Lately, when I start using Firefox after being idle for a while, it locks up when I click on my first link. I get the hourglass, lasts almost a minute. Then everything works fine again. If I stop Avast’s On-Access Protection, the problem is fixed. Obviously, I hate to do that, hoping there might be other solutions…
Don’t stop all on-access protection, pause or terminate the web shield and see if that resolves the problem.
If it does there is something else going on in your system as the web shield shouldn’t work in this erratic way, it would either work all of the time or none of the time. As you say ‘lately’ so it must have worked fine previously ?
When this hourglass is there it usually indicates program loading, etc. have you updated firefox or add any new extensions recently (since you noticed this issue) ?
What Operating System are you using ? is it up to date ?
What is your firewall ?
What other security based software do you have that might have an impact, e.g. anti-spyware, SpySweeper, Spyware Doctor, PrevX, WinPatrol, ProcessGuard, etc. ?
How do you connect to the internet (dial-up/broadband) and does your ISP insist you use a proxy to connect to the internet ?
Thanks David. No new extensions. OS is WinXP Home, all patches up to date. Firewall is free version (7) of Zone Alarm. The only other security software is WinPatrol. Connect to net by cable modem, no proxy.
Can you post a list of your extensions?
Mr Tech Local Install could give you a list of them.
Is the problem only a delay or you can’t connect/browse after Firefox loads?
It’s just a delay, but a pretty long one each time. Stoping the Web Shield doesn’t help, but stopping the Standard Shield seems to fix the problem.
Extensions: Adblock, Roboform, CustomizeGoogle, BugMeNot, FirefoxShowcase, Flashblock, IEView, LinkVisitor, MenuEditor, ResizeableTextArea, Sage. Disabled MouseZoom and NoSquint.
Incidentally, another problem I’m having with Firefox lately is a delay in appearance of typed text onscreen or in response to things like right or left arrow movement.
Stopping the Standard Shield isn’t wise (a delay is preferable to a lack of protection) and would indicate that it is scanning something, is the avast icon rotating at this time ?
Or enable Show detailed info on performed action in standard shield to see what it is scanning.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v325/for-dwr/ShowDetailedAction.jpg
It might be worth reinstalling firefox to see if that improves the situation and then over a period of time add your favourite (security) extensions to see if there is one that may be the problem.
Besides David’s suggestion, you could test setting the Standard Shield sensitivity to Normal level and not High to see if it helps.
Do you have other browsers to test the same behaviors? IE? Opera?
I enabled Show Detailed Info on the standard shield. Mostly the popups go by too fast to fee what it’s scanning, but Firefox’s sessionstore files seem to be what’s hanging the program. I’ve reinstalled FF, no change in behavior. IE doesn’t appear to exhibit this behavior.
Is there some way to save the scanned file list so I can look at it before it disappears?
I recall someone else with this session store issue as it is loading all the session information and files, they are going to be scanned by the standard shield before they are opened.
What is the sensitivity of the standard shield, Normal is the default ?
Give us a few examples of the session store files and location and perhaps we can exclude them ?
The standard shield sensitivity is normal. The sessionstore files are consecutively numbered: sessionstore-1.js, sessionstore-2.js, etc. I just deleted over 4,000 of them. I also excluded the entire Firefox profile folder from Avast’s scanning, we’ll see if that helps…
Which is the path of this files? If I have session store I want to delete them too. Thanks.
Don’t exclude the whole profile folder that is too big a target and could leave you vulnerable, \sessionstore-*.js this will only exclude sessionstore files and the * wildcard will take care of the sequential numbering.
Since you have allowed the sessionstore to grow to such a large number, do you really need it to get that large, by reducing the number of days (or other delimiter) worth of session information to store you may not experience any delay without having to exclude the files.
David, do you know the path here?
I don’t know his exact path which is why I indicated the but for most people the firefox profile is where these sessionstore files would be kept. Since opus872 has already deleted lots of these sessionstore file they would know the location they are stored.
However this is a likely location, somewhere in the default user profile:
C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xj8ov5fx.default
I have no sessions stored in this path of my computer… ???
The sessionstore files appear to be created all the time by Firefox 2.
If you Firefox session terminates abnormally you are asked (by default) if you want to resume the previous session or start a new one. The sessionstore file is used ot resume the session.
For most users the sessionstore file is deleted when Firefox terminates normally. However the file is retained if the user selects the startup option:
“Show me my windows and tabs from last time”
where most of us probably have “Show my home page”.
It would seem that some error condition in Firefox or perhaps some override of the config settings in Firefox is causing this buildup of excess sessionstore files. A couple of previous avast poster seemed to experience this problem too.
Hi alanrf,
Go to view - toolbars - Customize … click and restore default set/
That could do the trick. Or use the Febe extension to restore all your various settings.
polonus
That’s where it should be, if you’re using FF 2 and sessionstore is enabled.
Yep, seems to be a bug in FF2. Same applies to multiple bookmark and cookie files.
I need glasses ;D
Although they’re only 12 files and not 4000