tigerdog ([info]tigerdog) wrote in [info]bezilla,
@ 2006-10-12 20:59:00
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Freeze avoidance?
We are still working on finding the root cause of the freeze behavior, but in the course of investigating freezes on my machine, it looks like the problems may be made worse when SSL is being used. "But my Firefox freezes for no reason, even when just sitting idle!" you say. "I'm not even using SSL."

Well, maybe you are and you don't know it. New versions of Firefox (both branch and trunk) include automatic updates. We've disabled the updater for Firefox itself because it caused build problems. But the updater for addons (themes, etc.) and search engines is enabled by default on both branch and trunk. And addons.mozilla.org uses SSL! As an experiment, if you currently experience "freeze" behavior, please disable all updaters in tools/options/advanced/update. Report your experiences here. While this is NOT a fix, it may help us narrow the cause... and let you enjoy Firefox w on BeOS/Zeta without so much frustration.

Update: I disabled updates and left a trunk build running all night; it is still alive as I write this in the morning.

Update2: and it froze as soon as I went to docs.google.com, an SSL site.

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Yes
(Anonymous)
2006-10-14 06:00 am UTC (link)
Thats also what i always get. So at least we know now the problem is somewhere in SSL

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[info]nielx
2006-10-16 10:24 am UTC (link)
Well, we know the problem is related to SSL, but that doesn't quite explain why the problems seems to happen a lot on Zeta, but never - ever - on R5. I've been using SSL sites without any problems, with the updater enabled.

The bug might as well be triggered by a certain use of NSPR by SSL, which makes it an NSPR bug. Or the bug may be a Zeta bug.

It might be interesting to keep developing the new NSPR and see whether the problems persist there.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]tigerdog
2006-10-16 02:44 pm UTC (link)
Agreed, it might be a Zeta bug. You mention you never - ever - see it on R5. Up until this weekend, I haven't posted any "freeze-prone" builds from the trunk.

I never have the problem on Zeta when running older builds or branch (Firefox 2.0). But Firefox 3.0 trunk builds freeze a lot.

Just to be specific, have you tried the R5 trunk build I posted after the "day of code"?

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Another comment
[info]nielx
2006-10-16 11:57 am UTC (link)
I'd just like to add another comment.

Note that the actual freeze is at the main thread (screenshot). The next logical thing to do is to find out which lock is held, and find out which threads hold it as well. Unfortunately, it seems that bdb was unable to find all that information out, since there are no files and globals listed.

Maybe it's time to effectively find out how the debugger works.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Another comment
(Anonymous)
2006-10-16 01:04 pm UTC (link)
if you have ProcessControlelr running, you can ask it to debug the main thread. When you do that, it will say something like:

"Thread XXX is waiting on semaphore YYY ..." This is an easy way to see which one is the semaphore being held.

-Bruno (BGA)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Another comment
(Anonymous)
2006-10-16 01:10 pm UTC (link)
Cool info! I guess that's more user friendly than bdb or gdb for that matter :)

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: Another comment
[info]tigerdog
2006-10-17 03:42 pm UTC (link)
I've done as Bruno suggests. Main thread is always waiting on semaphore "nsprLockSem" other threads are usually waiting on semaphore "CondVar".

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Possible Fix !?
(Anonymous)
2006-10-23 10:08 pm UTC (link)
Hi all,

I played a little with the actual Bebits.com Build of Bon Echo (version 2006-10-11 RC3) and maybe I found a fix for the SSL Bug. As my Firefox Build works very instable I opened up the ProfileManager (firefox-bin -ProfileManager) and created a completely new account. And now I have no problem anymore with any SSL related Website. If it is GMAIL or the docs.google.com Site everything works flawless. This version I am currently running runs so well that it did not crash on my ZETA 1.21 System for more than 2-3 hours. I do not know if it is exactly a solve for the SSL Bug but it works on my machine very well.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Possible Fix !?
[info]tigerdog
2006-10-23 10:15 pm UTC (link)
I have also had good luck with this version after creating a new profile. Worked very well for a while; quite stable. This morning I started having trouble again. While it might not completely fix the problem, a clean profile is always a good idea.

I'd be interested in comparing the settings before and after the clean profile, to see what's different. That might also give a clue.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Possible Fix !?
(Anonymous)
2006-10-23 10:29 pm UTC (link)
What settings do you mean ?

After I created the new account I restored my old config manually with all my extensions and bookmarks and so on.

The prefs.js have different sizes should i post or send them to you ?

(The whole profiles are about 50MB each)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Possible Fix !?
[info]tigerdog
2006-10-24 12:00 am UTC (link)
prefs.js is probably the best one. please send by email doug {a t] sheltonfamily [d ot} org

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(Anonymous)
2006-10-23 10:33 pm UTC (link)
BTW: The old profile was created with Minefield Build.
I now tested about 45 minutes surfing on the extensions website of firefox (which is an SSL site of course) and I got no problem ;) Firefox never run so stable !

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]tigerdog
2006-10-23 11:59 pm UTC (link)
Now that I think about it, I started having freeze problems after I accidentally started Minefield using my Firefox 2.0 profile. While this doesn't fix the root of the problem, your insight is another good way to help people stay running. Thanks anonymous!

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
No problem !
(Anonymous)
2006-10-24 09:13 am UTC (link)
No Problem ;)
I think i will publish this to my next release of the Techview so that all the ZETA Users will have a stable Browser.


-----------------
Leszek Lesner
Webmaster of LLelectronics.de.vu


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