Firefox long loading time at first start

[katoda]

I hope these questions are for me

Do you shut down FF before you shut down your computer?

Yes, I always switch off Firefox fully before shutdown/sleep

Do you actually shut down your computer, or simply put it to sleep?

It's the classic sleep mode, where everything is kept in RAM and PC wakes up instantly. I restart my PC usually just once a week.

Are you opening FF from Session Restore?
If so, about how big of a session do you have (about how many tabs/windows & about how much RAM is it eating)?

No, I do not use Session Restore. Firefox starts with standard welcome tab and one pinned tab (Twitter)

[katoda]

FYI, for last couple of days I was digging in Bugzilla and found something interesting: please have a look on https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1778472 and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1741865
Both bugs points to QuotaManager component - local storage scans performed by this component block access to some data/files required by extensions and other Firefox components, so the browser initialisation is blocked until the scan is finished. There is a plan to make these scans non-blocking, but until its implementation we will suffer. The bigger the local storage, the more visible effect of this limitation, especially for profiles saved on classic, spinning disks.
Limiting the size of data stored in the local storage (hence limiting scan time) is a workaround, however some side effects (like e.g. websites constantly saving to local storage stuff which was deleted before) can be expected.

[therube]

Firefox starts with standard welcome tab and one pinned tab (Twitter)

Which tab has focus (i.e., which actually loads on startup) Welcome or Twitter?

Test with Welcome having focus (if not already).
Test with only Welcome (i.e., do not leave Twitter open).
Test with opening to a blank page (about:blank) rather then Welcome (or Twitter).

If none of that makes any difference, test with a new clean Profile.


In times past, maybe even today, not sure, when particular files (names escape me) became huge, they would affect start up times (or reloading into memory, as the case may be).

FF (now) uses tons of files, & one is not apt to know what they do, if they're needed..., & while what may seem "big", may or may not be. (Like various .sqlite files, start out large, by default. And then things that may be withing your /storage/ directory, like who knows what that is, can be huge & maybe that... ? Mine is 40 MB - total, which I believe to be rather small in the scheme of things.)

[katoda]

Firefox starts with standard welcome tab and one pinned tab (Twitter)

Which tab has focus (i.e., which actually loads on startup) Welcome or Twitter?

Welcome tab

Test with only Welcome (i.e., do not leave Twitter open).
Test with opening to a blank page (about:blank) rather then Welcome (or Twitter).

Will do it next time I restart my PC and report here

If none of that makes any difference, test with a new clean Profile.

I already did that some time ago and I knew the result event before trying - no data stored, no data to scan, Firefox always starts immediately. Now I can compare it with another profile on the same PC - not clean, but with A LOT less data in local storage area. There is no such long start, the browser is operational in a couple of seconds after the start, no matter if after restart or long sleep.

FF (now) uses tons of files, & one is not apt to know what they do, if they're needed..., & while what may seem "big", may or may not be. (Like various .sqlite files, start out large, by default. And then things that may be withing your /storage/ directory, like who knows what that is, can be huge & maybe that... ? Mine is 40 MB - total, which I believe to be rather small in the scheme of things.)

Mine goes well above 1.5GB, it was huge as well in case of people on Reddit investigating it (even bigger than mine) and for me - especially after getting myself familiar with bugs mentioned above - this is the culprint of the problem. It will be addressed sooner or later, hopefully.

[katoda]

Test with only Welcome (i.e., do not leave Twitter open).
Test with opening to a blank page (about:blank) rather then Welcome (or Twitter).

Will do it next time I restart my PC and report here

OK, I finally can report that the problem discussed here still happens even when Firefox starts with just blank page, certainly when there is a version change and the entire storage is scanned during 1st start of the updated version. Firefox starts, but it's non-operational - any web page address typed or bookmark selected does not load for long period of time, far exceeding 30-45 secs. ProcessMonitor from sysinternals shows Firefox process executing a series of disk operations on storage folder. Immediately after finishing scan - the web page starts loading.

[DanRaisch]

This the only report of such a problem that I have seen on the forums.

[morat]

Firefox & SeaMonkey startup times: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... #p14937527