Firefox 3 process still running after program closure

[ibauer]

(For the record)

Firefox 3 has a delayed shutdown that causes the issue if you try to restart it to soon after it was last closed. Related bug reports:
Bug 399108 – Need an I'm-not-dead-yet message when minefield takes a while to close
Bug 407981 – Delayed shutdown makes it impossible to start Firefox immediately after exiting

For other causes and solutions see:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_hangs#Hang_at_exit

Thanks for providing links to the bug reports and the KB article. I hope this issue will be addressed soon as I'm really thinking about downgrading back to FF2 which has worked well for me during the past, or looking for other alternatives. Needless to say that none of the solutions described in the knowledge base article actually worked for me.

[trolly]

The journal file should be empty. If it is not empty most of times then firefox has problems performing some database actions. Which security software do you have?

[ibauer]

The journal file should be empty. If it is not empty most of times then firefox has problems performing some database actions. Which security software do you have?

Only nVidia Active Armor firewall, AVG 7, PGP Desktop. Tried disabling all of them, then restarted Windows, but the issue persists. After a couple of visited web sites, the journal file size bumps back to around 100 KB. Any other idea?

[trolly]

You can use FileMon to check if something else beside firefox accesses the sqlite file.

[ibauer]

You can use FileMon to check if something else beside firefox accesses the sqlite file.

OK, I have Process Monitor from SysInternals already installed on my system, which actually supersedes the FileMon application. Anyway, I attached a filter in the Process Monitor that keeps track of all sqlite files in the FF profile directory and logs which processes actually access those files. The result is that there are only two processes that touch those files. One is firefox.exe and the other is System process. Do you want me to save the output from Process Monitor into a log file and make it available to you?

[trolly]

System process? Which types of access?

[ibauer]

System process? Which types of access?

I've exported a filtered event log from Process Monitor to a CSV file for you to see. It's quite large in size (about 500 KB) so I zipped it up and placed the archive on the web. You can download it from here:

http://mstu.cz/~bauer/sqlite-log.zip

[trolly]

57625,"12:14:42,2098395","firefox.exe","3180","FASTIO_NETWORK_QUERY_OPEN","D:\users\ivo\Internet\Firefox\Shared\places.sqlite-journal","NAME NOT FOUND",""

Is the D drive a network share or shared?

[ibauer]

57625,"12:14:42,2098395","firefox.exe","3180","FASTIO_NETWORK_QUERY_OPEN","D:\users\ivo\Internet\Firefox\Shared\places.sqlite-journal","NAME NOT FOUND",""

Is the D drive a network share or shared?

D:\ is a local hard drive, therefore it's not a network share. It is however shared, but FF2 did not suffer from the timing issue on the very same system configuration.

[trolly]

FF2 uses a different storage. can be the cause, can be not. Is it possible to remove the share for a test?

[ibauer]

FF2 uses a different storage. can be the cause, can be not. Is it possible to remove the share for a test?

OK, I removed the share, restarted Windows and tested again. Removing the share makes no difference. Looks like the problem is somewhere else.

[wellofsouls]

It seems this is actually related :
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=816865

anyway I'm sure it has little to do with addons (or addons just delays it longer), I've tested it with a clean install of Firefox 3, with 50 tabs from various sites, on a dual-core Xeon with 2GB of RAM, and after it closes, wait for 5 seconds, click the Firefox icon, and it launches a new Firefox window with the home page.

It's worse than a "Firefox is running and not responding" message, because a new Firefox window will overwrite the saved session, meaning losing the 50 tabs.

And this is happening in Firefox 2 too, with many tabs at least. For me this is a much more serious problem than a "Firefox is running and not responding" warning, because it has caused me losing hours trying to recover all those lost tabs

[dbridges]

I encountered this KNOWN and ACKNOWLEDGED bug when firefox 3 was first released and switched back immediately to firefox 2.

I am disappointed that 3.0.1 has been released and this is still not fixed.

I can appreciate that some people want to be helpful and look for alternative explanations for why it happens like looking at security software or extensions but that is just masking the problem and frustrating the victims.

It's a bug and it is unfortunate that this bug has been given a P4 priority and will probably never be fixed.

The only know workaround is to revert to Firefox 2.

[ibauer]

It's a bug and it is unfortunate that this bug has been given a P4 priority and will probably never be fixed. The only know workaround is to revert to Firefox 2.

Nope, not for me. If they don't fix it in a reasonable time frame, I'm prepared to flush Firefox 3 down the toilet and find myself a replacement (Opera would be probably the first item on my list of possible candidates). I don't want to sound rude, but I just can't help myself as this issue is really p*ssing me off and it got assigned such a low priority.

[MatthewSchenker]

Good Morning,
I started experiencing the same problem right after "upgrading" to 3.0.

I have no add-ons installed.

Like others, I start Firefox, then close it, but the program remains running in the background. The only way to start it again is to go into the Task Manager and end the process.

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one experiencing this, but that doesn't solve the problem!

It sounds like I need to remove Firefox and re-install 2.0?

Does anyone else have a solution?

Thanks,
Matt