I am using Firefox 4, Beta 6, but this happens with 3.x as well. I have even tried to use all memory cache and it seems to still happen. But FF constantly writes to my flash drive, even while typing. and freezes for brief seconds (1-2).
There is even a delay when simply clicking the menu bar (file, edit, view) or choosing settings under tools, options. when ever I touch anything in FF it reads/writes to the flash drive. As I am typing now, the flashdrive is R/W, and there are no other portable apps open.
Why does this happen? Google Chrome (Dev7) does not do this at all, so could it be something inherent in the FF architecture? I have tried the settings suggested already (e.g., disable system.store) and this helped but not enough.
thoughts?
Memory cache device
Number of entries: 237
Maximum storage size: 28672 KiB
Storage in use: 1934 KiB
Inactive storage: 1933 KiB
List Cache Entries
Offline cache device
Number of entries: 0
Maximum storage size: 512000 KiB
Storage in use: 0 KiB
Cache Directory: E:\PortableApps\FirefoxPortableTest\Data\profile\OfflineCache
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I noticed this long time ago, also on all versions of desktop FF including linux varieties.
Must be something mozilla has to take care of one day, but I experience it since ever I use FF. The version 2.x does it too, so does thunderbird often.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland
I had such a problem with plugins like flash/Foxit PDF when they were downloading some amount of data (especially Foxit).
With 3.6 or 3.7 (when they put plugins into a seperate process), this has become better though.
"Der Klügere gibt nach, deshalb regieren Dumme die Welt."
firefox wasn't designed for USB drives, so it acts like its on a harddrive. All you need is a little teakin'
https://portableapps.com/support/firefox_portable#performance
This was already done. it worked for awhile but now it seems like the setting have reverted.
Like, did you do everything on the list, or only a few of them?
here are my changes:
user_pref("browser.cache.disk.enable", false);
user_pref("browser.cache.memory.capacity", -1);
this keeps resetting to -1, no matter the size i put in.
user_pref("browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo", 1);
user_pref("browser.sessionstore.max_windows_undo", 1);
user_pref("browser.sessionstore.resume_session_once", true);
user_pref("disk.cache.memory.capacity", -1);
user_pref("network.cookie.prefsMigrated", true);
user_pref("network.dns.disableIPv6", true);
user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 18);
user_pref("network.http.pipelining", true);
user_pref("network.http.pipelining.maxrequests", 80);
user_pref("network.http.proxy.pipelining", true);
user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 1);
Your post looked interesting so I looked at about:config.
But now, I have one more question
When run from USB devices, it looks good to have :
But what how offline cache ?
Changing the memory.capacity form -1 to a fixed amount under 1GB seemed to do wonders.
user_pref("browser.cache.memory.capacity", 524288);
I also just made these changes and will see how they work
user_pref("content.interrupt.parsing", true);
user_pref("content.notify.ontimer", true);
user_pref("content.max.tokenizing.time", 2250000);
user_pref("content.notify.interval", 750000);
user_pref("content.switch.threshold", 250000);
(by the way, to add these tweaks quickly, copy any "user_pref" lines into your prefs.js file, located in your profile (for portable FF4 beta6, it's \ProtableApps\FirefoxPortableTest\Data\profile\prefs.js
Firefox 4, beta 6, has become unusable. Every time I simply click on anything in FF, the flash drive writes and reads and writes and reads, meanwhile FF locks up. From the time I did a ctrl-D to add a book mark to the time the dialog box popped up was 9 seconds.
I had to switch to chrome in order to get anything done
Do a full reset (wipe the whole directory and reinstall) and then only do the exact changes outlined in the performance section within the FF interface about:config. Do not do any additional changes. Do not open prefs.js directly. Do not import any old v3 bookmarks or extensions. Do not install any new extensions (especially no extensions that have anything at all to do with tabs).
You may also wish to re-examine your flash device. If it's a typical retail USB drive of 8GB or larger, it will probably be dog-slow on multiple small file USB writes (despite its wonderful speed rating which only apply to individual large files).
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!