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Crashes with Firefox Quantum



 
 
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  #16  
Old December 4th 17, 02:23 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
No_Name
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 177
Default Crashes with Firefox Quantum

On Sat, 2 Dec 2017 12:43:48 -0700, "Bill in Co"
wrote:

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Andy
writes:
Is anyone else getting frequent crashes with Firefox Quantum ?

I didn't think Quantum (alias Firefox 57, I think) runs under XP; I
thought 52 was the last that would.


Yup, it says FF 52 is the last version for Windows XP, so am I missing
something? :-) Speaking of which, the older versions still work fine, at
least over here. I'm hoping we don't get to a point where that doesn't
happen anymore, but I may be too optimistic.


I'm looking to downgrade FF. I currently run FF version 47.x. I am
running this on an older laptop (Lenovo T43) with XP Pro Sp3. This
version of FF does work, but poorly. It runs slow, and it seems that
after it's in use for awhile, it seems to become saturated, or
overloaded, which makes it run even slower, until it becomes unusable.
So, every couple hours, I have to close FF, clear the cache, and re-open
it, to make it useful again. I think FF just uses up all the resources
on this low powered computer, until it overloads.

Prior to this, I was running FF 18.x. I never had those problems with
that version, but some websites would bitch about the "old version" and
some pages would not load correctly.

I know that websites in general are switching over to some newer HTML
code (I think it's version 5). And now we have all the secured sites
which are also slowing things down and causing more problems for the end
user.

Anyhow, I need to downgrade to some version of FF between 18 and 47. I'm
not sure what version is the best, which will eliminate the extreme
drain on resources, and still run most current websites. Any
suggestions?


Ads
  #17  
Old December 4th 17, 05:21 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default Crashes with Firefox Quantum

In message ,
writes:
[]
I'm looking to downgrade FF. I currently run FF version 47.x. I am
running this on an older laptop (Lenovo T43) with XP Pro Sp3. This
version of FF does work, but poorly. It runs slow, and it seems that
after it's in use for awhile, it seems to become saturated, or
overloaded, which makes it run even slower, until it becomes unusable.
So, every couple hours, I have to close FF, clear the cache, and re-open
it, to make it useful again. I think FF just uses up all the resources
on this low powered computer, until it overloads.

Prior to this, I was running FF 18.x. I never had those problems with
that version, but some websites would bitch about the "old version" and
some pages would not load correctly.

[]
Anyhow, I need to downgrade to some version of FF between 18 and 47. I'm
not sure what version is the best, which will eliminate the extreme
drain on resources, and still run most current websites. Any
suggestions?

Hmm. I run version 26; this still has difficulty with _some_ sites
(though that _could_ be some of the settings and add-ons I have). With
thirty-odd tabs open, I find it still does the slowdown (though I'd say
after rather more than two hours), but I find closing and reopening it
usually speeds it up again - I don't clear the cache (if I ever knew how
to, I've forgotten). If I think things are a bit slow, I have a look in
Task Manager and sort by memory usage - if Firefox is hogging a lot,
then it's time to restart it.

This could give you a mid-point in your researches. (26 or 27 is the
last before one of the major changes in user interface - Atlantis,
Australis, something like that.) I'd not run XP-with-Firefox with less
than 1.5G RAM these days.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

She's showing her age a little bit. I always say she doesn't have teething
troubles, she has denture troubles! - Timothy West (on their narrowboat!), RT
2014-March
  #18  
Old December 4th 17, 06:56 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Bill in Co
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,927
Default Crashes with Firefox Quantum

Bill in Co wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in Co
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in Co
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message ,
Andy writes:
Is anyone else getting frequent crashes with Firefox Quantum ?

I didn't think Quantum (alias Firefox 57, I think) runs under XP; I
thought 52 was the last that would.

Yup, it says FF 52 is the last version for Windows XP, so am I missing
something? :-) Speaking of which, the older versions still work
fine, at least over here. I'm hoping we don't get to a point where
that doesn't happen anymore, but I may be too optimistic.


(I was really wondering why Andy was asking here - as have others.) If
you've got an old version that is working, it will continue to do so;
the only reason for that to appear not to be the case will be if web
page designers start to include features that only work with the newer
versions. So far, most companies that do this, I've found an
alternative, so all they've done is lose my custom; however, there may
come a time when all the alternatives are using the new "feature" as
well.

OR are just compiled with a newer compiler that uses some revised DLLs
that are not compatible with the Windows XP OS. IOW, it's not just the
added features of the browser, but the actual code still being
compatible with the


The actual code of what? If you mean the browser, then up to 52 it _was_
compiled (so I understand; I'm still on 26) and runs under XP. And will
continue to do so, for ever. The only thing that will make that appear
not to work will be if web page creators use features not supported in
52, rather than not supported in XP - i. e. it's the version of browser
that's the limiting factor, not XP. Of course, in practice the effect is
similar, unless those features _are_ supported by some other browser
that runs under XP.

Windows XP OS as I understand it. You can see that happening when you
try to install some other newer programs, and you get those cryptic DLL
error messages, and it won't install..

I don't _think_ web pages will call DLLs.


The problem is waaay before that. If you try to install some newer
programs (or newer versions of some older programs) on a Windows XP
system (I should have said System, as that also includes the older Visual
C stuff and whatnot on that older system), it will often fail in one of
three ways: 1) the installer refuses to install it, or 2) the installer
tries to install it and fails, and gives some cryptic DLL error message
about some missing DLL parameters (due to a newer version DLL supporting
them but not the older version), or 3) it can't find some DLL file(s) on
your system.


An addendum and a question for Paul (or someone else who might know):

What I don't understand is whether or not these DLL incompatibility issues
arise from the older Visual Basic or C libraries on a Windows XP system, OR
from some newer DLLs added by the newer program version itself, OR from the
(older) DLLs found on a Windows XP system, at large. Or maybe I'm missing
something here.


  #19  
Old December 4th 17, 10:56 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Crashes with Firefox Quantum

Bill in Co wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in Co
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in Co
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message ,
Andy writes:
Is anyone else getting frequent crashes with Firefox Quantum ?

I didn't think Quantum (alias Firefox 57, I think) runs under XP; I
thought 52 was the last that would.
Yup, it says FF 52 is the last version for Windows XP, so am I missing
something? :-) Speaking of which, the older versions still work
fine, at least over here. I'm hoping we don't get to a point where
that doesn't happen anymore, but I may be too optimistic.


(I was really wondering why Andy was asking here - as have others.) If
you've got an old version that is working, it will continue to do so;
the only reason for that to appear not to be the case will be if web
page designers start to include features that only work with the newer
versions. So far, most companies that do this, I've found an
alternative, so all they've done is lose my custom; however, there may
come a time when all the alternatives are using the new "feature" as
well.
OR are just compiled with a newer compiler that uses some revised DLLs
that are not compatible with the Windows XP OS. IOW, it's not just the
added features of the browser, but the actual code still being
compatible with the
The actual code of what? If you mean the browser, then up to 52 it _was_
compiled (so I understand; I'm still on 26) and runs under XP. And will
continue to do so, for ever. The only thing that will make that appear
not to work will be if web page creators use features not supported in
52, rather than not supported in XP - i. e. it's the version of browser
that's the limiting factor, not XP. Of course, in practice the effect is
similar, unless those features _are_ supported by some other browser
that runs under XP.

Windows XP OS as I understand it. You can see that happening when you
try to install some other newer programs, and you get those cryptic DLL
error messages, and it won't install..

I don't _think_ web pages will call DLLs.

The problem is waaay before that. If you try to install some newer
programs (or newer versions of some older programs) on a Windows XP
system (I should have said System, as that also includes the older Visual
C stuff and whatnot on that older system), it will often fail in one of
three ways: 1) the installer refuses to install it, or 2) the installer
tries to install it and fails, and gives some cryptic DLL error message
about some missing DLL parameters (due to a newer version DLL supporting
them but not the older version), or 3) it can't find some DLL file(s) on
your system.


An addendum and a question for Paul (or someone else who might know):

What I don't understand is whether or not these DLL incompatibility issues
arise from the older Visual Basic or C libraries on a Windows XP system, OR
from some newer DLLs added by the newer program version itself, OR from the
(older) DLLs found on a Windows XP system, at large. Or maybe I'm missing
something here.


EXEs can have a DLL list. And DLLs can have a DLL list.
Once everything is loaded, every subroutine call has an address,
even if the address has to take into account ASLR. The loader
takes care of the details of linking things together. It
cannot link things together, that it cannot "see" and load.

I can upload Firefox 52 EXE and collect the Imports list.
And do the same for 57. The EXE file is a "thin" file that
doesn't do much. The "meat" is in XUL.dll. So if you don't
have a copy of DependencyWalker, you can use Virustotal
as a very crude analysis tool.

Firefox 52

https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/0e...7d41cb/details

Imports:

ADVAPI32.dll
KERNEL32.dll
MSVCP140.dll
VCRUNTIME140.dll
api-ms-win-crt-environment-l1-1-0.dll \
api-ms-win-crt-heap-l1-1-0.dll \
api-ms-win-crt-locale-l1-1-0.dll \
api-ms-win-crt-math-l1-1-0.dll \___ Microsoft also has
api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll / pushed these out hard,
api-ms-win-crt-stdio-l1-1-0.dll / via security updates,
api-ms-win-crt-string-l1-1-0.dll / in an effort to support
mozglue.dll some kinda newer stuff.

Firefox 57 (basically, the same, as the EXE "doesn't do anything")

Imports

ADVAPI32.dll
KERNEL32.dll
MSVCP140.dll
VCRUNTIME140.dll
api-ms-win-crt-environment-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-heap-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-locale-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-math-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-stdio-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-string-l1-1-0.dll
mozglue.dll

When I run the XUL.dll files (~50MB size), they
have a few different dependencies. The 57 one is
calling dwmapi.dll and I don't think the Display
Manager goes by that name on Windows XP. There are
some I don't recognize, and would have to start searching
some C: partitions, to find and get a name from them.


Firefox 52 XUL.dll Firefox 57 XUL.dll

Imports Imports

ADVAPI32.dll =
AVRT.dll
CRYPT32.dll =
GDI32.dll =
HID.DLL
IMM32.dll =
IPHLPAPI.DLL =
KERNEL32.dll =
MSIMG32.dll =
MSVCP140.dll =
OLEAUT32.dll =
RPCRT4.dll =
SETUPAPI.dll =
SHELL32.dll =
SHLWAPI.dll =
USER32.dll =
USP10.dll =
UxTheme.dll =
VCRUNTIME140.dll =
VERSION.dll =
WINMM.dll =
WINTRUST.dll =
WS2_32.dll =
WSOCK32.dll =
WTSAPI32.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-convert-l1-1-0.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-environment-l1-1-0.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-filesystem-l1-1-0.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-locale-l1-1-0.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-math-l1-1-0.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-stdio-l1-1-0.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-string-l1-1-0.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-time-l1-1-0.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-utility-l1-1-0.dll =
dwmapi.dll (W8/W10?)
lgpllibs.dll =
mozglue.dll =
nss3.dll =
ole32.dll =
pdh.dll --- not in 57 (windows performance
data helper, no idea)

This is one of the reasons DependencyWalker output is so
complicated looking, because the imports of every DLL
in the "tree" shows up (recursive analysis). Including
bogus references to some sort of java DLL that hasn't
existed since WinXP SP1 (not available on SP1a, removed by
court decision in Sun vs Microsoft legal case over msjava).

Usually, an analysis without boring down too many
layers, can spot dependencies that an old
OS might not support. And if you hard-wire
something like this into your executable,
it helps work as a booby-trap (if I move my
Firefox 57 folder to my WinXP machine).

But kernel calls work just as well. Both the EXEs
and the DLLs above reference kernel32 and you could pick
a call that's only supported in Vista+ for example,
to prevent WinXP from loading completely.

And that doesn't even include the marking of executables
with some sort of "runs in particular OS version xxx", like
how Solitaire was marked. Microsoft tends to do that to
their own software products. I can't run VPC2007
on Windows 10, even though it would probably
execute given a chance.

Paul
  #20  
Old December 4th 17, 12:14 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Crashes with Firefox Quantum

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message ,
writes:
[]
I'm looking to downgrade FF. I currently run FF version 47.x. I am
running this on an older laptop (Lenovo T43) with XP Pro Sp3. This
version of FF does work, but poorly. It runs slow, and it seems that
after it's in use for awhile, it seems to become saturated, or
overloaded, which makes it run even slower, until it becomes unusable.
So, every couple hours, I have to close FF, clear the cache, and re-open
it, to make it useful again. I think FF just uses up all the resources
on this low powered computer, until it overloads.

Prior to this, I was running FF 18.x. I never had those problems with
that version, but some websites would bitch about the "old version" and
some pages would not load correctly.

[]
Anyhow, I need to downgrade to some version of FF between 18 and 47. I'm
not sure what version is the best, which will eliminate the extreme
drain on resources, and still run most current websites. Any
suggestions?

Hmm. I run version 26; this still has difficulty with _some_ sites
(though that _could_ be some of the settings and add-ons I have). With
thirty-odd tabs open, I find it still does the slowdown (though I'd say
after rather more than two hours), but I find closing and reopening it
usually speeds it up again - I don't clear the cache (if I ever knew how
to, I've forgotten). If I think things are a bit slow, I have a look in
Task Manager and sort by memory usage - if Firefox is hogging a lot,
then it's time to restart it.

This could give you a mid-point in your researches. (26 or 27 is the
last before one of the major changes in user interface - Atlantis,
Australis, something like that.) I'd not run XP-with-Firefox with less
than 1.5G RAM these days.


You can get every version you could ever want.
They're all available.

http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/

Just remember that your personal profile folder,
isn't guaranteed to "go backwards" on version. At least
export your bookmarks file for safe keeping.

The build environment has a neat trick, where if you
do "./mach run" it creates a temporary profile folder
for your freshly compiled version, to use for testing.
So that your "regular" profile folder doesn't get messed
up. Apparently it is possible to run two different versions
at the same time, just with separately maintained bookmarks
and so on. That means, at least for some range of versions
of Firefox, you can pass a pointer to the profile
folder, so your old profile folder doesn't get messed up.

I'm only pasting this here, to show how the "-profile"
can be used to prevent messing up the main profile.
You have to CD to the private Firefox home, so you
can run the second version of Firefox. Finding someone
who packages "Portable Firefox" versions, would
give you the materials needed to try this.

$ cd C:\mozilla-central
$ ./mach run
dist\bin\firefox.exe -no-remote -profile c:\mozilla-central\obj-x86_64-pc-mingw32\tmp\scratch_user

As for the performance issues, they're just as likely to be
OS related, as Firefox related (lots of Firefox memory garbage
collection, causing WinXP resources to become fragmented).
There's no guarantee that running Firefox version 1.0a
is going to make for "sooper-fast" browsing.

While I have plenty of "let's hack it..." ideas,
I don't really think *anything* is going to help. Trying
to wiggle out of the situation, just isn't going to happen.

If you use a really old version, which is light on resources,
you lose https support, modern SHA2 certificate support,
or whatever. Every plus has two minuses. Who wants a browser
that only opens 5% of sites ? I don't. This is why going
backwards on version, is a pipe dream.

*******

If you want an idea to experiment with, try this.
The "about:memory" panel has some memory cleanup
buttons you can press. Hold your mouse over the
"GC" and "CC" buttons. You can experiment with the
buttons, when your browser is "slow". [44KB image]

https://s18.postimg.org/ioqava849/ab...collection.gif

And if you think, for some reason that the problem is
disk speed, use an SSD. While it's hard to find good
IDE SSDs, there are still some for sale.

Paul
  #21  
Old December 4th 17, 10:12 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Andy[_17_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 594
Default Crashes with Firefox Quantum

On Sunday, December 3, 2017 at 6:01:20 PM UTC-6, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in
Co writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in Co
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message
, Andy
writes:
Is anyone else getting frequent crashes with Firefox Quantum ?

I didn't think Quantum (alias Firefox 57, I think) runs under XP; I
thought 52 was the last that would.

[LONG explanation - way over my head - snipped]
Bill's attempt to explain to me also read.

So, are you (Paul and Andy) saying "Quantum" - alias Firefox 57 or
beyond, I think - _will_ install on XP, but will then crash later?

I had assumed that the versions that aren't guaranteed to work on XP -
i. e. 53 on - wouldn't even install under it. Which was then what was
puzzling me about Andy asking the above question here in the XP 'group.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

A biochemist walks into a student bar and says to the barman: "I'd like a pint
of adenosine triphosphate, please." "Certainly," says the barman, "that'll be
ATP." (Quoted in) The Independent, 2013-7-13


I use Ubuntu, but was looking for some feedback.

I know there are far many more Windows users than Linux.

Wasn't aware that FF stopped being able to be installed on Win XP.

Andy
  #22  
Old December 4th 17, 10:24 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
No_Name
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 177
Default Crashes with Firefox Quantum

On Mon, 4 Dec 2017 04:21:05 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

Anyhow, I need to downgrade to some version of FF between 18 and 47. I'm
not sure what version is the best, which will eliminate the extreme
drain on resources, and still run most current websites. Any
suggestions?

Hmm. I run version 26; this still has difficulty with _some_ sites
(though that _could_ be some of the settings and add-ons I have). With
thirty-odd tabs open, I find it still does the slowdown (though I'd say
after rather more than two hours), but I find closing and reopening it
usually speeds it up again - I don't clear the cache (if I ever knew how
to, I've forgotten). If I think things are a bit slow, I have a look in
Task Manager and sort by memory usage - if Firefox is hogging a lot,
then it's time to restart it.

This could give you a mid-point in your researches. (26 or 27 is the
last before one of the major changes in user interface - Atlantis,
Australis, something like that.) I'd not run XP-with-Firefox with less
than 1.5G RAM these days.
--


Some sites are just plain lousy. I think some of the people who create
webpages have no clue what they are doing. When I go on sites that cause
problems, I usually just pass and move on to another site. There are
plenty sites, why fuss with bad ones...

I'll check on ver 26 or 27. That sounds like a compromise.

To clear the cache, on the older versions go to TOOLS, and there's a
button "Clear Recent History". On the newer versions (such as 47), go to
HISTORY and look for the same....
You can select if you want to clear the Cache, clear cookies, and a
bunch of other stuff. The "cache" is the main thing to clear. Not only
does it slow stuff down on FF, but it uses a lot of drive space. When I
only had a 40gb drive and was low on drive space, clearing the cache
gained me over 1gb.

If I recall, ver 18 still had the cache clearing in the TOOLS.


  #23  
Old December 4th 17, 10:39 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default Crashes with Firefox Quantum

In message , Andy
writes:
On Sunday, December 3, 2017 at 6:01:20 PM UTC-6, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in
Co writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in Co
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message
, Andy
writes:
Is anyone else getting frequent crashes with Firefox Quantum ?

[]
I use Ubuntu, but was looking for some feedback.

I know there are far many more Windows users than Linux.

Wasn't aware that FF stopped being able to be installed on Win XP.

Andy


Ah, that explains it (-:. Yes, 52 was the last version that supported
XP.

Are you _aware_ of the Mozilla newsgroups and server?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's
money."
  #24  
Old December 4th 17, 11:43 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Crashes with Firefox Quantum

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Andy
writes:


I use Ubuntu, but was looking for some feedback.

I know there are far many more Windows users than Linux.

Wasn't aware that FF stopped being able to be installed on Win XP.

Andy


Ah, that explains it (-:. Yes, 52 was the last version that supported XP.

Are you _aware_ of the Mozilla newsgroups and server?


The Google Groupers don't have a complete newsgroup
list to work with, and this causes problems.

That's why a guy comes to the WinXP group and asks
Win7 questions, because Win7 is actually missing from
the Google server. And similarly, while there are some
Linux groups on Google Groups, some important ones are
missing. And this causes questions to pop up in
unexpected places.

If we could only grab the Google person who runs that
server and shake them a few times... Oh, never mind.

Paul

  #25  
Old December 4th 17, 11:59 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Crashes with Firefox Quantum

wrote:
On Mon, 4 Dec 2017 04:21:05 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

Anyhow, I need to downgrade to some version of FF between 18 and 47. I'm
not sure what version is the best, which will eliminate the extreme
drain on resources, and still run most current websites. Any
suggestions?

Hmm. I run version 26; this still has difficulty with _some_ sites
(though that _could_ be some of the settings and add-ons I have). With
thirty-odd tabs open, I find it still does the slowdown (though I'd say
after rather more than two hours), but I find closing and reopening it
usually speeds it up again - I don't clear the cache (if I ever knew how
to, I've forgotten). If I think things are a bit slow, I have a look in
Task Manager and sort by memory usage - if Firefox is hogging a lot,
then it's time to restart it.
This could give you a mid-point in your researches. (26 or 27 is the
last before one of the major changes in user interface - Atlantis,
Australis, something like that.) I'd not run XP-with-Firefox with less
than 1.5G RAM these days.
--


Some sites are just plain lousy. I think some of the people who create
webpages have no clue what they are doing. When I go on sites that cause
problems, I usually just pass and move on to another site. There are
plenty sites, why fuss with bad ones...

I'll check on ver 26 or 27. That sounds like a compromise.

To clear the cache, on the older versions go to TOOLS, and there's a
button "Clear Recent History". On the newer versions (such as 47), go to
HISTORY and look for the same....
You can select if you want to clear the Cache, clear cookies, and a
bunch of other stuff. The "cache" is the main thing to clear. Not only
does it slow stuff down on FF, but it uses a lot of drive space. When I
only had a 40gb drive and was low on drive space, clearing the cache
gained me over 1gb.

If I recall, ver 18 still had the cache clearing in the TOOLS.


You can put the Firefox cache in RAM. You can put
the whole Firefox profile (cache and Bookmarks) in
a RAMDisk.

But I'm not convinced that's the root cause of the
Firefox slowdown.

At some point, I noticed a lot more "garbage collection"
activity in Firefox. It's probably around the time that
they started using the video card as a compositor. And I have
a suspicion that activity "clogs up" the memory allocation
on WinXP. So it's not necessarily using too much RAM,
but it's absolutely shredded the RAM structure into
little bits and pieces. And when grabbing RAM, the
little bits and pieces have to be gathered together
to make big enough pieces.

Someone here was complaining about the Yahoo News page.
I opened Task Manager, loaded the page, and it almost
looked like Firefox was "breathing". The RAM usage was
going up and down like a yoyo, about once a second.
That can't be good. In that particular case (which
wasn't reproducible a few days later), it meant that
the CPU was busy sloshing stuff around, for no purpose.

But I still don't think that's your problem. Your problem
probably doesn't show excess CPU usage in Task Manager,
but the browser becomes slow when it wants to
"chow down" on the RAM. And the delay filling RAM
is what you're seeing. If closing the browser fixes
it, it's a Firefox problem. If rebooting the computer
(eventually) fixes it, it's a WinXP problem.

And the newest browsers have sufficient telemetry
capabilities, the developers can "see" stuff like
this happening, from their desk. They have almost
as good a system now, as Microsoft, only without
the "evil" part :-) The Mozilla telemetry isn't
there to datamine you. It's to detect performance
problems.

I was reading a thread yesterday (Bugzilla), where
Mozilla had detected a problem with a Kaspersky
DLL. There was a nasty interaction, causing
Firefox to crash. And they had all sorts of statistics
as to how many customers had crashes because of it.
And when Kaspersky pushed out an AV program change
to the Kaspersky customers, the Mozilla staff could
watch the crash rate drop to zero. They can see
how much memory the browser uses, and also get
a report when it crashes (that part of it, has
been there for a long time, the crash logging).

Paul
  #26  
Old December 5th 17, 12:09 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default Crashes with Firefox Quantum

In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message ,
Andy writes:

[]
Are you _aware_ of the Mozilla newsgroups and server?


The Google Groupers don't have a complete newsgroup
list to work with, and this causes problems.

That's why a guy comes to the WinXP group and asks
Win7 questions, because Win7 is actually missing from

[]
If we could only grab the Google person who runs that
server and shake them a few times... Oh, never mind.

[]
(-:
Ah, that explains a lot. I hadn't realised Andy was a Google Grouper. At
least I think he realises how newsgroups work, unlike a lot of GGers we
get on a genealogy newsgroup I take!

Andy: would you consider using a different way of accessing newsgroups?
I'd recommend Thunderbird (free) as the software - not necessarily the
best, but good enough and I think having the widest support base - and
one of the free newsservers for most 'groups like this one (with of
course the Mozilla server for the ones including
mozilla.support.firefox, which is a support 'group for Firefox users
(not really run by Mozilla, though it is moderated).

Doing so would allow you access to 'groups you can't get via GG.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

If you carry on hating, you're the one who's damaged.
- Sir Harold Atcherley, sent to the Burma/Siam railway in April 1943
  #27  
Old December 5th 17, 12:22 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default Crashes with Firefox Quantum

In message , Paul
writes:
[]
You can put the Firefox cache in RAM. You can put
the whole Firefox profile (cache and Bookmarks) in
a RAMDisk.

But I'm not convinced that's the root cause of the
Firefox slowdown.

[]
No, otherwise closing then reopening Firefox (26) - _without_ clearing
the cache - wouldn't show a drop in Firefox usage. Let's see: F is using
405,836 K at the moment (relatively low). I've closed it. 401M; 350M;
gone. Now I'll start it again: 60M; 68M; 208M; 230M; 294M; 342M; 377M;
359M; 429 ... Hmm, seems to be "breathing" as you described. Ah, it
seems to have settled down at 373,6xx K. OK, so it's settled down at not
much less than it was. Normally, I don't shut it down and restart it
unless it's using 700M to 1.4G (and then only when it's causing total
RAM usage to get close to the 2G I have); at that point, it usually
_does_ drop several hundred M between shutdown and stable-after-restart.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

If you carry on hating, you're the one who's damaged.
- Sir Harold Atcherley, sent to the Burma/Siam railway in April 1943
  #28  
Old December 5th 17, 05:08 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Bill in Co
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,927
Default Crashes with Firefox Quantum

Paul wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in Co
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in
Co writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message ,
Andy writes:
Is anyone else getting frequent crashes with Firefox Quantum ?

I didn't think Quantum (alias Firefox 57, I think) runs under XP; I
thought 52 was the last that would.
Yup, it says FF 52 is the last version for Windows XP, so am I
missing something? :-) Speaking of which, the older versions
still work fine, at least over here. I'm hoping we don't get to a
point where that doesn't happen anymore, but I may be too
optimistic.
(I was really wondering why Andy was asking here - as have others.)
If you've got an old version that is working, it will continue to do
so; the only reason for that to appear not to be the case will be if
web page designers start to include features that only work with the
newer versions. So far, most companies that do this, I've found an
alternative, so all they've done is lose my custom; however, there
may come a time when all the alternatives are using the new
"feature" as well.
OR are just compiled with a newer compiler that uses some revised DLLs
that are not compatible with the Windows XP OS. IOW, it's not just
the added features of the browser, but the actual code still being
compatible with the
The actual code of what? If you mean the browser, then up to 52 it
_was_ compiled (so I understand; I'm still on 26) and runs under XP.
And will continue to do so, for ever. The only thing that will make
that appear not to work will be if web page creators use features not
supported in 52, rather than not supported in XP - i. e. it's the
version of browser that's the limiting factor, not XP. Of course, in
practice the effect is similar, unless those features _are_ supported
by some other browser that runs under XP.

Windows XP OS as I understand it. You can see that happening when you
try to install some other newer programs, and you get those cryptic
DLL error messages, and it won't install..

I don't _think_ web pages will call DLLs.
The problem is waaay before that. If you try to install some newer
programs (or newer versions of some older programs) on a Windows XP
system (I should have said System, as that also includes the older
Visual C stuff and whatnot on that older system), it will often fail in
one of three ways: 1) the installer refuses to install it, or 2) the
installer tries to install it and fails, and gives some cryptic DLL
error message about some missing DLL parameters (due to a newer version
DLL supporting them but not the older version), or 3) it can't find
some DLL file(s) on your system.


An addendum and a question for Paul (or someone else who might know):

What I don't understand is whether or not these DLL incompatibility
issues arise from the older Visual Basic or C libraries on a Windows XP
system, OR from some newer DLLs added by the newer program version
itself, OR from the (older) DLLs found on a Windows XP system, at large.
Or maybe I'm missing something here.


EXEs can have a DLL list. And DLLs can have a DLL list.
Once everything is loaded, every subroutine call has an address,
even if the address has to take into account ASLR. The loader
takes care of the details of linking things together. It
cannot link things together, that it cannot "see" and load.

I can upload Firefox 52 EXE and collect the Imports list.
And do the same for 57. The EXE file is a "thin" file that
doesn't do much. The "meat" is in XUL.dll. So if you don't
have a copy of DependencyWalker, you can use Virustotal
as a very crude analysis tool.

Firefox 52

https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/0e...7d41cb/details

Imports:

ADVAPI32.dll
KERNEL32.dll
MSVCP140.dll
VCRUNTIME140.dll
api-ms-win-crt-environment-l1-1-0.dll \
api-ms-win-crt-heap-l1-1-0.dll \
api-ms-win-crt-locale-l1-1-0.dll \
api-ms-win-crt-math-l1-1-0.dll \___ Microsoft also has
api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll / pushed these out hard,
api-ms-win-crt-stdio-l1-1-0.dll / via security updates,
api-ms-win-crt-string-l1-1-0.dll / in an effort to support
mozglue.dll some kinda newer stuff.

Firefox 57 (basically, the same, as the EXE "doesn't do anything")

Imports

ADVAPI32.dll
KERNEL32.dll
MSVCP140.dll
VCRUNTIME140.dll
api-ms-win-crt-environment-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-heap-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-locale-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-math-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-stdio-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-string-l1-1-0.dll
mozglue.dll

When I run the XUL.dll files (~50MB size), they
have a few different dependencies. The 57 one is
calling dwmapi.dll and I don't think the Display
Manager goes by that name on Windows XP. There are
some I don't recognize, and would have to start searching
some C: partitions, to find and get a name from them.


Firefox 52 XUL.dll Firefox 57 XUL.dll

Imports Imports

ADVAPI32.dll =
AVRT.dll
CRYPT32.dll =
GDI32.dll =
HID.DLL
IMM32.dll =
IPHLPAPI.DLL =
KERNEL32.dll =
MSIMG32.dll =
MSVCP140.dll =
OLEAUT32.dll =
RPCRT4.dll =
SETUPAPI.dll =
SHELL32.dll =
SHLWAPI.dll =
USER32.dll =
USP10.dll =
UxTheme.dll =
VCRUNTIME140.dll =
VERSION.dll =
WINMM.dll =
WINTRUST.dll =
WS2_32.dll =
WSOCK32.dll =
WTSAPI32.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-convert-l1-1-0.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-environment-l1-1-0.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-filesystem-l1-1-0.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-locale-l1-1-0.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-math-l1-1-0.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-stdio-l1-1-0.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-string-l1-1-0.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-time-l1-1-0.dll =
api-ms-win-crt-utility-l1-1-0.dll =
dwmapi.dll (W8/W10?)
lgpllibs.dll =
mozglue.dll =
nss3.dll =
ole32.dll =
pdh.dll --- not in 57 (windows
performance data
helper, no idea)
This is one of the reasons DependencyWalker output is so
complicated looking, because the imports of every DLL
in the "tree" shows up (recursive analysis). Including
bogus references to some sort of java DLL that hasn't
existed since WinXP SP1 (not available on SP1a, removed by
court decision in Sun vs Microsoft legal case over msjava).

Usually, an analysis without boring down too many
layers, can spot dependencies that an old
OS might not support. And if you hard-wire
something like this into your executable,
it helps work as a booby-trap (if I move my
Firefox 57 folder to my WinXP machine).

But kernel calls work just as well. Both the EXEs
and the DLLs above reference kernel32 and you could pick
a call that's only supported in Vista+ for example,
to prevent WinXP from loading completely.

And that doesn't even include the marking of executables
with some sort of "runs in particular OS version xxx", like
how Solitaire was marked. Microsoft tends to do that to
their own software products. I can't run VPC2007
on Windows 10, even though it would probably
execute given a chance.

Paul


Thanks for the detailed explanation. So if I've read this correctly Paul,
it looks like the incompatible DLL issues result from all 3 of the
categories I mentioned previously, but perhaps most of them are due to the
older version system DLL files found on a Windows XP system (many of the
ones in CAPS above, along with the api ones you've mentioned).


  #30  
Old December 12th 17, 08:30 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Andy[_17_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 594
Default Crashes with Firefox Quantum

On Monday, December 4, 2017 at 5:10:58 PM UTC-6, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message ,
Andy writes:

[]
Are you _aware_ of the Mozilla newsgroups and server?


The Google Groupers don't have a complete newsgroup
list to work with, and this causes problems.

That's why a guy comes to the WinXP group and asks
Win7 questions, because Win7 is actually missing from

[]
If we could only grab the Google person who runs that
server and shake them a few times... Oh, never mind.

[]
(-:
Ah, that explains a lot. I hadn't realised Andy was a Google Grouper. At
least I think he realises how newsgroups work, unlike a lot of GGers we
get on a genealogy newsgroup I take!

Andy: would you consider using a different way of accessing newsgroups?
I'd recommend Thunderbird (free) as the software - not necessarily the
best, but good enough and I think having the widest support base - and
one of the free newsservers for most 'groups like this one (with of
course the Mozilla server for the ones including
mozilla.support.firefox, which is a support 'group for Firefox users
(not really run by Mozilla, though it is moderated).


Setting up Thunderbird is a lot of work.

And require downloading all messages.

I don't use newsgroups that often.

Andy
 




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