I used a previous version of FF on my Kingston 1GB Elite and it was fast; you could barely tell you were running off USB flash. It got noticeably slower so I decided to rebuild my Kingston. I started from scratch using 1.5.0.6 and it is slow. I noticed that the cache was set ot 50 MB so I set that to 0 to minimize writes; I thought that John had set the default to 0 on previous builds. I also turned off auto updates. Start up time is also a minute or more. It used to start up in a few seconds before.
The only extensions are DOM, Google Toolbar and Scrapbook.
Saving a bookmark takes minutes! Sometimes FF becomes "not responding" but will eventually come back.
I get similar behavior with Thunderbird. Dragging an email to a folder takes 15+ seconds. Again in the past you could not tell it was running from a USB flash drive.
The Kingston Elite is a fast drive and the reason I bought it. Could something have changed on the drive itself?
Does anybody have any ideas what the problem is?
I appreciate your help.
Visit the Community page
Join our forums
Subscribe to our email newsletter
Subscribe with RSS
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on LinkedIn
Follow us on Twitter
Follow us on Mastodon
Follow us on BlueSky
The cache is always set to 0 by way of user_pref("browser.cache.disk.capacity", 0);
within prefs.js. However, if you enabled it in your profile, that setting would remain even as you upgrade.
Since both apps are now slow, the culprit is most likely your drive. Backup all your stuff to your PC and then format it. Then try a base install of Firefox Portable. If it's still slow, your drive could be going. It wouldn't hurt to check your PC for viruses and spyware, too.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
John,
I did a clean install of FF (reformatted the USB drive) and noticed in the options that the cache was set to 50MB. I was surprised that it was set.
Yup I agree that it is most likely the drive. It's only a few months old as well! That's what I just did. Reformatted and a base install. I did not copy anything from the previous backup except the bookmarks.
I will try again. Good idea to check for spyware. I have CA eTrust running at work which thankfully stopped deleting the launchers.
Any suggestions how to return the drive to Kingston and claim a new one under warranty?
How long in your experience does the drive last if one is using it on a daily basis. Maybe time to get a portable HD drive?
Thanks again.
Any chance you're using an INI or custom directories? This will prevent the standard default profile from being copied in correctlty. You should keep everything standard for the first run and it should copy the base profile from FirefoxPortable\App\DefaultData\profile to FirefoxPortable\Data\profile. I just checked a default install and it is indeed set to 0. So something is up with your copy otherwise.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Yes I am using the following directory structure.
-\
Ugg the previous post was truncated!
Yes I am using custom directories.
-\
gg the previous post was truncated!
Yes I am using custom directories.
-\
gg the previous post was truncated!
Yes I am using custom directories.
gg the previous post was truncated!
Yes I am using custom directories. I am using the 5th (last) structure in your readme. The post truncates when I paste the structure into the message.
[cut]
John are you saying that I should download the .exe, install on the desktop, copy the FirefoxPortable folder to the top level of the USB drive, run FF, quit FF and then copy the folders into the directory structure above? Or could I just manually copy the default profile to the correct folder?
As a test I did a fresh install with the FFP folder at the top level of the USB drive. This ran nice and fast.
Why am I getting the terribly slow behavior from my other install?
I hope that this discussion will also help others understand directory/install issues better.
Thanks for your help John.
It isn't the slash... it's the less than sign... it's interpreted as HTML and cut off by Drupal. you need to escape it using an ampersand and then lt colon.
As for custom, for a new install, run it at least once in the DEFAULT layout WITHOUT an INI file to generate the default profile. Then you may customize it as desired. Without doing that, you can a standard FF profile with history, form saving, cache, etc enabled... all of which will slow things down.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
It's:
It isn't the slash... it's the less than sign... it's interpreted as HTML and cut off by Drupal. you need to escape it using an ampersand and then lt semi-colon.
not
It isn't the slash... it's the less than sign... it's interpreted as HTML and cut off by Drupal. you need to escape it using an ampersand and then lt colon.
Copy this:
<
----
R McCue
PortaBlog Home and My Website
And before anyone complains about the grammar, I'm so jetlagged that my
hands aren't even in the same time zone...
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."