I'm not sure if this is specific to me, but after I upgraded to Firefox Portable 1.5, I'm getting these small, half-second, delays when I type or use the mouse in Firefox. For example, if I manually type in a URL, when I first click my mouse in the address bar, there will be a small delay and then when I start typing there will be a small delay. Also, when I click to select a bookmark, there will be a delay. It happens sporadically, but enough to be really annoying. Has anyone else experienced this? I'm using Windows XP Home, with 1GB of RAM. I'm also using the Qute theme and I have the following extensions installed:
Flat Style 0.9.9.23
BugMeNot 0.9
IE Tab 1.0.6.4
ColorZilla 0.8.3.1
Adblock 0.5.2.039
Restart Firefox 0.3
LinkPreview 2.1
SessionSaver .2
LinkPreview and SessionSaver are the only two new extensions I installed since upgrading. Thanks for any help.
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It could be your settings (if you enabled history, etc) or it could be your drive. Speed of portable apps is *heavily* depended on the speed of the flash RAM within your portable device. The slowest ones take on the order of 50 times longer to write small files (most common with portable apps) than the fastest ones. See what I mean here:
http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2549&p=26
Try disabling cookies, that may gain you a bit. Or buy a better device.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I'm having a seemingly similar problem to the original poster. In my case, the pauses are 1-2 seconds long, and occur very frequent. It's making PFF rather difficult to use.
Interestingly, I don't recall this problem occuring until after the release of PFF1.5rc3.
As for my specs, I run a Corsair Voyageur 1GB, which is one of the speedier USB drives out there. My extensions are:
Sessionsaver
Forecastfox
Tab Mix Plus
Web Developer
IE Tab
I've tried disabling my extensions one at a time to see if it helps, but so far no luck.
My current solution is to copy PFF to the local hard drive and run it from there. But it would be preferable to not have to do that. (Or alternately, write myself a script that will copy only changed files.. yeah, that would be easy...)
I'll try a completely fresh install of PFF with no extensions other than what it comes with by default and see if that helps.
- me -
When it comes to writes, that Corsair actually is slower than you think:
http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2549&p=26
The small file save write performance numbers matter quite a bit with portable apps. This is something a lot of people don't realize or shop for when picking a drive, unfortunately.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
On one hand, I agree. On the other, I've been running various portable apps from this drive since the summer, and have only been having problems since the release of RC3.
Two things happened around that time; I began using sessionsaver again, and IE tab came into existence.
Interestingly, I'm running with both of them right now, and I have not yet had the slowdown problem. So I'm back to being at a loss.
Corrupt profile, maybe?
- me -
I'm beginning to suspect that sessionsaver is the culprit. It's the only extension we have in common, and I'm fairly sure that it does grab a copy of the active session quite frequently. I have not had the problem occur since loading this fresh extension-less copy.
To test my hypothesis, I shall load Sessionsaver on this copy. Shortly thereafter, my snootiness will be come to an end.
- me -
Basically, what is slowing you down is anything that writes to the drive. Sessionsaver is a possibility. As could be cookies being enabled (you can try disabling them).
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
You both have Session Saver and IE Tab. I think one of them has the problem.
---
Shaman
Well, I have neither of those extensions but I experience the same 1-2 second delay every single time I manage bookmarks. Moving, renaming, adding, deleting, etc. causes a 1-2 second delay. Everything else works fine, and I have 13 different extensions running.
Which extension are you running? Have you altered the standard toolbar layout, by any chance?
- me -
Unless you have a good drive. Bookmarks does a lot of writing. And flash ram is slow to write to. Unless you paid a premium for a good drive, it will just be slow.
This illustrates the differences between a "regular" drive with very poor write performance and a good one:
http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2549&p=26
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I do understand the difference. But again, I've only been experiencing this problem since RC3. Prior to that, FF has been running quite quickly off of my thumb drive. So I think it's probably not directly related to the media, at least in my case.
Also, I've tried running from a separate instance of the current version of Portable FF, and thus far it is working perfectly. I'm taking this quite slowly, and installing extensions one at a time with a day or two in between to see if the problem surfaces.
Due to a lack of patience, I'm not all that good at the methodical. But I'll do the best I can and report back on it.
- me -
PS. Since I'm doing a bit of complaining here (kinda) I should also get this off my chest. I do network tech support for residents at my school, and having access to a browser that requires no installation has saved me literally hours of troubleshooting. Best product ever!
Eliminate one at a time. It's nearly always the drive or an extension. If it's a slow drive, disabling cookies can help.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I actually tried that, and ended up removing every extension on the drive, excepting those that came pre-installed. It still had the problem. And yet a fresh PFF works just fine.
Maybe one (or more) of the extensions isn't being fully uninstalled?
- me -
Try building one from scratch. I've noticed a decent amount of cruft in 1.0 profiles upgraded to 1.5. I'm working on a how-to for creating a new one but preserving your stuff.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I thought I was the only one with this problem, but I guess not. I removed every extension and theme and I'm still getting the delays. Also PFF 1.0 ran fine on the same flash drive I'm using. I'll try disable cookies and building a new profile.
So far, rebuilding mine has worked fine. So at present, I'm guessing that the problem is a corrupt profile. At least until a better explanation comes my way.
- me -