Peculiar issues with Firefox 1.5

Hello, I have been using Firefox since ver. 1.0 and never really had any problems. When Firfox 1.5 final version came out I installed it. Before I installed it I did uninstall my previous ver. 1.07 and I did remove all folders belonging to 1.07 I did backup my bookmarks but nothing else. I would have cleaned the registry but at the time did not know how. Since then I have Registry First Aid. Now ver. 1.5 has some very peculiar actions. When I start it from the shortcut on the desktop or from the taskbar it does start but takes a very long time and when it does finially load it is a small window about 1 inch square up in the left hand top corner of my monitor. I press the restore button on the little window and it opens to the full screen. Another thing it does is, I will be reading a page and the page wil bounce up and down like you moved the mouse back and forth. It will do it on any page. Not any regular time just anytime. I have been reading this forum and it has happened here. The other thing is, it takes forever for it to load and as I said it loads the little window. One thing I tried is create a new profile, that seemed to help stop the loading of the little window. Now it does load as a full screen. I have XP Pro and I only have one extension IE View 1.2.7 and no themes I have always used Firefox as it came. As you see I am using Opera to write this. I want to uninstall 1.5 and all folders and clean the registry. I will install the previous version to use. Some of my family members have stopped using Firefox 1.5 for the reasons described. So I want to clean my computer. I always keep at least the last version I used but I cannot find it. Can you tell me where I can download ver 1.07. And do you have any advice how to clean out ver 1.5 My family members are using Netscape the new version and they do not see these issues. I told them it is really Firefox but they say it must be a different version because they do not get any jumping and long load times. Thanks for any help.

 

If you look at past e-mails, you can see there have been more than some reports of problems with FF1.5. I had, actually, uninstalled it because of other problems, and just put it back yesterday. My problems were minor, and, against all advice from some people I never removed the older version, so I don't have your problem. I installed FF1.5 in a different folder, and, I have separate profiles. If you have kept you old profile for 1.5, it may explain why you had problems. I am not certain, from what you said that you had removed the old profile, so I am guessing, but the small window problem has happened to others.
I don't see any reason for cleaning up the registry, if you keep everything separate, but who knows what's going on?
By the way, there is no reason to compare NS8.x with FF1.5, because they are not even remotely related, other than the Firefox name, and NS8 uses a firefox related to 1.0x.
The latest version of Firefox 1.0.x would have a Firefox Setup 1.0.7.exe installation file. If you can't find it try this link
But, beware, there may be something in the profile now created for 1.5 which is not compatible with 1.0.7.
Just a note: from what I heard 80-90% of the people who installed FF1.5 have not run into any problems, but 10-20% is an unusually large number, and there is no consistency on reports of what is a problem.

 

Dan55,

You can download Version 1.0.7 of Firefox here:
http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/1.0.7/win32/en-US/

You will need to read the Help file for your Registry First Aid application. I don't have it installed, and therefore can't really offer you any help. You might post on the Other Software Forum and someone using RFA will be able to answer your questions.

If you are reluctant to run the application, you can do a Registry "Find" for Firefox and do a cleanup that way. It won't be quite as thorough, but will clean up most Registry Keys:

Start | Run
Type: regedit
Once the Registry opens, then click on: Edit
In the Edit Menu select: Find
In the Find window, select ALL options
Type: Firefox in the blank field

After each entry is found, and deleted, press the F3 Key to continue the search for Firefox keys.

 

Westside and Ramona,

Thank you for the quick answers. I have ver 1.07 downloaded now (not installed yet). And I will try and use Registry First Aid conservativly. As I tried to say, sorry I did not make it clear. I did completely remove all profiles and everything I could find from ver 1.07 before I installed ver 1.5 the only thing I did not do was the registry. I will do it this time trying to get a clean install of ver 1.07 I did save my bookmarks.html and nothing else. Again thank you. I may try Regedit after I use Registry First Aid.

Dan

 

Dan,

Next time I would suggest backing up your entire Firefox Profiles folder. You need to do that anyway on a routine basis. See this page:

Preventive Browser Maintenance.

 

Hi Ramona,

Thank you for the advice. I do follow your suggestions for cleaning up those files and folders. I have been doing that for a long time. I just nerver backed up my profile other than the bookmarks. But I will start doing that now. Just a note, I have another computer for my granddchildren and ver 1.5 works perfect. We do not see any of these issues on that one. I also have Netscape that the older kids are using set to only use Firefox. I followed the directions in the Silly Dog forum to set it. All my grandd kids come here to use our computers. We have cable and we have 2 so they don't have to wait for their turn so long. As soon as I get ver 1.07 back in they and we will be using it as our default browser on this computer. Thank you so much for your reply and advice.

Dan

 

Ramona

I haven't thanked you lately for all your help. You make this forum a real pleasure to come to for answers. Your posts are very readable and easy to follow and understand. Thank you all your help over the years.

And to think, after all these years, I have no idea how many programs or profiles you have installed.

Happy New Year

 

Bill,
Happy New Year to you too Well, I am not Ramona, but I can tell you that at one time or other, if not now, she must have had several programs installed, and run with as many profiles as necessary to avoid problems.
You can tell by my signature, although it is not up to date. How many profiles do I have? As many as I need, although I can't use more than one at a time.
I by-pass the Profile manager at startup of each program , so there should be no interference.
I had uninstalled FF1.5, but reinstalled it, just to confirm some of my concerns. It is fascinating to watch its memory usage. I don't have any Tabs, only two extentions, and I visited only one other website, which was closed when I got into this one. I started with 44MB, and it is up to 52MB. It is fascinating to watch, if nothing else. But, it is nice to be able to close it, and then open FF1.0.7, loaded with tabs and extentions, and finding it running with less juice.
Added later: I was going to say that FF1.5 is not giving me anymore the server timeout problems. I take it back. When I click to get back into the newsgroup, after posting, it timed out. reload did the job, as usual. Since I have never seen this, I must try to do the same thing, at the same time with another browser. I am listening to music and doing a virus scan, and FF1.5 may not handle this abuse.
I will post again if the problem surfaces with other browsers.

 

Just curious if anyone is running a current nightly for Firefox?
Does memory usage continue to be high?

 

Dan, and Bill,

Thank YOU, for the feedback! When I get a response like the two of yours, it makes all my efforts worthwhile!

 

I just downloaded the zip file of FF1.6a1. About two weeks ago, I started cutting down the number of browsers, to see if my few problems with FF1.5 would go away. They did not, and, in the process, I also removed NS8.0.4, which was, probably the worst at nearly 80 MB memory usage.
I did also find out that the more extentions and tabs the worst was the memory usage. This was not much help with FF1.5, which, I have since reinstalled. No tabs, and only two extentions, and it was still running at nearly 60 MB.
Right now, I have eight extentions, and six tabs in FF1.6a1, and, it runs at 44.7 MB. I will reduce the number of tabs, as well as extentions, and see what happens, but whatever it is, it is not like FF1.5. This is really neat. I click on an icon, and I get a print of the User Agent!
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20051229 Firefox/1.6a1 - Build ID: 2005122905.
rv:1.9a1 is the same used in Seamonkey1.5a1.
There is something in rv.1.8 which causes high memory usage. I saw this in Donzilla0.9, and Seamonkey1.0b.
This is quite preliminary, but it suggests that a fix to FF1.5.
Of course, there are people who don't think that 75-80MB memory usage is unreasonable, and have reported over 125MB. Most of the time, it may be true for most people with modern computers, but not always.
I will keep looking at FF1.6x, and report anything funny.
I did check. Now four tabs and 5 extentions, and 34MB memory usage. Not bad.
It is just a nightly, but it locked up twice, showing duplicate of the task.

 

Thank you very much Westside ... their is light at the end of the tunnel.
I can appreciate Firefox's dilemma. Continually adding more base features .. Tabs, RSS feeds/live bookmarks, small KB auto-updates including channel control to name a few, all come with a price tag ... memory bloat. And to open up and "design in" an integrated avenue for 3rd party applications (extensions) requires the patience of a saint. For myself, Mozilla Org, and open source software will always have my support and appreciation.

 

Dennis,
I reduced the tabs to four, annd the extentions to two. I went from 35MB to 43, visiting only two websites. Is there a leak? May be.