarks at the moment. But it still works in some “intelligent” way I guess; if I start typing something and get a lot of suggestions; say “Microsoft”, and I then pick their Home page, then the next time I type the same word, I will find that URL at the top of the list, since it’s the one I picked earlier (when typing that word). I have never found URLs that I have never visited.

As for “Privacy data”/cleaning etc; at a clean install of Fx I usually go through all the settings, but not tweaking everyone. Thus I’m sure I have changed the settings for that dialog box.

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Since I had never bothered to check on that URL bar drop down list that I never use, I decided to do so and learned from this link that there is an addon that will fix it AND when Fx 3.5 arrives, it will be built in:

Cannot clear Location bar history

It turns out that mine all have that yellow star meaning they’re bookmarks. I suppose that’s right and the ones I don’t recognize may be bookmarks created by my son when he uses my computer, such as The Washington Post which I would NEVER visit! Still in all, I don’t know how Fx chooses which of my thousands of bookmarks to show in that list. It certainly isn’t by use…

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